Id Crisis

by **SteveW** » 31 Jan 2006 22:02

HI all

I had a real weird callout on sunday night. A customer claiming to have lost his keys called, and so i jumped in the van and shot down there. As usual i asked for id and the guy produced his driving licence, a letter showing the correct address and also the parking permit on his car which was current and correct.

I set to work picked the pro-fit and just started work on the Yale cylinder when the door opens from the inside :shock:

I was then faced with an furious woman in her dressing gown acusing me of breaking into her house. I turned to the customer only to see him heading towards his car

The woman shot out the door and grabed him, and draged him back over.

After alot of explaining it turned out that they were mother and son and that he had been thrown out about a month earlier. He had come back under the impression that she would be away for the weekend. Once she had clumped him round the head and sent him packing she was kind enough to appologise and insisted on paying me.

The point of this story is, how strict should we be on id checks? As far as i was concerned i did everything by the book (i think), but my customer was not a resident or owner of the property and i think if things had gone badly i could have been up diorea drive without any toilet paper :shock:

Advice and comments most welcome :wink:

Cheers
Steve

by **devildog** » 31 Jan 2006 22:21

I think you would have been ok. Legally speaking you went to a reasonable extent to ensure everything was kosher and I doubt you could be held as negligable. 'Due diligence' was performed.

by **NKT** » 31 Jan 2006 22:57

I'm bet you are glad you decided to use the electric pickgun on that Yale, aren't you!

I've not had anything that weird yet, but I've had a few cloak and dagger ones.

by **zeke79** » 31 Jan 2006 23:22

I have had a few "questionable" lockouts myself. I had one in particular that a woman had a schlage everest on her apt. and called for a lock out. No problem, I was on the job with the kik. After I picked the kik, the door would not open. The deadbold had been locked. The woman insisted that she had locked her keys inside and I persisted that it was not possible. After watching her boxer dog jump up several time and he eventually unlocked the deadbolt himself, I agreed and let her in. There are many hard calls out there. I had to use a reverse peep hole lense to see what was hppening with that dog to believe it myself.

by **toomush2drink** » 1 Feb 2006 5:12

Ive had a couple like this so i now always ring the door bell or knock on the door, normally much to the customers bewilderment or annoyance but it can prevent this senario.

by **vector40** » 1 Feb 2006 5:53

... the DOG UNLOCKED it?

by **Chrispy** » 1 Feb 2006 6:06

zeke79 wrote:I had to use a reverse peep hole lense to see what was hppening.

I haven't come across one of these around my parts, where you do get them?

by **SteveW** » 1 Feb 2006 8:00

Its nice to know that i am not the only one who has weird stuff happening

I would like to know what id checks you guys run, do you run request id at all?

Is there another way of checking id i havnt thought of?

So many questions so little time .....

You have real clever doge in Illinois :shock:

Cheers
Steve

by **pizarro** » 1 Feb 2006 8:21

Do you make a copy of the id that they supply? maybe you could take a photo of the person, so you can hand it over to the police if it all goes pear shaped, if they tricked you with some fake id. With a reasonable digital camera you could probably make a copy of the document by taking a close up picture of it so that you could prove to the police if need be that you did check. Make up some excuse that your insurance company requires profe that you checked a form of id so that your covered. If the person shouldn't be there then they will lilkely be scared sh*tless that your taking their photo.
You can get them to hold the document while you take a picture of them holding it.

Or is this going over the top? Depends how worried you are about opening a lock that the person shouldn't have access to.

by **NKT** » 1 Feb 2006 9:24

I always ask if they have a key inside, and tell them to get it "to check the lock still works". If they didn't have one, I'm not sure, but I think I would just assess the situation a bit more carefully. I might also take a photo with my cameraphone, just in case.

Of course, sometimes you don't need to ask. There's mom, dad and the baby, and the nieghbour is there tugging at the handle too!

by **pizarro** » 1 Feb 2006 9:40

Ahhhhh, the baby MUST be the mastermind behind that gang of theves. And if you think thats the neighbour, you are mistaken, they have just finished robbing that place and are woking their way systematically up the street. :wink:

Cunning!

by **toomush2drink** » 1 Feb 2006 12:36

Just remember that by taking these photos of id etc you now have to make sure you comply with the data protection act as well.

by **NKT** » 1 Feb 2006 14:10

Data Protection is a tricky one.

As far as I know, taking a single image of someone with consent is not covered. If they refuse consent, then I'm going to call the police anyway, as they just had me break in for them, and they are now refusing to prove who they are/what right they have to gain entry. And then I will take the photo for evidence, and the DPA doesn't apply then.

As regards things like working notes, I suspect they really should be covered by the DPA, as although not electronic, it is a fileing system. Has anyone looked into it?

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