Padi Fees

[IBjones]

Sorry you are so upset with PADI, apparently about a lot of things. Maybe you should just cut up your card and get some other kind of certification.

Even if he cuts his card up as you advise...<drum roll> HE'S STILL PADI CERTIFIED! </drum roll>

This question came up when some of the MARSOC guys at Camp LeJune needed a C-card with no photo on it. The answer from PADI was, "Your instructor will send all the paperwork in with no photo when you successfully complete the course, and you'll be PADI certified, but we will not issue a C-card without a photo. You will be certified but the dive shop/charter will have to look you up on the PADI PRO site to verify you are certified."

So carrying around a C-Card isn't certification. Certification, according to PADI, is when you successfully complete the course and your instructor sends in your paperwork.

 

[IBjones]

So I guess now servers, server admins, programers, email servers are all free. Just because something ins't physical, doesn't mean it doesn't cost money to produce.

Did PADI go buy a new server because I requested an e-card? Did they hire a new admin because I requested an e-card? Or hire a new programmer because I requested an e-card? Did Pay Another Dollar In not have an email server until I requested and e-card so they had to run out an buy one because I requested an e-card? I suggest to you that they already had some servers and some admins and some programmers and a mail server before I made my request.

You comment is kind like some people who think they are gonna inconvenience a big corporation by going and hiring a lawyer over some bogus dispute. The big corporation already has a lawyer that they are paying a salary. They pay him the same whether he's sitting on his ass in his office playing mine sweeper or whether he's in court defending your bogus lawsuit.

I've been a computer programmer in C+ and Visual Basic since 1999. It cost me the same amount of time and labor to write ONE program and sell it as it does for me to write ONE program and sell 10,000 copies.

PADI already has the script to query their database and insert my cert info into their "e-card" and email it to me. It requires no more than a minute of "labor" by their minumum wage secretary to type my name into the textbox and click "OK". You act like PADI has to write some computer code every time someone requests an e-card.

I wouldn't be obtuse to paying 3 or 4 bucks for minimum wage secretary to type my name into her textbox and click "OK". But I damned sure won't pay her $2,220 dollars per hour to do it.

 

[tursiops]

Even if he cuts his card up as you advise...<drum roll> HE'S STILL PADI CERTIFIED! </drum roll>

This question came up when some of the MARSOC guys at Camp LeJune needed a C-card with no photo on it. The answer from PADI was, "Your instructor will send all the paperwork in with no photo when you successfully complete the course, and you'll be PADI certified, but we will not issue a C-card without a photo. You will be certified but the dive shop/charter will have to look you up on the PADI PRO site to verify you are certified."

So carrying around a C-Card isn't certification. Certification, according to PADI, is when you successfully complete the course and your instructor sends in your paperwork.

Since you seem to want to split hairs...... The C-card shows you are certified. Not having the C-card only means you do not have a C-card, it doesn't mean you are not certified. And, as you pointed out in an earlier post, you can fraudulently make your own C-card, but the fake card only proves the person carrying it is a fake.

 

[IBjones]

Since you seem to want to split hairs...... The C-card shows you are certified. Not having the C-card only means you do not have a C-card, it doesn't mean you are not certified. And, as you pointed out in an earlier post, you can fraudulently make your own C-card, but the fake card only proves the person carrying it is a fake.

The information I put on the card was true and valid. If I had claimed to be a MSD but was only a AOW then I might see your point. For the fraud claim to be valid, something has to be misrepresented. Nothing is misrepresented on my e-card. The dive shop monkey can log onto PADI Pro and verify it is all true. I didn't use PADI's background image on my e-card. I used a public domain image of water and a shark. So there was no copyright infringement.

But thanks for your concern.

 

[IBjones]

but the fake card only proves the person carrying it is a fake.

ummmm.....Not if they hold the same cert from the same agency you do. Now if a non-certified person photoshopped an e-card then you'd be right.

 

[RandomGuy1]

Did PADI go buy a new server because I requested an e-card? Did they hire a new admin because I requested an e-card? Or hire a new programmer because I requested an e-card? Did PADI not have an email server until I requested and e-card so they had to run out an buy one because I requested an e-card? I suggest to you that they already had some servers and some admins and some programmers and a mail server before I made my request.

You comment is kind like some people who think they are gonna inconvenience a big corporation by going and hiring a lawyer over some bogus dispute. The big corporation already has a lawyer that they are paying a salary. They pay him the same whether he's sitting on his ass in his office playing mine sweeper or whether he's in court defending your bogus lawsuit.

I've been a computer programmer in C+ and Visual Basic since 1999. It cost me the same amount of time and labor to write ONE program and sell it as it does for me to write ONE program and sell 10,000 copies.

PADI already has the script to query their database and insert my cert info into their "e-card" and email it to me. It requires no more than a minute of "labor" by their minumum wage secretary to type my name into the textbox and click "OK". You act like PADI has to write some computer code every time someone requests an e-card.

I wouldn't be obtuse to paying 3 or 4 bucks for minimum wage secretary to type my name into her textbox and click "OK". But I damned sure won't pay her $2,220 dollars per hour to do it.

I'm not saying that padi doesn't charge too much for the cards, but you said it should be free. There are cost associated with providing the service. Why should padi not be able to re-coup that cost? Your argument sounds like those people who think music should be free because they "aren't really stealing anything" it is just a bunch of 0's and 1's.

 

[TMHeimer]

In replying to this thread of 3-4 months ago, I would say some of the new posts revolve around just how much money DOES it take to make a new plastic card or generate an e - one? Anyone know?
I all too well know about those "stealing" music. Illegal (and to a big point legal) downloading of music since the late '90s has pretty much depleted the Music Performance Trust Fund (which since maybe the 1950s has resulted from live purchases of records, then tapes, then discs). That's why there are so fewer free summer "concerts in the parks" nowadays. It was Trust money that paid us union members.

 

[Landau]

I used to be n a business that sold membership software along with cards printers and supplies A color card like my PADI certs printed 1 side will cost $1 to $4 to produce depending on volume.

This includes the card blank, printer, printer ribbon, printer cleaning kits etc. The printers are really finicky and prone to ruin ribbons. This is across the 5 different brands we worked with. I'm sure PADI is smart enough to get the backsides pre-printed as this works out to be much cheaper. Printing both sides with your own printer nearly doubles the cost.

 

[TMHeimer]

Thanks. Interesting---that's about what my uneducated guess was! So it may be a profit of about $40 for PADI? I'm not saying that's wrong--you can charge whatever you think folks will pay. Just ask our great Canadian satellite provider......

 

[tridacna]

Profit of $40? Do you really think that the only cost is the plastic card?