Customers Who Do It Themselves and FAIL

[LockNewbie21]

Well i have an unofficial locksmtih story. So, i am on vacation down in OC maryland. This seems to happenwhn i go camping every year.. yes i do go camping in a trailer.. well its a nice one, but theres hillbilies there. So i am driving, i had all my Picks, files, the like in my truck for emergency. Yea last year they had a baby locked in a van for a hour

Well my cousin lost her car keys, its a cavalier, i have one. Theres no transponders or anything. So, first the doors locked, well theres a reason my antenna is wrapped in electrical tape and bent a certain way. So opened the car.

No they can't find the key's, I rembered i stoped in a hardware store 2 mins. up the street for a lock to screw with while i was down there, happened to be a sweet guitar store next door

Anyway, they had a wall full of key blanks. So remeberign all this I said give me 10 mins. I will impression a the lock and have a key, This lock is what i practiced on most.. becuase i have the same car so...

Well my uncle..puts beer down, and couldn't imagine a way to make a key without looking at the working key. I said it would cost 1.50 okay 3 dollars incase i screw up. i'm not a pro. And thats it. Theres no transponder nothing.

Well Till it was all said an done, they blew my offer off after i went and bought two blanks, went to the dealer, who charged 30$ for a new kew. He said there was a charge for looking everything up, and suckered them into a replacement keylles entry remote. I think it was all in all 150$ till this was all done.

I got a good laugh, when they got back, the keys where in the truck bed, someone just closed the tail gate.. thus hiding them.

SO i was pissed, really at there ignorance, and taught my little cousin how to impression, got it my first try.

So the math is.. 150$or something close.. or 3.00$ for two key blanks?

Really is amazing, I can't wait till i start doing lockouts, stupid people make the world go round, by funding the people turning the world

[LockNewbie21]

had all my Picks, files, the like in my truck for emergency.

I meant trunk.. miss spelled

[unbreakable]

Well i have an unofficial locksmtih story. So, i am on vacation down in OC maryland. This seems to happenwhn i go camping every year.. yes i do go camping in a trailer.. well its a nice one, but theres hillbilies there. So i am driving, i had all my Picks, files, the like in my truck for emergency. Yea last year they had a baby locked in a van for a hour

Well my cousin lost her car keys, its a cavalier, i have one. Theres no transponders or anything. So, first the doors locked, well theres a reason my antenna is wrapped in electrical tape and bent a certain way. So opened the car.

No they can't find the key's, I rembered i stoped in a hardware store 2 mins. up the street for a lock to screw with while i was down there, happened to be a sweet guitar store next door

Anyway, they had a wall full of key blanks. So remeberign all this I said give me 10 mins. I will impression a the lock and have a key, This lock is what i practiced on most.. becuase i have the same car so...

Well my uncle..puts beer down, and couldn't imagine a way to make a key without looking at the working key. I said it would cost 1.50 okay 3 dollars incase i screw up. i'm not a pro. And thats it. Theres no transponder nothing.

Well Till it was all said an done, they blew my offer off after i went and bought two blanks, went to the dealer, who charged 30$ for a new kew. He said there was a charge for looking everything up, and suckered them into a replacement keylles entry remote. I think it was all in all 150$ till this was all done.

I got a good laugh, when they got back, the keys where in the truck bed, someone just closed the tail gate.. thus hiding them.

SO i was pissed, really at there ignorance, and taught my little cousin how to impression, got it my first try.

So the math is.. 150$or something close.. or 3.00$ for two key blanks?

Really is amazing, I can't wait till i start doing lockouts, stupid people make the world go round, by funding the people turning the world

Nice man, at least you proved to them you could, THEY must have been pissed......

[LockNewbie21]

Yea was pretty cool my cousin is like 13 and cares nothing of locks, but thought it was pretty cool. I gave him the key He thought it was great.. to bad if he would have took the car for a spin i'm going to jail

[devildog]

Wait, so you did or didn't get to show them that you made a working key for 3 bucks? What did they think about blowing $150 then? What'd they say right after you showed them the key?

[Mutzy]

I've heard of guys smashing their windscreen/window to get into their car (more expensive than locksmith opening services) and window locks smashed. (Waaaayyyy more expensive, since the guy did it late in the afternoon.

New glass panel + after-hours servive call + labour involved = poor tight peeved off individual.

[raimundo]

Labor:
$50 per hour
$100 if you watch,
$200 if you watch and comment
$400 if you worked on it first.

[Romstar]

Labor:
$50 per hour
$100 if you watch,
$200 if you watch and comment
$400 if you worked on it first.

If I followed that, I would lose a good part of my business. This place is filled with do it yourselfers, and they sometimes get in over their heads.

Romstar

[mrdan]

This place is filled with do it yourselfers, and they sometimes get in over their heads.

Romstar

Heck, They are the ones that keep us all in business.

So, ROCK-ON DO IT YOUR-SELFERS!! ROCK ON!!!!

[77luke]

Labor:
$50 per hour
$100 if you watch,
$200 if you watch and comment
$400 if you worked on it first.

[Mutzy]

it's like holden commodore ignitions. It seems like they are designed to fail

They're (almost) our best means of income

[kodierer]

yep its sad. I have coat hangered a door open before, but I had an idea of what was inside that door, and I didn't have tools, and the nearest locksmith was over a 100 miles away, but it would be stupid to try such a technique if you didn't already know what was inside that door.

[linty]

i remember going to help my friend get into his buick century, and his dad was already there trying to get in with a steak knife...A STEAK KNIFE...
seriously macguyver, slow down...we'll go eat steak after i get it open okay?


i get tons of cars coming in with the door already taken apart and just about everything that could have been broken has been broken. as a policy i won't put together anything automotive that i don't take apart, because i don't want to attach my warranty to it.

i especially like when customers bring me their pin tumbler lock in a zip-loc bag. in fact, i work for a 30 year old business that was founded when the first owner tried to take apart his lock and had to bring it to another locksmith in a zip-loc bag :)

[New-York-Locksmith]

I would guess that most of the locksmiths over here, tried to do it themselves before they knew anything about this profession. I know that, that's one of the things that got me into locksmithing in the first place...

[ldnlksmth]

I charged a guy an afterhours service call because his key was upside down.

he opened his door successfully and then couldn't remove the key. I tried to talk him through it on the phone (try rotating the key 180, put your thumb on the plug etc) and it wouldn't go.

I showed up, turned the key up to 12 o'clock and pulled it out. I then cleaned and lubricated the lock, made him a duplicate and charged him $75.


I had to go drill out 427 locks (I remember the number very clearly) because a disgruntled (why is it we never hear about the gruntled employees) security guard superglued every lock in his building together before quitting.

It was the excuse they were looking for to set up a new master key system, re-assign keys and rings and they ended up upgrading their padlocks to use the same key. Now their TMK (GGMK) opens everything, the security staff only have to carry one key instead of the 30+ they needed before.