Why a New Card...Again?

[bfw]

This really seems like another way to just get money from people. My government issued driver's license only cost me like $10-15 dollars, and I don't need a new one if I take a defensive driving course. I don't need a new military ID card every time I complete a specialty course in some area.

1. The BMV and DoD aren't out to make a profit.

2. They get to fleece you every April 15. Dive agencies only get to do that to their members.

 

[bfw]

You have been told lies. An instructor must pay a fee to certify a diver. After the class is complete, he is not required to certify you.

Yes and no. For certain courses, PADI absolutely requires the paperwork to be sent in, whether the student wants it done or not. Discover SCUBA is one such course - conducting it without sending in the student's registration is cause for quality assurance action. Why? Because that gets the student on their sucker list to bombard him with marketing material.

 

[bfw]

We don't Pete. You are the only person I know who teaches at cost. I always tried to make a profit from teaching. Profits are good, they enable one to continue to teach.

Most of the instructors I know make no money at it - they have day jobs, and teach out of a love of diving.

Much is made of professionalism in dive instruction, but remember, your wife or girlfriend is an amateur; Eliot Spitzer's little 'friend' at the Mayflower hotel is a professional.