Reactfast Warrants

[horsefeathers]

I didnt even consider it might have been a rant at me...

Its all hypothetical with me at mo as I do not consider my NDE rate to be of a high enough mark to even consider this line of work, on a regular basis, ie - for a nationwide company.

regards

[EvoRed]

Yeah, I was 100 miles away in the Welsh valleys a couple of weeks ago on a full day's run, and it was well worth it in the end. If I'm not booked up I'll go far and wide, me.

There are some though that you've just got to turn down, like the 170 mile round trip single job offered to me a week or two back!

[haribo]

£800 a week sounds great but we are talking Reacfast here so 45% which is £360 - 18% a week doesnt sound as good if they are going to be working on the same amount of jobs as Pinky is mentioning especially when you are giving up local work you cant cover. I dont mind working for Reactfast as i have the dreaded cant beat um join um approach which in reality is needed if you are to pick up a half decent wage at the end of the week, but I will be surprised if any current Lockies who do warrants and have good enough NDE skills will do warrants for reactfast as they can surely get the work direct. All of a sudden its ok to open locks NDE for reactfast, I have heard of blokes having their ears bent by their area manager for useing their NDE skills to much and not trashing enough locks!!.Me is confused??

[NKT]

haribo, RF make a fortune off the locks, so they WANT you to drill them open. And you want to as well, since that means more cash for you ate the end of the week.

See some of the threads on these cowboys. All sorts goes on.

[smudge]

After doing one of Pinky's training courses back in September, I am probably a bit early to be doing warrants but I gave it a shot in Glasgow recently for gas openings. 8.15am start with a list of 18 jobs to get through, one v nervous wee meter fitter and a bailiff and off we went. Many of the jobs resulted in no need for my services as the owners were at home. But not so lucky with one of the homes where there lived a baseball bat wielding Glasgae nutter ready for a fight. When he realised he was outnumbered he backed down but the poor wee meter fitter nearly passed out from shock! I've never seen someone remove and fit a meter so quick in my life. After that episode, the meter man begged me not to open other doors so that he didn't have to experience any other confrontations.

I was told the target per job was to open a lock in 20 minutes but that particular day, they were pushing more for 10 minutes to avoid any other run ins with similar nutty natives!!

I enjoyed the experience with Pinky but I find the warrant run up here a different kettle of fish. My experience of warrants has been that if you are not able to gain entry quickly then the bailiff just moves quickly onto the next job. Obviously, they have an expected target opening ratio (around 80%) but apparently this is only running at 40% at present.

[pinky]

40% , yup thats the dyno way but they have improved, funny in old days before dyno opennings ran into 90%.

now rf may be 15% if an easy day.

gas jobs are the same here, runs of 30+ jobs , in london its 40+ jobs and you work 8am to 8pm, ask poor wallaby, but overtime is paid, gas jobs are the same all over smudge, no difference, siemens is a much easier and more refined run, they demand more in quality but are easier runs to do, we all cut our teeth on gas, then evolve.

well done however for taking the plunge, its the best work experience for pressured openings you can get, everything opens, trust me no need to walk away, and if you do need to walk away then invest in more tools and alot more practice, except in london with its banhams and branah brigade.

[Covlocks]

I stupidly did some work for these companies, including RF when they were pretty new on the scene - lost more money than I earned - average take for me was around £17 per job - minus my fuel overheads etc. When I made my views known I was told it was my fault as I wasn't selling enough locks - I shouldnt be picking any of them.

I was told it was the only way to boost up my income from them was to drill everything, sell Euros at £35 and all mortice locks starting at £40, taking as long as possible to do the work - well one minute over the hour meant 2 hours charged.

A Southend company charged £40 per euro and £45+ for any mortice and charged £45 per half hour.

Another company, Homeserve, that changed its name to Kingsleigh did the same (they went bust a few years ago)

At one time the Southend Company started offering their glass fitters a two day lock drilling course, RF and Kingsleigh offered their plumbers(?) the same.

Anyone working for these companies (despite upper management denial) is encouraged to rip people off because everyone works on commision, starting at the guy on the job who controls the amount of money taken for the work. The controllers and the initial sales contacts get paid commision out of what is collected on the job.

This then creates a heirarchy of people who they call out to do a job for them - the more dishonest you are the more you put on the invoice and the more everyone gets.

Hence I did very little for them before I eventually blew them all out.

[pinky]

i spoke to an rf guy who charges £60 for a euro, and he had a straight face, he saw nothing wrong in it, and because he drilled everything and well overcharged on his locks, he is the areas 1st call driller killer ( cant bring myself to use the word locksmith).

it is easy for RF to take a moral stand, as they will say that they cannot dictate their engineers actions, and if it comes on top, they bin the engineer to look above board, we all know the tactics of the call centre staff and engineers, hotly denied by management, but still goes on.

now we have a locksmith in birmingham whose website claims hes been serving birmingham as a locksmith for 25 years, when i know and can prove he was a novice on a 2 day course 4 years ago ! so blatent lie on website i think ! also trains and claims experience he hasnt got, especially as he has booked on a course to learn how to pick 5 lever bs locks as he cannot do these locks yet, and he trains ?
i have no problem with this guy training , even though he trains RF guys, what i object to is the lies to promote himself beyond his capability, it only rips off those he pretends to train adequately, also it is shortsighted of him to train rf guys, it wont help him long term.

i remember kingsleigh , bought out by safehouse some time ago when they went bust , not for the first time.

the industry is full of cowboys sadly and undertrained wannabes, to put this right, government must 1st regulate and ban training by everyone , then control training in the future, it then needs to cap prices and install skills testing and minimum standards for a locksmith to obtain a licence, compulsory police vetting is also a must, sadly i wont hold my breath.

[Covlocks]

Fortunately the public is catching on fast to the ads in yellow pages and other where multiple adverts claim to have a locksmith in every village in the county.

Because of these cowboys I rarely touch any domestic work now - I stick to Vehicles. It blows the 2 days wonders out of the water as they mostly have neither the money, ability, training or access to the equipment to be able to carry out such work.

There was a guy working Birmingham who used to a manager for RF about 4 years ago, he did a two day course and went out in the field - becoming one of RF's blue eyed boys because of the amount of money he used to dishonestly make out of his work - I think its the same guy.

As far as going on a course to refresh on 5 lever lock picking - will admit that my skills are somewhat rusty as I now rarely do domestic work and tool availability has changed dramatically since I trained to be a locksmith - slightly more than 30 years ago when curtain picks, overlifters etc etc were not thought of - so I may consider a refresher/catch up course myself (as you are fairly close)

At the moment if called upon to do a one off neighbour favour because they lost their keys I will not run around to borrow a curtain pick and spend half an hour gaining entry when I'm going to change the lock anyway.

But there again i'm also not going to take a 1 inch hole saw to the door and lock as seems to be a common occurance. At least in my day we were taught to ID the lock correctly, work through a 1/4 inch hole at the most, open the lock and then make keys for it if the customer wanted to keep the lock. Not many modern day trained locksmiths will originate a mortice key, most cant even cut a cylinder key.

[nezumi]

Holy carp, your repo people can just break into the house and take stuff??? Can you do that in the US? (I mean, not you UK people, clearly, since that would probably be kinda pricey, but can US companies do that?) I know they can take the car, but break into the house?

What happens if someone robbing... I mean repossessing... your stuff gets hurt while on the premises? If the dog attacks or he slips on something or falls into the bear trap? Who is responsible? What if you think he's a robber and hit him with the prybar? (Remember, many states in the US have 'John Wayne Laws' - you can kill an intruder on your property.)

Finally, what can you do to protect yourself from being scammed? It sounds like a lot of 'smiths' are really unscrupulous. What sort of defenses are there against that?

[toomush2drink]

Their not repossessing anything just allowing access for the power companies to inspect or replace the meter equipment.

[Covlocks]

They are also able to gain entry to premises for bailiffs in order to remove goods and vehicles.

The first contact with the bailiffs enables the bailiff to list goods in the household that he will take if the householder does not start negotiations in order to reduce the debt.

If the householder does not do this, or defaults on agreements, the bailiff has the right then to regain entry at any time, and by any means in order to take the items that he has previously listed - and any others on the premises that have a saleable value. The owner does not have to be present.

The bailiff can physically force an entry, however most call a locksmith because they do not want the hassle of making good the damage that they may cause as they are legally bound to ensure that the premises is fully secure after removal of the goods.

(Moral of the story is, if you're in financial problems, never invite the bailiffs in for a discrete, friendly chat - once you have done that you loose all rights - the next is, if your expecting a visit, leave some baby clothes and small childrens toys around so they can be seen by the bailiffs - they can not enter if they believe small children or babies live on the premises).

With vehicles, because they are not inside the house, they can be just lifted away without any pre-warning as long as the appropriate warrant is held. Speed is necessary when repossessing cars in order to avoid confrontations, which are pretty regular and often violent, so a universal key is used on the windows of the car, handbrake released and car dragged onto a trailer. I have been used a couple of time for this - but in the main, speed is more important than damage as any towing and glass replacement bills are handed to the defaulting ex owner. We are normally called in after the event to get the car going - again costs are added to the ever growing bill.

You know the old story, you can have my wife, house and kids, but touch my car and its war .......

[pinky]

they are not the same guys in birmingham, the one that used to be the RF employee is baldy locks, the training company with 25 years serving birmingham or is it 4 years, is 1st call lockouts.

if your at the telford show , pop along to the duffels stand and il run you through ERA and legge there on the stand.

as to cars, i moved into this area last year, alot of hard practice down the breakers yard, coupled with some training and approx £30,000 investment is now paying dividends, like you it was necessary to go this way due to the falling domestic work due to man and a drill = locksmith , more driller killers than locksmiths out there these days, though im lucky and get 5 days a week on warrant runs, which helps, though i enjoy the runs too much to give up.

[Covlocks]

Pinky, I look forward to meeting up with you at the show.