I know they are investigating her but that's about all I know. I do know that once the investigation is complete PADI will let me know but they won't tell me what actions were taken, if any.
There's a glaring inconsistency here....
1) You don't feel you learned enough to warrant the cert, but your instructor gave the cert to you because he/she did.
2) Because you reported your concern to PADI, they want your cards back, and will investigate.
3) However, once they complete the investigation, they will not tell you the outcome.
Think about this for a minute....
If they
do not substantiate your allegation and decide there
is not an issue and
do not revoke the instructor's cert, then by default you got enough instruction, were properly evaluated by the instructor, and earned the certs in question - whether you think you did or not.
If they
do substantiate the allegation and pull his cert, then in fact you
may not have earned the cert and
should send the card back to them.
So...unless you know the outcome of the investigation, you don't know if your certs should be revoked or not - and
neither does PADI until the investigation is complete.
Consequently, I'd tell them they can have the cards back as soon as they complete the investigation, provided they demonstrate to you that they did in fact find the instructor is not competent, that his instructor cert has been revoked, and that your fees for the cert have been refunded. Otherwise, you'll have to assume that they did not find fault with the instructor and that your certs are still valid.
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All in all this is a fantastic disincentive for a student to contact PADI and question the quality of instruction they received.
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I also fall in the category of having never taken a formal deep diving or dry suit class.
Sort of.
After a decade or so of deep diving and dry suit diving, I wanted to get my AN/DP cert and advance to trimix, and other technical diving certs. But it turns out that required an AOW cert and while I took AOW in college, I was not a card collector and opted not to pay PADI the cert fee to get the card. So the shop owner I worked for and dove with almost every weekend and I went out and did our normal weekend deep, drysuit dives - but that weekend called it a class and added a couple more specialties I no longer remember but had been doing for years (probably limited visibility and maybe navigation) and completed the SSI AOW cert.
Now the Friday before I was a very skilled "AOW" diver - far more than the average freshly minted AOW diver, and far more than I was when I completed the PADI AOW course in college with something like 25 lifetime dives. On the Monday after, the only thing that changed was that I had the card. Card does not equal skill, as there is a lot more to it than that.
In truth, all having a card means is that you have the card. At best it reflects that you received some training and demonstrated a minimal level of skill at a particular point in time. But it's never the same as having the skills or being a skilled diver.
Any C-card is something that is best regarded as a license to learn - that has applied to every card I ever got from my OW card to Full Cave to Trimix, to Cave DPV - none of those classes ever taught me everything I need to know, let alone everything there was to know, they just gave me enough to keep learning and growing.
