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Crooked Locksmiths

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escher7

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Posts: 696

Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 12:20 am

Location: Canada

Post Thu Jun 06, 2013 9:25 am

Crooked Locksmiths

Watched a 20 minute news program last night on ABC about locksmith scammers. Some guy in Florida has flooded the country with advertisements for lock-out specialists. No matter what part of the country you are in, you think you are phoning a local company, but in reality all calls go through an answering service in Florida. They then send out a local "locksmith" who is usually a recent immigrant mostly from Russia or Israel, who knows virtually nothing about the trade. They quote a low fee of about $45, but when the guy shows up he examines the lock and says because it is a difficult job it will cost anything from $150 to as much as $350.

The news folks set up a bunch of phony lockouts and filmed each one while a real locksmith narrated the action. Of the several locks they used (all were simple 5 pin locks), not one scam artist actually picked the lock. One used an air bag to spread the door, but the rest drilled the locks including one deadbolt that wasn't even locked! The home owners were gouged on the price and left with useless locks that had to be replaced. Of course when confronted, they all refused to be interviewed and booted away.

This shows that the consumer needs to locate a reputable locksmith company ahead of time and keep the number handy in case of an emergency. Sad story and damaging to the legitimate trade.
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MrWizard

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Posts: 366

Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2013 11:27 am

Location: Arizona U.S.A. Planet Earth

Post Thu Jun 06, 2013 10:21 am

Re: Crooked Locksmiths

Yes it is bad and has been going on for almost 10 years that is why Associated Locksmiths of America has the campaign for a long time now with the Find A Locksmith program I spoke about in another thread. And is why it is suggested if you are in the trade to join as it refers you as a legit reputable locksmith. Has been on the news here locally many times for the consumer to go to ALOA site and search for a member in their area.

There has been many local brick an mortar lock shops here that have had calls complaining someone from their company came out screwed their locks up and over charged hundreds more than the quote. Many are car lockouts. Uses others legit company names and address that aren't even a lock shop as their location. I know many personally that have had this happen to them just recently. Most the time they never find the ones that they called as you said they are run from national calling data bases that changes their location often. If you go to youtube you will see many news reports dating many years back about this locksmith scamming nation wide.

Truly sucks but if you watched the rest of that 20 minutes report it is going on with many services. I thought the TV and electronics repair scammer's was equally interesting. This has been going on with AC repair and roofers as well for even longer. Buyer beware they are out to get you from ever angle!

Richard
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand."
Kurt Vonnegut

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