sounds like a discover nitrox class.
I just found this thread and that was what I was thinking from about the 5th or the post on.
Tikal, please read this carefully.
It looks like you did not take the nitrox course. You may think you did, but you have never mentioned doing the important parts of the course once. You have instead mentioned things that were not part of the course. I am absolutely certain from what you have written that you did not take the real course.
PADI cannot give you a certification for a course you did not take.
As a part of the instruction you received for your OW course, your instructor is allowed to have you use nitrox, in which case he must give you the kind of brief introduction you describe. That sounds like what happened. Such an introduction will not get you certified.
One of the following may have happened:
- It is possible you misunderstood what was happening. Maybe they told you that they were just giving you an introduction to nitrox and you misunderstood and thought you were getting the full certification course.
- They may have lied to you and told you that they were giving you a certification course. I don't know why they would do that--it is of no benefit to them at all to do this. If you really do have a temporary card, though, then it looks like they lied.
If they did lie to you, you can gain some satisfaction by telling PADI that this is what you think happened. PADI will investigate, and if they believe it is true, they will punish the instructors who lied. This will do you no good, though. You will still not be certified because you did not take the course. You will probably not even hear the results of the investigation. I once turned in a PADI instructor many years ago, before I was an instructor myself. They thanked me and said they would look into it. Because it was an internal investigation, I was not notified of the results, but I found out later that they did take action against the instructor.
If they did not lie to you and it was a misunderstanding, then there is nothing anyone can do. You should take the course and get a real certification card.