PADI members expelled

[Mustard Dave]

There was a case in the UK recently involving an outfit called Subaquaholics A bloke died a d it came out in the wash that he had a medical condition that made diving very dangerous. The instructor failed to make him complete the medical questionnaire. PADI threw him out the day he entered a guilty plea.

It is an interesting one to Google - it really shows what can happen if your paperwork is not in order.

 

[Diver0001]

So exactly how do PADI members get expelled?

You can have your DM or instructor qualification stripped by PADI but you'd have to do something incredibly unethical first.

An example of something incredibly unethical would be something like issuing AOW certifications to divers without the student actually following the course. If you think it doesn't happen then think again. A colleague of mine got his AOW in the Canary Islands in just this way. He went on a boat dive with a certain shop there and at the end of the day the instructor sold him the AOW certification for a steep discount without doing any of the required work or making any of the required dives.

I've also heard of people getting their OW certification (all theory, pool work and check out dives) in one day. In this case the instructor was doing 1 pool dive and one OW dive. Things like this will get you expelled.

You can also get expelled for committing crimes. Sexually assaulting or physically assaulting a student, for example, or by stealing from or defrauding a student.... that kind of thing.

In terms of numbers, the number of instructors who get expelled are very small in comparison to the number of total instructors. Think in terms of about 1 per month. One of the reasons PADI changed the standards this year to make it mandatory for the student to provide an email address is that PADI want's to poll more students than they've been able to in the past and fish out more of these gross standards violations.

R..

 

[Mustard Dave]

An example of something incredibly unethical would be something like issuing AOW certifications to divers without the student actually following the course. If you think it doesn't happen think again.
R..

i know a whole bunch of divers that got AOW without getting in the water. They were all BSAC Advanced Divers and were going to part of the world where BSAC wasn't well known. The dive school who had trained them years earlier (and where their club was based) signed them off for just the certification fee. They were all we above AOW standard but I imagine PADI would take a dim view.

 

[Diver0001]

PADI has cross-over agreements with some other agencies, including CMAS. If this happened when BSAC was still a part of CMAS then it would have been allowed. I don't think PADI has a cross-over agreement with BSAC, however, so if it happened after the falling-out then it would strike me as odd.

R..

 

[Mustard Dave]

PADI has cross-over agreements with some other agencies, including CMAS. If this happened when BSAC was still a part of CMAS then it would have been allowed. I don't think PADI has a cross-over agreement with BSAC, however, so if it happened after the falling-out then it would strike me as odd.

R..

i may be wrong but my understanding is PADI acknowledge BSAC (and other agency) certs as entry requirements, for example a BSAC Sports Diver would be able to do PADI Rescue, skipping OW and AOW.

A BSAC club will let you dive with PADI qualifications but can do crossovers for equivalent diver grades.

 

[Diver0001]

Yeah I'd have to look it up to be sure. If a two-star diver is equivalent to a AOW diver in terms of prerequisites for con-ed then it would seem very odd if they were required to actually take the course in order to be certified for AOW.

I've never had to process anyone who wanted to cross-over to the same grade though so I'd really need to look it up to be sure.

R..

 

[Doc]

Wasn't there a thread a while back where a PADI instructor got reprimanded for gross standards violations and PADI demanded the student return his c-card because he wasn't taught to standard?

That was third+ party hearsay and never was substantiated.

I can't recall seeing an issue of the Undersea Journal where at least one member was not expelled. Nine members were expelled in the last quarter of 2012 and an equal amount suspended.

There is the one who keep getting posted there over and over. Kind of like driving by one of those old radioactive mining towns out west, ringed in chain link fence. He is an oft discussed festering sore in the SCUBA world and because of the naivete and desire for bargains- still manages to hoodwink students into thinking his classroom portion will be accepted by "everybody".

When you read those, yes- you have to wonder- what did that schmuck do?

A different story that I can relate, it was Y2K or so....

I sat for two hours (my choice) one morning in a pleasant shack of a dive shop waiting for our dive to depart. The shop was one of many concentrated in a short, dead-end road that meandered out of the main town. I observed the owner and holder of Instructor certifications from 5 of the big-time real-deal worldwide certification agencies (he had the big signs) that are out there. He was smoking marijuana with three guest divers and a few of his staff. I had seen worse, but I kept watching. These were apparently not old friends- just new arrivals.

One turns out to be a 16 year old boy in from Europe (his folks were at a hotel). He had what we might know as a Discover Scuba card- he's gotten it elsewhere, it was more than expired.

Two others were already (still) enjoying the local brew, a "Caribe" (for the well traveled here, I'm giving location hints as I go).

We go off on our 10:00 boat trip leaving them behind for their 10:30 departure.

When we returned, they were not far behind.

They were quite pleased with the fact that the two beer drinkers managed to bag a lot of fish.
They were all quite happy that the boss was taking video (for a fee) and photos.
The kid was especially happy that he got to go to 140'.

It must have seemed productive, and what the hell, it was lunch time already so lets get some beer in us before the afternoon dive. Now, all 4 were drinking.

The mind reels.

At home, I called friends in various agencies and I asked them if this Swedish guy really was an instructor in each of the agencies he had signs for. CMAS had no record of him or his shop. That was a real big sign he had.

My friend at SSI said that he had lost his accred some time ago. They appreciated the heads-up, and they were in a position to send "Moose and Knuckles" over from a shop on the sister island for a midnight visit with a crowbar and a letter from the agency.

The three other agencies? One hadn't heard of their boy having any previous difficulties, but wanted the story. Two had some previous reportage and were very interested. I never heard back and may have missed a few of those "back page" notations as to who lost their agency status. It was also 12+ years ago.

That would be a simple way to lose your card, but again- the easiest is to quit paying annual fees.

 

[billt4sf]

Very clearly stated, Quero!

 

[boulderjohn]

That would be a simple way to lose your card, but again- the easiest is to quit paying annual fees.

You are not expelled for failure to pay annual fees or renew your liability insurance. You are simply no longer current and are not allowed to certify students. They used to have an annual sticker you would affix to your card to show you are a current member, but they now have a permanent statement telling how to check to see if the member is current. A member who is not current can be reinstated following a standard process.

Anyone who is identified as having been expelled has lost membership permanently for reasons related to conduct, usually conduct related to the instructional process.

 

[Wookie]

About 15 years ago I signed off a Royal Navy diver for his advanced. I chose advanced because the requirements are looser than the requirements for OW. He had his logbooks with him, showing over 10,000 logged dives and about 22,000 hours in the water. He swam like a fish, had perfect control, and quite frankly, was a far better diver than I ever was or would be. He filled out the paperwork properly.

I never felt bad about not selling him an "Adventures in Diving" book.

I haven't been expelled, yet. Maybe my times is coming.