KOMO Seattle Report On Locksmiths

The video here is a follow up to a KOMO Seattle news segment that generated a significant amount of chatter among the wider locksmith community around Seattle and other cities across America.

This segment offers a insight into an independent consumer magazine that runs a non-profit consumer reporting publication called Checkbook.org. This particular Checkbook listing involves locksmiths in the Seattle area.


The quantity of reported reputeable locksmiths seems rather high in my opinion. Perhaps because there is little to no regulation or gazetted qualifications for locksmiths, almost any person (or their brother or sister) can call themselves a locksmith and go out a ply the trade. Unlike other countries,
who stipulate a set core requirement of learning for locksmiths, the USA seems to have no set guidelines or recognized qualifications for the locksmith industry.

Combine the above with the quantity of institutions and commercial independent school districts, hospitals etc, who tend to employ their own in-house maintenance people to work on locks and locksmith tasks and you have an industry that is suffering from an influx of scam operators/rogue locksmiths and severely under qualified persons attempting to perform the duties and responsibilities of this once learned profession.

Squabbling among different locksmith associations in the USA contributes to the problem and probably helps to explain why there is no uniformity in the trade  or self-policing. Many other trades in the USA, like electricians, plumbers, contractors etc, are required to sit government gazetted courses and examinations to be able to get a license to perform. They also are often required to complete continuing education and exams to maintain their licenses. Unfortunately, governments across the USA have started applying unenforced regulation and licensing without broad based core competency requirements for locksmiths.

While the above video shows that Seattle does have some honest and reliable locksmith companies, they suggest that only locksmiths with a professional business address or brick and mortar location are indeed honest, reputeable and reliable. Nothing could be further from the truth. The trade today has evolved into a largely mobile service, meaning locksmith services usually come to you in a mobile service vehicle. Often these service vehicles will be sign written but there are many companies that do not sign wright their vehicles and appropriately so, because many customers do not want neighbors or passers by to know they have a need for a locksmith. So, just because a locksmith does not have their own brick and mortar location or a sign written vehicle, does not mean they are not locksmiths.

The facts remain, that you should find and record a reputeable local locksmiths number in advance of requiring a service.

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