Yeah, I'm a beginner diver (< 15 dives) too and I've been a bit horrified just how easy and loose some of the diving centers play with safety and capability checks. Just like you said, most of them don't even check if you passed the shipwreck advanced diving cert.

You're experience matches mine so I'm now extra careful to vet all the diving centers - especially looking for complaints of divemasters being too "hardass" on people and demanding good equipment / qualifications. A lot of other divers are still surprised that my inital diving instructor actually checked if I could do the required 200m swim by demanding that I do it in the pool before starting training.

I've also bought my own equipment because of that - who knows just how well the regulators, dive computers and BCDs are maintained in those places. It's scary enough that you need to trust them with air and tank quality.