PADI C Cards

[boulderjohn]

No they weren't AWARE cards. Just the standard cards that you were sent to you in the mail. And the actual material the cards were made of were higher quality and more durable. The cards I just received are flimsy and comparable to a grocery store shopper's card- just very cheap. Quite surprising that the card is of such quality for $45. Oh well...

The price of the card does not reflect the price of the plastic. It is a combination of the effort of looking up the details, confirming the certifications, mailing the new cards, and making a bit of profit. The price of the plastic is inconsequential.

In your case, the issue was probably pretty easy for them, but that is often not the case for a lost card. Two friends of mine had not been diving for 40 years, and they lost their cards during those years. PADI could not find any records of their certification. They ended up sending in copies of their logbooks and having long conversations with PADI recalling where they were certified, etc. They eventually got the cards. In their case, the price of the replacement card was really quite reasonable considering the amount of effort it took. In your case, not so much. (BTW, they decided they needed to recertify after all that anyway, and I did that for them for free.)

 

[boulderjohn]

A few years ago someone who used to work for Tylenol revealed that when you buy a bottle of Tylenol, the biggest physical cost to Tylenol is the plastic bottle, which costs them more than all the pills inside it.

I was at a Burger King restaurant in a college town while they were running a free French Fry promotion. It was late at night, and besides us, the only customers were college students--as was the manager on duty. They asked him how Burger King could afford to give out free French Fries. He went into a back room and came back with a huge bag of frozen fries. He explained that Burger King could afford a free fry promotion because that bag cost 9 cents.

When you get a C-card, Tylenol, French Fries, or anything like that at all, your money is not paying for the cost of the card. It is paying for the buildings and the salaries of all the people who maintain the organization which got it for you.

 

[Adam Grose]

This should server as a reminder to everyone to take pictures of your cards and make a photocopy backup.

I scanned mine and stored the images in several different places (including on my cell phone).

Adam

 

[Lorenzoid]

The cards I just received are flimsy and comparable to a grocery store shopper's card- just very cheap. Quite surprising that the card is of such quality for $45. Oh well...

The grocery store shopper cards I have in my wallet are slightly thinner than credit cards, but they seem to be durable--I have had some of them in my wallet for something like 10 years. The slightly thinner cards take up less space. So long as they're durable, I don't care how thin they are. I should be so lucky as to get to dive as often as I go to the grocery store.

 

[Hoag]

The grocery store shopper cards I have in my wallet are slightly thinner than credit cards, but they seem to be durable--I have had some of them in my wallet for something like 10 years. The slightly thinner cards take up less space. So long as they're durable, I don't care how thin they are. I should be so lucky as to get to dive as often as I go to the grocery store.

I had to replace a misplaced C Card a few years ago (I found the "lost" card less than an hour after I ordered the new one). The replacement card was in fact rather flimsy, and it has become apparent that the printing is not on the card itself, but on a plastic film that is then stuck to the card. Over the last couple years, the film has started to come off of the replacement card. (The film looks almost like 2inch wide clear packing tape.) Ironically, I will probably use some packing tape to stick the film back on to the card.

These replacement cards are unfortunately certainly not what I would call "durable".

 

[northernone]

I can somewhat appreciate your frustration paying a fairly large amounts of money for two pieces of plastic and discovering they aren't as thick as you would hope.

The only practical use I've had for one of my recent plastic c-card so far was to open a locked door slipping it in the jam. Happy to say the plastic is a fairly good quality one, less prone to crack or deform compared to many other cards I've used over the years.

Now regarding their representative nature, a symbol of the training you've completed, perhaps the value is also not there for you? I tend to think of them as paper money, thin, cheaply made and flimsy but representing GOLD (depending on your country, we have plastic money now and I'm not sure if it's gold backed even.) the same with a c-card.

Cameron

 

[scubadada]

Don't misplace your C card, duh.

 

[Hoag]

Don't misplace your C card, duh.

I always put all my C Cards in the same spot when I get home from a trip (my reg bag) and they weren't there. Ultimately, I found them in my mesh boat bag.

 

[northernone]

I had to replace a misplaced C Card a few years ago (I found the "lost" card less than an hour after I ordered the new one). The replacement card was in fact rather flimsy, and it has become apparent that the printing is not on the card itself, but on a plastic film that is then stuck to the card. Over the last couple years, the film has started to come off of the replacement card. (The film looks almost like 2inch wide clear packing tape.) Ironically, I will probably use some packing tape to stick the film back on to the card.

These replacement cards are unfortunately certainly not what I would call "durable".

Thanks for the heads up regarding the laminated printing film, I'll baby them better with that in mind. My driver's license is somewhat like that and it's had a hard life.

 

[TMHeimer]

This should server as a reminder to everyone to take pictures of your cards and make a photocopy backup.

Yeah, I did that with all my cards (and each log book page). I always have to tell this story---In 2007 I did 5 specialties and got MDS down in Florida. Received the MSD card here in N.S. but not the 5 specialties ones. I told PADI they must've gotten lost by one of the two countrys' post offices or at Customs (they were sent from RSM in CA). So PADI sent me the 5 again (no charge of course). Then the original ones came--the (old?) kind with solid plastic. Anyone need any cards?