Lost Card - Unknown Agency

[live2ski]

My wife lost her Dive Card and we need to get it replaced. The problem is... We can't remember what organization she is certified through. She went through the course back in the late 80's and the dive shop she went through is no longer there. So basically, we know she is certified but we can't remember with who, where she took the class, the exact year she was certified, her name and address she used when she got certified. What can we do to find her in the system to replace her card?


Thanks,
live2ski

 

[ScubaSteve]

I, for one, would start sending emails to the big agencies of that day (or whomever the are represented by today: PADI, NAUI, YMCA etc...). Give them the situation and they should be able to tell you how, within their own bureaucracy, to find out if it was them.

I would, at the same time, post a thread in your regional forum here on SB asking for anybody that certified with Shop X around year Y to identify who they were certified by. There is likely to be somebody with an idea. Central United States

Just a couple of suggestions. Good luck

 

[redacted]

How many names has your wife had? You may have to try all of them. But that may raise suspicions.

 

[socaljohn]

If you don't know what here name was I cannot imagine you will find it. I know you probably already thought of this but does your LDS have her info on file??? or any other dive shop you have used? Good Luck!

 

[Hawkwood]

If you do follow ScubaSteve's suggestion, make sure you provide every possible combination of names to look for, including shortened forms, middle names, initials. Also include the birthdate.

For example, "Suzanne Anita Smith" could have been certified as:

Suzanne Anita Smith
Suzanne Smith
Suzanne A. Smith
Sue Anita Smith
Sue Smith
Sue A. Smith
etc.

With PADI, the search will only look for the specific name.

When we look up PADI certifications, we use name and birthdate, that's it. The difficulty is that the search is very specific to the name used.

As an aside, when was the last time she used it (i.e. went diving)?

Bill

 

[ScubaSteve]

How many names has your wife had? You may have to try all of them. But that may raise suspicions.

Or depending on what he future diving holds, she may just need the latest/highest card replaced.

---------- Post added August 29th, 2013 at 12:20 PM ----------

If you do follow ScubaSteve's suggestion, make sure you provide every possible combination of names to look for, including middle names and initials. Also include the birthdate.

When we look up PADI certifications, we use name and birthdate, that's it. The difficulty is that the search is very specific to the name used.

This is true. I fumbled many times trying to find my wife's records in PADI to get her lost card replaced.

 

[Lead_carrier]

Sounds like she hasn't used the card in a number of years. Not to be too much of a smart alec, but if she hasn't used the card enough to remember what agency she certified with, do you believe she'll remember any of what she was taught. Personally, I'd suggest a complete new course for her. Does she have any type of logbook or anything?

 

[live2ski]

Thanks, I've started sending emails but haven't gotten any responses yet. I'll start checking the Regional forum and see what I can find. We are headed to Jamaica in Oct. and would like to do some diving, so I'm scrambling to get everything we need in time.

 

[boulderjohn]

I agree with Lead-carrier. She will benefit from starting over. It has been a quarter century since she was certified. If she has not done a lot of diving since then, there is much she will have forgotten. Moreover, there have a surprising amount of changes since then.For example, I recently had a student in a refresher course who learned in the same era, and she had no idea what an alternative air source was.

 

[live2ski]

Thanks to all of you. Wow! I am surprised at the number of responses I got so quickly.
No we haven't dived much and I always rented the equipment with my card. I've tried using her maiden and her married names but haven't tried the middle. I was thinking that when we go on our trip we'll try to sit in on their resort course for a refresher.

Has anyone heard anything about https://copper.he.net/~bwana/orderrepcard.htm it looks like they can track down any agency, but not sure about giving out my credit card info.

Thanks again,