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continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

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kiwimike
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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby kiwimike » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:15 am

well I have to be perfectly honest mostly I care about being ripped off. to loose this money I work hard for really upsets me. is IKO detrimental to kiteboarding? I don't think it does any harm however it is run financially as a rip off. I would like to warn schools not to throw away their money on this scam and warn trainee instructors not to throw their money away on a bullshit license that they will probably quit after 2 years anyway. if you want to become an instructor then go spend a minimum of a month at a reputable school following around the most experienced instructors. the more different ones you can follow the better. I have a school and different instructors has different styles based on their personalities. the more instructors you can shadow the better. would be great to have a certification system in place where the trainee instructor spends a month at a school and then is observed over a week teaching to see if they suitable.
tautologies wrote:
kiwimike wrote:they are getting desperate. I will send another group email to the remaining 45 IKO schools when I get some time. will keep going until I get a refund. so pissed off having given them my hard earned cash.
So is all you care about your cash? Or do you find the organization to be a detriment to kiteboarding in general?

I understand it can be frustrating, and sorry to be blunt about this, but if this is all about your cash and then nothing else I really think you should stop posting it on KF. Then it is between you and them. If you are actually think the organization is bad and want to warn people I think it is a different matter...

I remember when they did a course on Oahu in 0 wind. They said they did not need to have wind to teach people to be instructors. Considering their charge of I think it was somewhere between $700 and $900 I think it was pretty steep. Either way I never took it so I don't know.

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gmb13
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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby gmb13 » Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:17 am

I think they have done some harm.

The Level of a lot of Instructors they were certifying, especially the last few years, has been so low. Having these guys turning up at schools to work without having the proper abilities to teach, has cost a lot of schools time and money, and probably also resulted in Students not learning proper kiting procedure.

I have encountered so many beginners who have not been taught the basics on setup, launching and landing, self rescue and beach safety by their IKO certified instructors.

--
Gunnar

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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby Jbrook » Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:58 am

IKO is a fucking joke I think their instructors are worse than people that were taught just using basic common sense. Here in Brasil where I live people still make a big deal out of it because they think it separates them from others and yes this it does, makes them inferior not superior like they think when they dish out their digit. If you paid and lost move on we all make mistakes. Simple it is a pyramid scam by some Argentine guy he got you. He is still scamming somewhere though. He has no business ethics just bottom dollar so funny people display IKO like it means something, I see the most dangerous shit happening and know it is usually some quack with some whack IKO cert. MK2 level blah blah just made up shit. Guy is a coward for not coming on and answering the Kiwi.

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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby DrLightWind » Wed Jul 10, 2013 1:11 pm

@kiwimike, I'm glad you're standing up for your principles,
but I learned the hard way the time and aggravation is not worth it.
So than maybe the best would be as you mentioned between you & him to face with,
if you got balls and want to be a winner :!:
It seems like the forum is not doing any good for you either,
because that entity is already established and instructors still needed certification for their ego :lol:
I think coming here and complaining is not doing any good for the kiteboarding community :nono:
because it reveals the corruption and monopolization to the world in our sport.

DrLW

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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby NYKiter » Wed Jul 10, 2013 1:56 pm

I understand the intent behind this thread but it brings up another point. In scuba there is PADI etc. But there is a tech diving organization called DIR (doing it right) where they specialize in extreme situation training. I believe there may be the need for such a movement in kiting: ie. how to rescue someones board, how to drag someone using a leash, how to disable an out of control kiter, etc. etc. :crossfingers:

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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby tautologies » Wed Jul 10, 2013 2:11 pm

kiwimike wrote:well I have to be perfectly honest mostly I care about being ripped off. to loose this money I work hard for really upsets me. is IKO detrimental to kiteboarding? I don't think it does any harm however it is run financially as a rip off. I would like to warn schools not to throw away their money on this scam and warn trainee instructors not to throw their money away on a bullshit license that they will probably quit after 2 years anyway. if you want to become an instructor then go spend a minimum of a month at a reputable school following around the most experienced instructors. the more different ones you can follow the better. I have a school and different instructors has different styles based on their personalities. the more instructors you can shadow the better. would be great to have a certification system in place where the trainee instructor spends a month at a school and then is observed over a week teaching to see if they suitable.
I really can't do anything but respect that. My point is now it almost comical that they don't just refund you the money as you are providing some harm to them.

When I saw hoe they ran their class over here I was really surprised..and glad I did not spend any money on it.

I do think that curriculums are sorely needed. I do NOT believe that most kiters-wanna-be-instructors are equipped to set up their own curriculum. The common sense approach to teaching will leave a lot of people as candidates for the Darwin awards....

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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby Ripshade04 » Wed Jul 10, 2013 3:31 pm

I've been kiting and occasionally teaching for 10 years and last year went through the IKO certification program.

IKO isn't necessarily a fraud. I'd rather say it's a mediocre program at best. The guys at IKO have it figured out to make money.

Regarding the common complaint about under qualified instructors. The class I took we had a couple students who were under qualified. What our examiner did was make those students shadow a certified instructor for a certain amount of hours and then have that instructor write determine their qualifications.

From the educational standpoint:

The course was pretty decent spite the lack of wind we had during our 10-days. The teaching material I received was pretty good. There was a lot of book reading because we had a couple days without wind but we also had time to shadow experienced teachers, teach together in groups/pairs with an examiner on duty.

From the Organization standpoint:

A lot of it's B.S. The annual due isn't terrible but I'm not renewing. The IKO card system is good in Europe, in America we have no real need for it yet. They also make it relatively difficult to progress as an instructor to a certain point. I have a friend who's been teaching for 8 years full time under IKO and should be a master examiner but due to politics and competition he cannot become one. In short it's a poorly designed system at this point.

However, do I think we need to have some sort of a system especially if the sport keeps growing.

There's both good schools / instructors and bad schools / instructors. IKO is an attempt to standardize it. Unfortunately, this a hard thing to regulate. The school I went to work for after IKO certification turned out to be run by a greedy nice person who puts both his students and instructors in danger and doesn't really care. I wound up moving back to my old job and have become a little jaded from the industry. Still love the sport, just don't enjoy trying to make a buck off of it.

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Flysurf77
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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby Flysurf77 » Wed Jul 10, 2013 4:53 pm

Jbrook wrote:IKO is a fucking joke I think their instructors are worse than people that were taught just using basic common sense. Here in Brasil where I live people still make a big deal out of it because they think it separates them from others and yes this it does, makes them inferior not superior like they think when they dish out their digit. If you paid and lost move on we all make mistakes. Simple it is a pyramid scam by some Argentine guy he got you. He is still scamming somewhere though. He has no business ethics just bottom dollar so funny people display IKO like it means something, I see the most dangerous shit happening and know it is usually some quack with some whack IKO cert. MK2 level blah blah just made up shit. Guy is a coward for not coming on and answering the Kiwi.
We can t put them all in the same bag. There are also a lot of very professional and passionate IKO instructors out there!
NYKiter wrote:I understand the intent behind this thread but it brings up another point. In scuba there is PADI etc. But there is a tech diving organization called DIR (doing it right) where they specialize in extreme situation training. I believe there may be the need for such a movement in kiting: ie. how to rescue someones board, how to drag someone using a leash, how to disable an out of control kiter, etc. etc. :crossfingers:
Good you are bringing the PADI thing here. I have been a PADI Instructor for over 14 years and an IKO Instructor for over 6 years, and I really think(and told the IKO office) they should take the example of the Scuba Diving teaching program!
Even if the PADI is REALLY commercial, it does have way stronger Standards and Quality Control that IKO could use for Kiteboarding.
Also, the Instructor course for Scuba Diving is way better and complete than the IKO Instructor course.

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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby alexrider » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:39 pm

kiwimike wrote:well i just emailed fred at iko giving him a week to refund my iko funds or i will continue to post about how IKO is just ripping people off....
IKO is just like the FED. :naughty:
The fed prints fiat money, whilst IKO prints worthless certificates, and they both make you believe life is impossible without them.
:jump:

kiwimike
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Re: continuing to expose IKO as a fraud

Postby kiwimike » Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:32 pm

boss at IKO is a coward. staying awake late night after night trying to talk to him on the phone after paying years of fees to this scum bag. spineless. imagine if I treated my customers that way. our group of 4 schools account for almost 10 percent of his 45 remaining schools. surely he cares about loosing 10 percent of his affiliated schools. it just does not make sense. an explanation and an apology would have done. but now I want a refund.

Jbrook wrote:IKO is a fucking joke I think their instructors are worse than people that were taught just using basic common sense. Here in Brasil where I live people still make a big deal out of it because they think it separates them from others and yes this it does, makes them inferior not superior like they think when they dish out their digit. If you paid and lost move on we all make mistakes. Simple it is a pyramid scam by some Argentine guy he got you. He is still scamming somewhere though. He has no business ethics just bottom dollar so funny people display IKO like it means something, I see the most dangerous shit happening and know it is usually some quack with some whack IKO cert. MK2 level blah blah just made up shit. Guy is a coward for not coming on and answering the Kiwi.


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