Open water dive PADI in Bangkok HELP!!!

[lord khram]

PADI will act upon PADI members that "bend" the rules but can only do so if they receive a formal complaint. Gross violations of standards may result in being expelled from PADI.

That's anything but my experience.
I had problems once obtaining a certification. Upon visiting the shop concerned (who used freelance instructors), I was told nothing to do with us, it's the instructors responsibility, we paid him the money.
I asked to speak to him only to be told he doesnt work here any more.
There followed considerable communication with PADI, resulting in nothing, my last correspondence was not even replied to.
I eventually recieved my certification by paying the fee again at another shop, and PADI gladly accepted that of course.
Which brings us back to the old cliche - Pay Another Dollar In!!

 

[Ex-Aquanaut]

Originally posted by Lord Kram
Need I say any more?

I really wish you wouldn't!

I beleive if you do a little searching right here on SB you'll find a thread about a course director who was expelled by PADI. And that organization sure seems to kill a lot of trees printing pages and pages of lists of people and dive shops kicked out.

 

[Bowmouth]

That's anything but my experience.
I had problems once obtaining a certification. Upon visiting the shop concerned (who used freelance instructors), I was told nothing to do with us, it's the instructors responsibility, we paid him the money.
I asked to speak to him only to be told he doesnt work here any more.
There followed considerable communication with PADI, resulting in nothing, my last correspondence was not even replied to.
I eventually recieved my certification by paying the fee again at another shop, and PADI gladly accepted that of course.
Which brings us back to the old cliche - Pay Another Dollar In!!

Your experience sounds more like a "bad shop attitude" than "bad PADI attitude" to me.
The shop you did your course with should have kept your student record file with all the relevant certification details on it. If a student does not receive his/her C-card after completing a course all he/she has to do is to contact the shop (email is fine) and ask for the relevant info (certification date, certifying Instructors name and PADI # and course specifics). If you do your course with a proper DC they will enter all those details in your logbook too. If you then provide PADI with those details they will (most of the time) swiftly re-issue a new C-card for you.

To me it sounds like the shop you did your course with did NOT send in a PIC to PADI. The PIC is basically the payment to PADI with your contact details and signature on it as well (and a picture) for issuing your C-card and is in general included in all the course prices by most DC's. DC's are mostly taking care of sending out the PICS after completion of the dive-course.
Without the PIC being send to PADI a C-card will not be issued. PADI is a business and they would like to have a piece of the pie too!!

 

[lord khram]

Your experience sounds more like a "bad shop attitude" than "bad PADI attitude" to me.

Yes this worked exactly as you said Bowmouth, and I agree a very bad shop attitude, incidentally it is no longer in existence. (I shall not mention the location but it begins with P). LOL
But as this shop/instructor are representing the PADI organisation I just thought they may have taken a little more interest in the problem I had. I know it was a relatively small ammount of money but the end result was that I had to pay this money twice, agreed PADI are a business and are there to make a proffit, but surely even they can not consider that to be fair treatment of one of their customers.
Mine is not the only instance such as this that I am aware of.
In my mind ultimately it was the shops responsibility to entirely fulfill this obligation regardless of who they had employed or paid to do the course. It was the shop I paid. But ultimately PADI did absolutely nothing to help, even when their standards had quite clearly been broken.

I have copied the following from one of your earlier posts.

PADI will act upon PADI members that "bend" the rules but can only do so if they receive a formal complaint. Gross violations of standards may result in being expelled from PADI.

 

[Bowmouth]

In my mind ultimately it was the shops responsibility to entirely fulfill this obligation regardless of who they had employed or paid to do the course. It was the shop I paid. But ultimately PADI did absolutely nothing to help, even when their standards had quite clearly been broken.

It probably will be impossible to find out what exactly happened with your student record files since the DC doesn't exist anymore. Do you (still) have your certifying instructor name and number somewhere in your dive log?
The DC's store-name and number would also be helpful in obtaining some more information from PADI about what happened from their point of view. And of-course any old mailings between yourself, PADI and the DC regarding this matter.

Hmmm, the place you took the course starts with a P....
Was it in Phitsanulok? Or maybe Patthalung? Pathum Thani or Pattani????

 

[lord khram]

The shop still had all the records at the time but simply refused to obtain my certification as they said this portion of the course fee had already been given to the instructor to send in to PADI.
They told me I must contact him myself as he no longer worked there, and refused to give me his contact details.
I did in fact recieve my cert card in the end when another shop in p****** obtained the records and sent it into padi on my behalf once I had paid them the fee again, cant remember but I think it was about 1100bt.
Just seemed highly irregular at the time and even more so when PADI took no interest at all.

I will give you a clue - The location was a large tourist resort in Chonburi province!

 

[orangiraffe]

If they are giving a PADI cert then it would be against standards. Standard say that there can be a maximum of 3 training dives in any one day. Hence it takes two days to do the required open water dives to stay within standards. It would not seem reasonable that you could then squeeze the other confined water dives plus academics into the balance of the second day.

John

oh well...it was a 4 day course.
on day one; half a day of academics. video 1-3
on day two; pool for skills and equipment familiarisation + half a day of academics. video 4 and 5
on day 3; dives 1 and 2 + EXAM
on day 4; dives 3 and 4.

Well all 4 Open Water dives are done over 2 days? What are you talking about? I did not complete my OW in 2 days! Hmm...

 

[orangiraffe]

EVERYBODY! Sunshine Divers do their OW courses in 4 DAYS! not 2!!!

 

[Quero]

orangiraffe--the members got off on a tangent.

This happened in the natural flow of discussion. The fact that you did not receive a manual led to a consensus that this is a violation of agency standards, and further, speculation that it may not be an isolated incident.

From that grew a related discussion of other sorts of potential standards violations, such as skipping certain required parts of the course in order to shorten it.

Amidst the debate about course length (and between the lines) is speculation about whether it is ethical (given the nature of the sport) to complete the course in two days, even if it is possible to do so according to a strict interpretation of the standards, and if so, under what conditions (e-learning was mentioned, for example).

We know your course took four-ish days (you said the first day was just half a day). But the failure of the school to make sure you have your own personal copy of the manual (which is required by standards, regardless of how much the book weighs) naturally leads those of us who adhere to standards to wonder what other standards violations schools engage in to cheapen their courses, in both the literal and figurative senses.

 

[lord khram]

leads those of us who adhere to standards to wonder what other standards violations schools engage in to cheapen their courses, in both the literal and figurative senses

And unfortunately an element 'cheapen' their courses in every way possible except the final cost to the customer.