Scammer Locksmith In My Town

[Jacob Morgan]

Realtors run a lot of newspaper ads, she might have a little pull with the newspaper. See if she can convince the local paper to run a story on the incident.

[sleepyrz]

libel rhymes with bible thats the printed word

slander is spoken word

[Silverado]

libel rhymes with bible thats the printed word

slander is spoken word

I know the difference, I just wasn't sure how it would categorize legally with a person claiming to work for a company they don't work for, then overcharging and doing a terrible job. It's a discredit to the business owner and likely falls under some legality. I'm not a lawyer...I know how to pay them too much though!

[Jacob Morgan]

All the news reports on scammers suggest that people find an established locksmith before they need one. That is good advice that probably no one has ever followed. People are not likely to take the time to enter a locksmith number into their phone, and good luck keeping up with a business card. So they whip out the phone and see what shows up first in a web search.

How about printing up small, clear labels with the business name and number. People could stick them in an unobtrusive place on their storm door, on a window next to the door, or in an inside corner of their car dashboard (print in reverse for that). It would not be obtrusive, as tempered glass has some writing on it already. If they find themselves locked out the number would be readily available. Maybe after doing work one could ask if they would like such a sticker to prevent scammers from being used, or the stickers could be handed out from a store front shop whenever keys are duplicated.

[Squelchtone]

This certainly has all the red flags of a scammer.
[url]http://[link removed].ca/inside.html#[/url]
There is no address of business and, if you scroll down the page, you will see they have just used the template from a (also scam) garage door repair site.
Aside from the horrendous grammer mistakes; I particularly like the part where they ask "Are you locked IN your house office or car?"
Have a look...just for a laugh.

TG

[kwoswalt99-]

Name, city
Name, city
Name, city

[dll932]

All the news reports on scammers suggest that people find an established locksmith before they need one. That is good advice that probably no one has ever followed. People are not likely to take the time to enter a locksmith number into their phone, and good luck keeping up with a business card. So they whip out the phone and see what shows up first in a web search.

How about printing up small, clear labels with the business name and number. People could stick them in an unobtrusive place on their storm door, on a window next to the door, or in an inside corner of their car dashboard (print in reverse for that). It would not be obtrusive, as tempered glass has some writing on it already. If they find themselves locked out the number would be readily available. Maybe after doing work one could ask if they would like such a sticker to prevent scammers from being used, or the stickers could be handed out from a store front shop whenever keys are duplicated.

I used to work for a company that gave out keyrings with the name and phone number. They were very popular and got us a lot of business.

[billdeserthills]

This same scammer just hit another business, in the next town over, the business actually called the scammer 'call center' and told them they needed someone to fix their glass/aluminum storefront style door, the call center told them they didn't do that, then she dispatched mr gross semi yugoslavic/russian guy. I was called next, because the scammer call center had said 'they don't do that'. I arrived and noticed I had not been given the suite #, only the building #, so I called the contact person and asked which suite they were in, he said, "you know, you just left." After a lot of explaining about what lock scammers are and why, they whipped out a $200 paid invoice to the same scammer company, this guy actually removed the mortise cylinder from an adams rite lock and sprayed the lock with wd-40, they also missed and sprayed the outside of the door, replaced the cylinder and charged the $200 for this, then the guy spent over 1/2 hour in the john. When I was finished explaining the situation they decided they needed me to rekey their office right now, I actually wound up making more $$ in the end. Still annoyed and I have realized that since most folks don't seem to mind paying the 3 or 4 times more money to have a glorified handyman do a lousy job, I should up my rates like 6 to 8 times as much, and just say "well I am a trained Locksmith, so I charge more" just like the other 'trained' folks around.

For example, I took the dog to the vet last week and paid $80 for a 10 minute consultation and a bottle of pills, I even took the dog back to the same vet today and paid $200 more to see the vet and get an even smaller packet of pills, that took a half hour.

[billdeserthills]

Today I got a call from someone who locked their keys in their 5th wheel trailer. They had previously called the scammer who had come out first
and had wound up calling their dispatcher asking if they could use their air wedge to open the door on the 5th wheel, which had an FIC trailer door
lock on it. The client got mad when the scammers revised their price and wound up paying them their $15 service call fee and telling them to go
away. I picked the lock in a couple of seconds and it turns out the guy is a licensed plumber, and he is gonna give me a quote on installing the septic
system for my new house.

[trogfield]

Is there any other Insider information other than the one guy on the front page? I'm interested in the motive of why somebody would Charge for something they don't know how to do, and how they could get away with it. is it simply described as fraud?

[billdeserthills]

Is there any other Insider information other than the one guy on the front page? I'm interested in the motive of why somebody would Charge for something they don't know how to do, and how they could get away with it. is it simply described as fraud?

The motive is making money--
The scammer gets his victim to hand over a heavy payment for doing little to zero actual work--
The last time I personally interacted with someone scammed in my town, the victim payed almost $200
and all the scammer did was spray some lubricant into his lock. I was easily able to determine that because
I was the one who later on actually repaired the problem. The customer was not watching the scammer and
simply relied on their word that their lock had been 'repaired'

Of course as you said, this should be a fraudulent activity, but it is difficult to charge the scammer for his crimes,
as the only contact info they ever hand out to the victim only ever contains a telephone #. Working with a PI years
ago we called a scammer phone number and told them we needed a car unlocked & when the scammer responded,
we got his license plate and ran that to get his address--unfortunately he was not the ringleader little could be done legally

[trogfield]

That's too bad. it seems that small-time crime it's a hard problem to stop and locksmith fraud is either not large enough problem to deal with, or prosecution falls into a gray area.

[billdeserthills]

That's too bad. it seems that small-time crime it's a hard problem to stop and locksmith fraud is either not large enough problem to deal with, or prosecution falls into a gray area.

It is something that the Attorney General for my county likely would have taken care of 20 years ago--nowadays not so much