Most disturbing phone call I've gotten in a long time

[DevonDiver]

Flots sounds like a champion of apathy. Just walk on by fella...nothing to see here....why should I get involved...

[B Lo]

I've got to disagree with part of what you've written. E-learning is not the terrible menace it is made out to be. Aside from the stated benefits (e.g., doing the class on your own time, etc.), E-learning ensures that nothing is left out of the curriculum that needs to be in there. My open water class was worthless and I do not recall the instructor having mentioned the term “safety stop” even once. Neither does another individual who took the class with me. We certainly didn’t do any safety stops during the OW checkout dives. That was my experience with the traditional, non E-learning, way.

When I did my AOW, I did a portion of it with PADI’s E-learning and had no problems whatsoever. While it may, from time to time, dumb things down, there’s nothing that was left out that is mandatory for non E-learning students. Moreover, there is no assurance that the base minimum skills would be taught by an instructor in a classroom setting. My E-learning section included everything that must be there and there was zero chance of it being skipped since it is not dependent upon what might turn out to be a worthless or forgetful instructor. My open water instructor was absolutely worthless. My AOW, Nitrox, and Rescue instructors, on the other hand, were all worthwhile individuals and I learned much more from them – even when the classes were E-learning based.

Jim:

Thank you for your usual open and honest posts. The current practices you describe are not just in Western PA. We are seeing more and more such incidents almost everywhere. E-learning, and one day classes, dumbing down of instruction, all this has been producing more and more divers who are unsafe, insecure on their own, and will drop out sooner rather than later.

I hope these poorly trained divers will drop out before they harm themselves or others.

On this board we are fortunate to have a number of ethical and competent instructors: Yourself, NWGD, Trace, Walter, NetDoc, and others.

I do hope this distributing trend is reaching an end point.

[laguna230diver]

Nobody here has a problem with e-learning to my knowledge. What we don't want is anything that gets in the way of the mentoring relationship between a student and an actual instructor in person. E-learning has its place for conceptual ideas and calculations... except for the fact that most students need a nudge when introduced to cards. A professional ,charismatic, and entertaining role model will always encourage you to learn properly. All the agencies do have basic a curriculum for instructors to cover in the class room section.

[terrylowe]

Our local schools do not allow outside use of any of the school sports facilities due to legal concerns. Can't have anyone getting hurt on school property, especially for a non-school sponsored activity.

[toddthecat]

The problem lies in the fact there is no governing body over scuba diving. Anyone with some gear can advertise "classes" and "teach" scuba diving. It's still a free country everyone. If a person has the desire to receive "training" from an unverified source which may or may not be legitimate, that's their choice. Sure, someone could be hurt or killed in the end. Darwin had a nice theory about that kinda thing...

[k ellis]

it sounds like it would be very hard to take them down since it dosent seem like they are doing anything illegal. If they aren't directly taking money for training people would it count as fraud apart from in the obvious ethical way?

It would not count as fraud since there is no actual gain in return for the service. It would be a civil matter if someone was to become injured as a result of being lied to. In the unlikely event that a person was to pass away as a result of this supposed training then it could easily then become a negigent homicide as the outcome would not have happend if they had not performed the service.

As far as the way the law would look at it criminal wise would be simply the same thing as you ask your neighbor to borrow his mower you would borrow it in the belief that your neighbor maintains the mower to a safe standard. any incident that happens as a result of the mower breaking down would come back on the neighbor who owns the mower. The same expectation would result from this alleged operation.

The law would view it as someone sees you as a diver and expects you to know everything about diving. By not informing the diver hopeful that you can not perfrom those duties you therefore assume all liability of any actions that result either on that date or any date after that date. I.E. 10 years down the road it can still come back to bite you.

And it doesnt end with just false training either. You can take someone diving with you and tell them they are on their own so to speak once they get there. In the event they become injured or killed and it can be proven you were aware they were not diver certified and you chose to do nothing and allow it to happen then it can easily come back to bite you with the fact that you knew what was about to happen and chose to do nothing. If you told the diver not to do the actions and he chose to disreguard and it was not your equipment or had no other ties to you then you would be on the free so long as you did everything in your power besides restrict his right to make a bad choice then youd be covered.

As far as PADI and any other dive operation they may be able to pull certifications of the dive master/instructors if they were active and even bar any attempt to reactivate in the future. If they are using PADIs name or any other Dive ops name then they would have copyright violations/infringements. Other then that its not illegal to show someone how to dive as its not government mandated. This eliminates any potential criminal suit with exception to negligent homicide should it apply. this in itself would only complicate any attempt to shut down this operation. Even if you get the school to bar them from the pool (Which definately should be done) They will simply look for another pool to reopen their dive program.

The only real way to stop this operation is through public awareness of faulty programs and demonstrations. As we all already know unless you live right on ocean front property diving is something most non divers never even think about so its very easy to steer a Diver hopeful off course with faulty information. I personaly would like to see more commercials reaching out to the public and more divers actively attempting to get people into a bonified dive operation and learn more about our awesome sport and eliminate the grey area of people being left open to scams and false pretenses of training operations!

[soltari675]

The fact is that up until now someone has been doing them. Why they stopped I don't know. Maybe they moved or got caught but it did not stop the DM's from doing what they are doing. PADI has no idea if the instructor issuing the card is actually training the person. It is my problem in that he came to me to issue a cert and I am now personally aware of the situation. Up until this point I had heard rumors I could not personally verify. That is no longer the case. I may not have a legal obligation to do anything but I do have a very strong moral and ethical obligation to do whatever I can to stop this and protect those who may be hurt (including the agency and school) by the actions of these people. I will be contacting PADI on Monday as well as the school district. The industry is doing enough to shoot itself in the foot without help from those who for all intents and purposes are outside of it. For me that is enough for me to take action. My conscience is my guide. As it should be every professionals. Every one knows I am no fan of some of PADI's actions but I am not going to see them hurt over something they had no idea of until the lawsuit hits.

I have to say those of us who do get certified the right way, no matter the agency, appreciate divers like you who look out for things like this. What they were doing is dangerous. Perhaps there is a way to start a campaign of some sort? Instructors only certify someone that has had ALL of their training done at their shop. And spreading the news around so new divers know that if they want certified, they need to make sure they are with a certified instructor and that they will receive all training and card there. I know when I decided to learn, I knew nothing of how it was done or what was involved. But I wanted to learn to dive as a lifetime hobby. So I did a lot of research. Some people just want to learn for that new vacation trip coming up. So they may not ask as many questions. They may not understand what the problem is until it is too late.

[Jim Ernst]

Thank you Jim, For not only posting this situation, But even more so for doing something about it!!

I applaud you!!

[halemanō]

After that call I spoke to another instructor who has a shop doing one day courses and sending the students with a referral to him for checkouts. Right after that I spoke with another owner who informed me a shop north of here is giving away classes. But they are selling a $250 gift card they can use towards the purchase of overpriced gear. But these free classes do not include a certification or checkout dives. They need to buy a $75 PADI manual, given a quick classroom session and a couple pool sessions. They are then told they need to go to another shop to get a card and do a "couple" checkout dives. WTF is going on and why?

It is nationwide and it has become worse as the economy has gone south and some agencies and some of their instructors are looking for revenue without regard to minimum standards to insure a newly certified diver can actually dive.

Do you think you could even begin to fly a plane solo with a one day course?

Diving is not flying, I know; But it is not something, IMO, that can be learned in a very short course taught in a very short time.

Well Jim, here is how I hear this part of your story;

e-learning or manual/dvd makes a little difference; just confirming knowledge reviews, quizzes and test completed and passed vs sitting with the student(s) to go over KR's, take quizzes and test.

The pool and academics are done in one day, possibly near 10 hours depending on student to instructor ratio and/or non e-learners in the class. The instructor sends the students off with the referral paperwork and after two days of OW checkouts with another instructor you have a 3-day referral cert. Your version is a "couple" check out dives; 3rd or 4th person spreading this rumor? Perhaps it's really a "couple" check out days, or a "couple" check out trips, or a "few" check out dives?

There are other ways to do a 3-day course. You could of course do the same schedule with the same instructor &/or same location. You could start with an Intro Dive, then decide to get certified. Next "training" day would be academics 1-3, pool 2&3 and OW dive 2. 3rd day finish academics, finish pool and OW dive 3&4. Or do all the pool on day 2.

Just because some call it a 3-day course, I think the manual/dvd homework is ~8 hours, so I call it an ~25 hour course; ~17 instructional hours and ~8 hours self study.

Every dive operation and instructor I have know of in the Florida Keys and Hawaii is familiar with this, and most do it as their main way of doing it (well maybe only 16 instructional).

The new student pack with student folder, manual, DVD, training log book and whatever NDL version (wheel, tables, eRDP,?) sounds fair at $75. e-learning is $120; you still need RDP / log book and the referral price is usually the same, e-learn or not. Most instructors paid $55 just for the old manual, log book, tables and folder. Not sure of current price list. If you buy $300 dollars of gear that is really only worth $225 then the referral cost you $75 - total w/student pack $150. Price difference minimal.

As far as the "club" training goes, your story has so far not mentioned the supposed duration or content of the "club" training and also so far has not mentioned any bad divers. It is either implied that the divers are bad, or perhaps the divers are something between bad and possibly better than the typical OW trained divers. The only real problem so far "verified" seems to be that the school would be up the creek if someone had an accident in the pool.

I did not see any details about what really went on with the "old" club divers when they went to the certifying instructor. What I hear is that this current "student" needs an instructor to certify him. Does he even know what exactly happened with the "old" instructor?

If a student came to me and had really been pre-trained by a decent DM that had DM'd a few years of training with a decent Instructor, I could easily see 2-day certs; 1st day verify KR's 1-3 / quiz 1-3 / CW 1-3 / OW 1&2, 2nd day verify KR's 4&5, quiz 4 / exam / pool 4&5 / OW 3&4. As long as they pass the required elements of the course that is not against standards and depending on the pre-training the new divers could be better than average.

[laguna230diver]

but thats highlighting one fact. These divers are only as good as their certifying instructor (not dm's) make them. The scenario sounds like the dive shop is in some way supporting or validating the DM's to teach. As a DM student right now, here's what irritates me about this. As a DM these guys probobaly have and can demonstrate high quality skills, and can convey the basics to a student diver. By doing it like these guys are doing though shows that they are bigheaded and already thinking that they are hot sh... well you know

Instructing is not rocket science, but between that and dvemastering there is a divide, and Im willing to recognize that