Consumers Warned of Locksmith Scammers
Friday, June 4th, 2010 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Consumers in nearly every city in the U.S. are warned to beware of individuals posing as locksmiths who perform unnecessary work or charge exorbitant un-locking fees. The Associated Locksmiths of America, Inc. (ALOA), an international association of locksmith and physical security professionals, recently issued an official warning for major cities across the US.
“This scheme entices locked-out consumers with large Yellow Pages ads that give the impression you are calling a local business,” says ALOA’s Executive Director, David M. Lowell, CAE, CML. “These companies manipulate listings with multiple false addresses and phone numbers to make them seem like a neighborhood businesses. In actuality, the victims frequently are calling out-of-state operations that are not locksmith companies at all. The consumer is quoted a reasonable price over the phone, but when a person posing as a locksmith finishes the job, the victim is charged a considerable amount more for unnecessary and sub-standard work”.
Legitimate local locksmith like Locks-N-More are being pushed out of business and the public is being ripped off by those large companies that dominate the internet and yellow pages.
Here is how this works –
For example we got a call from a person asking what we charge to unlock a car because he claimed that his girl friend was charged $200. He gave his girl friend his credit card number for her to use to pay someone to unlock her car. She called one of those that advertised cheap car door unlocking services. She talked to a dispatcher and they told her over the phone that it is $19 service call plus $15 to open. They arrived in a unmarked car with no uniform he opened the car then told her it was harder to open and charged her $200. She paid it because she thought she had to. After he left she looked at a generic invoice and noticed it did not have a locksmith name or phone numbers and saw the lower amount on the invoice. Making it harder for her or her boy friend to contact them to complaint or report them to authorities.
A legitimate locksmith will charge you a flat rate of between $40 and $60 d
epending on the time of day and location. They will arrive in clearly marked vehicles with company phone numbers and web page on the invoices with contact information. Protect yourself and search out a legitimate locksmith and save their number in your cell phone in case you need help in the future.
muchos gracis for this new entry.