Difficulties getting C-Cards

[caydiver]

I still think that if the instructor worked for Aggressor they should have the student records. Instructors travel all the time. They don’t carry boxes of folders with them. Any responsible op keeps them. We have boxes since before our time cluttering up my house, but I wouldn’t get rid of them until the 7 years were up. If it was just a random instructor not affiliated with an op you may be stuck. The agencies are not going to sign off unless they the required proof that all the skills were properly demonstrated. Same as DMV. They are not going to give a drivers license because someone without the required documentation says its just missing. Did your kids get the temp cards with the Instructor number when they did the final paperwork. I know PADI gives the little blue one.

 

[boulderjohn]

I know PADI gives the little blue one.

Yes, a temp card should have been issued, but it has not been blue for many years.

Something is not right here, and the fault might lie with both the instructor and the Aggressor. If it is simply a matter of finding the instructor to straighten out the paperwork, that should be doable. We recently had a similar thread in which it appeared as if the instructor assigned to the task by the dive operation was not actually currently certified to instruct.

 

[Superlyte27]

Where is the OP located?

 

[divezonescuba]

Nowadays, in most places, when the instructor finishes, they process the certification electronically and the student gets a temporary card via email. PADI would not necessarily know that there were irregularities as the individual training record at the ow level is not normally forwarded to them.

It is quite possible that the instructor, if he really was an instructor in teaching status, was put in a hard place, knew there was a training certification issue, and so decided not to process the certifications. Instead, he threw the documents at PADI to let them decide what to do instead.

However, he still should have not have done the training under those circumstances and violated standards as a result. He just didn’t want to go in deeper by actually processing the certs himself.

 

[banthony]

Nowadays, in most places, when the instructor finishes, they process the certification electronically and the student gets a temporary card via email. PADI would not necessarily know that there were irregularities as the individual training record at the ow level is not normally forwarded to them.

It is quite possible that the instructor, if he really was an instructor in teaching status, was put in a hard place, knew there was a training certification issue, and so decided not to process the certifications. Instead, he threw the documents at PADI to let them decide what to do instead.

However, he still should have not have done the training under those circumstances and violated standards as a result. He just didn’t want to go in deeper by actually processing the certs himself.

Thanks for that information. How can I get my children their c-cards? I'm pretty sure we are not the first person with this difficulty.

 

[divezonescuba]

I don’t think that you will be able to get you certification cards from PADI.

In the case that I mentioned earlier, PADI actually invalidated a number of people’s open water cards who had not completed the open water dives and replaced their cards with scuba divers cards. I was somewhat surprised at that as the students hadn’t even completed the dive 2 skills on dive 2 due to problems that had occurred on that dive with some of the divers running out of gas. Perhaps that did not come out in the investigation. So essentially the students were first given open water certs, then scuba diver certs after doing only one and a half discover scuba dives.

My impression was that the instructor was falsifying the dives and processing the certs because he would not get paid by the shop unless he actually certified the divers. If they did not complete the course, he still wanted to get paid.

That shop also had kiosk salesmen pretending to be PADI instructors. The resort threw out the dive firm when they found out that they had been issuing fraudulent certs for who knows how long. I guess they did not want the liability.

In your case, the firm and instructor took your money to receive training that they should not have been given nor were qualified to receive and gave you something worthless in return.

I think your best course of action is to discuss the situation with the company and try to get your money back from them based on the information above. You could also attempt to reverse the charges on your credit card on the same basis if they do not cooperate.

Use the money to start the certification process over from the beginning. There are a lot of decent shops that will certify your children for $300 a piece particularly since they are not likely to have difficulties.

 

[runsongas]

Oh, wait...from what I recall from my last Aggressor trip (April 2018), Aggressor is an SSI establishment. The plot thickens.

Maybe it’s boat specific...

aggressor is ssi affiliated, but the individual franchisee boats do have instructors affiliated that can offer padi courses

 

[banthony]

Oh, wait...from what I recall from my last Aggressor trip (April 2018), Aggressor is an SSI establishment. The plot thickens.

Maybe it’s boat specific...

I have a teleconference with Aggressor on Monday to discuss the problem. If this is a bad/non-certify instructor on their part, I think they need to fix the problem. He definitely had a c-card from PADI and it looked identical to my DM card just with Open Water Instructor instead of DM.

How would a customer know if this happening? What confirmation should we get besides confirming he had a instructor c-card? Does the customer need to get a confirmation letter from PADI about every instructor? I dove with the Aggressor fleet numerous times in 30 years. However, I've have not done many certification classes in the last 5 years.

 

[Blueringocto_73]

I've been running on my temp card for a few weeks. It gets my tanks filled and thats fine for now. Looking forward to the shiny one though.

Yes, a temp card should have been issued, but it has not been blue for many years.

Something is not right here, and the fault might lie with both the instructor and the Aggressor. If it is simply a matter of finding the instructor to straighten out the paperwork, that should be doable. We recently had a similar thread in which it appeared as if the instructor assigned to the task by the dive operation was not actually currently certified to instruct.

 

[divezonescuba]

Just because the instructor has a PADI instructor card does not mean that the instructor can actually certify students. They do not reissue instructor certification cards on a yearly basis. To certify, the instructor has to be current in his membership and has to be in teaching status with insurance (in some countries) and with no serious quality management claims. Each quarter PADI identifies instructors who have been inappropriately representing themselves as instructors in a publication called the undersea journal. There are many, many instructors like this over the years who have been identified thru this means.

There is a webpage called procheck on the Padi website that can verify that an instructor can certify. However, I don’t know if an individual can access it their own directly. If you pm me his 6 digit instructor number, I can check it for you.

Only if an instructor is current and in teaching status can they electronically process a certification. If they are not, the system will not allow them to process anything. Unfortunately, that does not stop a person from issuing one of the older temporary blue cards on the spot and then never actually submitting the certification for processing, because they can’t. We have seen that happen a few times.

Always insist on an immediate electronic certification before you leave a destination. Those are pretty impossible to fake and you know you are already in the main database.