PADI PICs

[geoffdobson49]

Athough I have been teaching for PADI/SSI for a number of years, my relationship with PADI has not always been as good as it should be. The main reason is the change of philosophy some years ago when the organisation told instructors they had to sell course manuals to each student in order to obtain qualifying PICs for them. This approach caused my dive centre to move most of my business to SSI and my instructors to undertake a crossover to them. Around ten percent of my customers continue to prefer PADI because of the brand name and were prepared for the extra cost of doing so. The PADI position moderated somewhat and they now offer the opportunity of purchasing PICs with materials/manuals or PICS without materials/manuals (33% more expensive). I operate a dive centre in Turkey and in the last two days tried to buy ten more PICs online, the order was accepted and processed only to be cancelled hours later. Imwas told to buy the PICs from the local representative in country. My order to him was refused because I didn't order manuals/materials, has anyone else had a similar problem?

 

[Oldbear]

e are locate in the Marshall Islands an have not had any issues purchasing PICs. But then we are exclusively PADIand work loosely with our local representative. Have you spoken to your local rep yet?

 

[oly5050user]

Could be that the reason you cannot get pic from your local office is that they see too many certifications and not enough crewpacks sold. This is what was seen in parts of the Caribbean as in Honduras and I understand that a hologram is now required from that area for pic to be processed. Student is to own their own materials, not borrow or get from library. It is a standards violation if they do not have proper materials and complete knowledge reviews. Solution to this may be to have students sign up for elearning and you fill out pic online. Still need to sell them log book and RDP or eRDPml if you are not teaching computer version.

 

[RJP]

Solution to this may be to have students sign up for elearning and you fill out pic online. Still need to sell them log book and RDP or eRDPml if you are not teaching computer version.

Open Water eLearning doesn't appear to be available in Turkish. (English, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Italian and Dutch.) Thoughh perhaps available through PADI EMEA regional office?

 

[RadioActivPenguin]

Fwiw... I've not taught for about 3 years, but it used to be that the hologram requirement was just for DM and higher (to prove that someone who got a "Pro" level cert had all the the manuals). I bought 10 e-pic's a few years ago directly from PADI US and they didn't care about crew packs...but this was all before e-learning and digital manuals were common place....

 

[oly5050user]

Fwiw... I've not taught for about 3 years, but it used to be that the hologram requirement was just for DM and higher (to prove that someone who got a "Pro" level cert had all the the manuals). I bought 10 e-pic's a few years ago directly from PADI US and they didn't care about crew packs...but this was all before e-learning and digital manuals were common place....

True , hologram for pro level. Certain areas of the world have a reputation of " loaning" learning materials and PADI caught on to them as crewpack
purchases did not match the amount of pic's used, not even close. So my understanding was that to process a pic from those areas a hologram was required. Do not know if this is still the case.
With elearning and online pic processing becoming more popular do not be surprised if eventually, and very soon, some type of access code being included with every learning material package ( traditional crewpacks and elearning ) to gain ability to process any type of certification card via PADI. This way PADI can be assured that every student owns required learning materials that is in their standards.
It's already in place with PADI REACTIVATE ! There is a code the student gets to redeem a certification card, and it's included in the price of the REACTIVATE product.
It can be a big pain explaining to a family that is taking a course together why they cannot share as they are all in the same household, but doing it this way I can see that it covers liability with following the standard for everyone involved
Oh, and PADI will see a higher income from it. All because of a few high volume operators ( located in places like Central America and Asia) abusing the system by loaning materials out instead of doing the right thing.