A certain National Emergency companies NDE Opening

[pinky]

This is a certain nationals idea of NDE opening methods, the lock was left in the door until it went wrong. and its only a 3 lever imperial lock, what size hole would they have used for a 5 lever, or a 7 lever ????

[sivlogkart]

Amazing! But I think some of the locksmiths around here are like that too.

[toomush2drink]

I have never seen anything like it and there i was feeling guilty over a 7 lever chubb i put a 5mm hole in.

[Mad Mick]

WTF??

Where did all the other gouges come from too? Frustration?

[pinky]

well here are the 1st 2 photos of the RF job in the west midlands , The door wasnt locked but the mech and strip wasnt locking properly, due to door dropping, so customer wanted strip repairing.
The RF engineer didnt change the strip, didnt toe and heel the door, but instead tried to widen the keeps with an angle grinder, then when that failed, he fitted a sash jammer and advised the customer not to use this door but to use the back door instead and to keep it shut on the non locking sash jammer.

this skilled job and expert advice cost the customer just short of £500, ( more than a new door would have cost), must be a pvc coated gold sash jammer.

The job was put right by a local locksmith for just £130 , toe and heeled , new strip and keeps fitted. i guess thats the difference between a locksmith and a highly skilled RF engineer.

http://tinypic.com/e8ofoi.jpg

http://tinypic.com/e8o70h.jpg

[pinky]

It may be good to see other horror stories you come across posted here in a rogues gallery, name and shame guys, only by exposing these cons can we hope to get rid of them.

looking at photos like these and the cost to the customer by these companies, you may understand why I and other UK LOCKSMITHS want these sharks exposed, and why it upsets us so much to see our art and trade pimped so badly by non locksmiths.

These are not isolated jobs, this is the norm in the uk , largely due to crap training by inexperienced or bad trainers, promising big money low start up cost , its this that is killing the uk industry, and due to the amount of undertrained cowboys, good lockies are going out of business due to lack of work.

But these jobs are not done by small undertrained fools, but by highly skilled engineers employed by the major locksmith national companies and franchises, or so there ads say !!

[devildog]

That was a lock?!

You would think that if these guys are going to destructively open a door, they'd at least be a bit brighter about it, as there's much easier and faster ways than that if you've resigned yourself to destructive entry (think Sigma).

[Ezer]

What I don't get is why people pay. If someone did that to my door, then tried to charge me that much, I'd go nuts on them.

[xlr8ed1]

i work as a locksmith for many years now - and yes jobs still come up up that are tricky or abit beyond your scope.

What do you do - tell the customer honestly that you cant do it and recommend someone who can - i still do this. It is the only way to conduct your self in bussiness as there is always plenty of work around for everybody so dont be scared of losing one job and the $$ from it.

Of course i still get called for jobs that arent really my area of skill eg. booted in door and jam - this is a builders job - i started locksmithing to do exactly that - work on locks. Building jobs should or other such jobs outside your skill area should be left to those who know what to do otherwise if it turns to custard you mind yourself in more trouble than when you started eg. a law suit

[sivlogkart]

I can tell you why people pay for jobs like this. They don't know that locksmiths like the ones here exist, and these bad ones have a few good lines to explain why they are doing what they are doing. Like "Oh dear! That is a top of the range unpickable lock, so I will have to ... ". So most people believe this, even if the lock is trivial to pick, as they do not know any better.

And even worse is that they might recommend this drill man to someone else, saying "He seemed like a nice chap, and was very quick." --- that is even if he was not quick, but he did it the same day.

The locksmiths some relatives of mime used a lot in Potters Bar were later exposed on UK TV, and the UK guys might remember that case.

Trak

[acl]

Nice neat hole though.
Andy

[EvoRed]

Yeah, you can't fault the hole for neatness. Nice and round.

Did the guy then pop his head through to investigate the lock further?

[acl]

Are the pics actual size?!
Why arent you out on a 30 job run?

[CJM]

Job sheet for this one as well please mate

[EvoRed]

I did one yesterday Andy, and another coming Friday. A Friday, I ask you?

Nice one today though, 2 jobs for Richburns and 2 for Rob all around my area with the same rep so two half days, started at 10 this morning and was home by 12. That's more like it.