Locksmith Ripoffs - Continue To Plague The Wider Locksmith Industry Worldwide

We have written about the Locksmith Scammers that infiltrate the locksmith industry, for many years now (see some of our articles here).

Above, you can find a recent in-depth hidden camera investigation produced by a Canadian news station, that shows these fraudsters are still ramping up their nefarious activities in North America.

It is becoming significantly more expensive to market a locksmith business worldwide, especially if you wish to compete fairly through the search engine mediums.

Multiple lawsuits including class-action litigations have been dismissed against search engine monoliths when judiciaries find the defenders attorneys claimed  the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. SubSection230) describes how search engines and other advertising mediums are protected under USA Laws.

This, unfortunately means that the search engines are NOT responsible for what an advertiser might publish in their medium. It is the responsibility of the advertiser to be truthful in all its advertising.

This defense forms the precedent that defends any/all advertising mediums from culpability and transparency.

The video above shows some companies ripping off (would-be) consumers, using sub-standard methods and over-charging (bait and switch) for services rendered.

The decision handed down by the United States Court Of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, forms the precedent that protects advertising mediums/search engines from prosecution.
(see case).

When you decide that you need the services of a locksmith, it is up to you, the customer to be diligent in choosing your provider. Just because a company might enjoy many incredible reviews online, how can you be assured that these reviews are genuine? In reality you cannot. But often, third party sites like lead generation mediums, can provide customer reviews that are legitimate and checkable, because they are on the third party sites.

Many consumers today, refuse to spend sufficient time to research the appropriate trade service company to service their needs and will often use the top listed advertiser in their search results online. Realizing that most of the legitimate companies, the ones that provide legitimate professional services, are concerned about their reputations, often do not have the resources to pay for top listing on search engines. Meaning, they wont often be found higher in search. As such, they rarely compete with the higher paying advertisers. Naturally, these advertisers who pay more to be listed higher, have to charge more for their offered services, often significantly higher prices than they advertise.

The original story can be found in the source below.


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Scammers Still Infuriating The Wider Market and Industry - Post Revisited

A little over 5 years ago we posted the article below and have seen significant numbers of pageviews therein.

The issue of scammer locksmiths continues to plague the wider consumer market, but it's not just locksmiths. It is also a number of other once highly respected industries too.

In the article below, there is a video by #ABCTHELOOKOUT which was a current affair series exposing nefarious alleged scammers in a host of differing services.

We still advise all our customers and all consumers to be cautious when choosing your desired professional.


From June 2013....


We have warned consumers many times over the past 5 years about the slew of scammer companies posing as locksmiths ripping off victims, all across the United States and Canada.

These perpetrators are now invading many other countries operating similar scam operations in Australia, New Zealand, Great Brittain and other European countries.

This news is not really news to the locksmith industry but thanks to the Network Television companies, like #ABC, prime time television now has provided a much wider net to expose the shenanigans.

My good friend and colleague, Mike Bronzell of All Hours Locksmiths in Chicago, has been one of the leading voices exposing these crooks for the last 10 years. I joined Mike about 5 years ago in Chicago to watch a case filed against Dependable Locksmiths by the Illinois Dept Of Professional Regulation. that prosecuted one David Peer for running a similar scam company. (the court found the company guilty of fraud and fined them and cancelled their business licenses, but they simply popped up again under a different name to continue their victimizations. Just this year, in February we discovered that all charges against this company had been dropped and the judgement overturned due to improper court procedures)

The leader of the company operating these scams has finally been exposed, thanks to the in depth investigation and reporting by the team at #ABC's The Lookout, a highly acclaimed television series developed to provide the marketplace with expose's on many ripoff artists scamming consumers across the USA.

Meni Agababayev is the name of the owner of this company. 




The video above is the whole episode from this weeks #ABC's The Lookout, but the actual story we are referring to runs for the first 20 minutes.

Price Gouging - Is This The Norm For Auto-Dealerships?

A March 2017 article in New Zealand's Business Day website shows the displeasure many consumers face today, especially regarding the super-high cost for car keys, compared to years gone by.

The article (in the source below) tells the story of a consumer who decided to sue their dealer and Toyota New Zealand after the said dealer charged him NZD$525 for the remote plus an additional NZD$50 to program said remote.
The outrageous cost for OEM parts ticked off the consumer enough to file suit and the New Zealand consumer agency The Dispute Tribunal agreed.

The tribunal found Toyota guilty of price gouging.

Similarly, in other parts of the world, car dealers in some towns charge exhorbitant prices to provide their customers with duplicate keys and new remotes also,

Interestingly, the cost to produce the internal components is staggeringly miniscule and many auto dealerships and some after market dealers are continuing to take advantage of the consumer by massively inflating prices.

Auto locksmiths around America and other parts of the world, provide key origination and duplication services for many consumers at significantly competitive costs when compared to dealerships. Many of these auto-locksmiths have spent many years honing their skills and purchasing the unique equipment to enable fast duplication, creation and programming of modern electronic keys and fobs.

Specialist tools that are the cornerstones of the auto-locksmith industry, make significant light work in picking and decoding automobile locks but they do have a learning curve. There are a number of different brands who manufacture all sorts of differing programming equipment because "one size does not fit all". Many professional auto locksmiths have their own preferences and some may be better than others (machinery) for wide range of vehicles offered.

In recent years, the locksmith industry around the world has been infected by growing numbers of fraudulent operators, posing as professional locksmiths. Typically these sheisters will offer a very cheap estimate over the phone or online and dramatically increase the price when they arrive on site (often after completion of their task). Most of these fraudsters are untrained butchers who have never deliberately learned how to use the tools correctly and quite often cause more issues than they fix.
Another issue recently found with locksmith fraudsters is that some of them are making duplicates of their customers keys, leading to an increase in theft of vehicles. Insurance companies were originally responsible for the automobile industry requiring security systems and chip keys, in an effort to reduce the growing quantity of vehicle theft. The effort certainly had it's desired effect, reducing the insurance companies payout costs by many millions of dollars. Unfortunately, the original savings envisioned soon turned to those same insurance companies hiking the costs of auto insurances.

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Yelp Reviews Found To Be Misleading and Prejudicial.

In the source below, you will find a copy of a letter from the United States of America, Federal Trade Commission in Washington DC, Assistant General Counsel Dione J. Stearns, to Angus Loten, a reprter with the Wall Street Journal, following Mr Loten's FOI (Freedom Of Information) Act inquiry into a number of reports about misleading and prejudicial reviews being found on the social networking site, Yelp.

In the letter (dated March 18, 2014), the FTC representative informs about over 2000 complaints received at the FTC since 2008.

While the record of the complaints is not tabled in the letter, the reporter outlines the nature of the complaints in his article, after which apparently Yelp's share price took a nosedive.

The particulars of the article include the following excerpt...

"A steady stream of business owners have gone on record, including in the Los Angeles Times, claiming that Yelp threatened to display negative reviews more prominently if they didn't pay for advertising. Yelp also deals with constant posting of fake reviews by business owners or companies, a practice called “astroturfing,” that have created additional controversy."


As a locksmith business, we take great pride in maintaining excellent reviews online that are all verifiable through third party sources. We were recently a victim of false reviews posted at Yelp

Rip Off Artists And Con Men Continue To Proliferate Across The St Louis Region

About 4 years ago, the Missouri Attorney General was instrumental in catching a gang of crooks deliberately scamming consumers by impersonating locksmiths.

That particular gang became well known across the country for willfully ripping off unsuspecting consumers.

The locksmith industry is one of the oldest industries in the world. There are a small number of qualified locksmiths across this country who still do business with ethics and morals, but they are seeing the trade brought to disrepute by sheisters bent on ripping people off.

In June last year, #ABC's The Lookout played a segment where they caught and filmed the leader of the scam operations, who has since escaped the country without paying fines and taxes owed.

But the scammers continue to trick customers into using them with nefarious search engine tactics. In fact, if you type "Locksmith Your City", replacing "Your City" with the name of your town, and press search, you will be bombarded with ads that point you to these companies.

(after the break, we will list some of the companies and their websites. we'd appreciate anyone reading this article to list other scammer companies in the comments) All comments are subject to moderation.

The Society Of Professional Locksmiths Becomes A Leading Authority For The Locksmith Industry - Thanks To FDNY

The Society Of Professional Locksmiths is an organization of professional locksmith owners and tradespersons whose intentions are to bring respect and admiration with ethical and moral business practises back to an industry that has seen the erosion of confidence in locksmiths, wane over the past few years, thanks to improprieties and shortcoming of other supposed industry organizations. The SOPL is fast becoming the industry's leading respected voice, training facility and source of products and services, that the market and industry have long been seeking. Unlike other locksmith industry organizations and training offerings, the SOPL developed their own superb in-house training guide and mentoring system that is second to none in the North American market. The following article is copied directly (with permission) from their website. If you like the article, please consider clicking the like buttons in the post. FDNY Keys Sold on EBAY - The NY Post - Where there's Smoke, there's Fire 10/07/2012 2 Comments On October 1st, 2012 a news story ran in the NY Post about a retired locksmith named Daniel Ferraris from New Jersey who sold a set of 5 keys on Ebay that were being called Masterkeys for the New York City Fire Department. Source - http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/lock_away_these_nyc_keys_g3PWCp3FzMapURRjyssJ4J This apparently angered NY City officials and public advocate Bill DeBlasio who raised concerns over terrorism. Keywords such as being alarmed, angered, lives at risk, safety, and more surfaced. Calls to Home Land Security were even made! DeBlasio himself went so far to say -  "We cannot let anyone sell the safety of over 8 million people so easily. Having these keys on the open market literally puts lives at risk. The billions we've spent on counter-terrorism have been severely undercut by this breech [sic]." A NYFD lieutenant said, “This guy should be prosecuted for selling something like that."

Run-Local-Locksmith Caught In Bait And Switch

News Flash! As Seen on KSDK5 February 22, 2012.

According to the St Louis branch of the Better Business Bureau, Michigan-based company, Run Local Locksmith, is the focus of several complaints from St. Louis area customers who say they were lured by low advertised prices, but then charged much higher fees by workers who responded to service calls.

Beware St Louis, another company has been discovered by the BBB to be fraudulently scamming locals using classic bait and switch tactics online, using sponsored advertising in search engines and other sites across web sites.

Essentially you see these ads at the top of the page when you search. These ads clearly say $15 Service Call. Most genuine locksmiths like us charge the average $65 for an opening, but these guys are taking advantage of people.

Pennsylvania Is Not Immune To Locksmith Scam Companies Too

The State of Pennsylvania has recently filed a lawsuit against another company employing similar tactics to companies of similar ilk found all across the USA and some other countries as well.

It is unfortunate that authorities in this country are being found inept and incapable of enforcing protection for legitimate, qualified technicians and companies trained deliberately in the locksmithing profession or in their abilities to protect the consumer from these charlottans.

New Hidden Camera Report Exposes Another Locksmith Scam

Colorado is not immune to the legions of fraudulent locksmith companies, employing foreign (often illegal) workers, using the classic "bait and switch" tactics.

These companies have been running rampant across America for the last 3-5 years. The above report is from a few days ago, but clearly shows that these people will stop at nothing to rip you off.

Very few locksmith companies can afford to spend what some of these companies spend on advertising in any given month. Locally, I personally know of 2 similar companies that spend between $10,000 and $15,000 each month to be located across the top of all the search engines in the hope to pick up the unsuspecting consumer in need. $10,000 is a lot of money to spend on advertising and it's no wonder they try to charge as much as possible. They are not locals, they are not even trained in the locksmith trade. They are often foreign nationals on leave after completing their national service (of their home country), are put into private unmarked cars, with tools they do not know how to use.

The locksmith trade, across the country is reeling from the affects of these people. Many long established mom and pop companies are having to wind down operations, retrench staff and cut costs to remain solvent. This is primarily due to the influx of scam operators across the country.

In the 2000 census, there were 26,000 locksmiths known in the USA. In NYC, there are 40,000 advertisements online and in the book, this year. If you look at Google Maps, there are usually 20 or more at just about every intersection.

In Saint Louis, there are about 15 total locksmith shops across the greater metropolitan area and about 20 legitimate (known) mobile operators, yet just looking at the listings online or in the directories, you would think that there are considerably more.

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Locksmith Scam Busted, thanks in part to Missouri

Schlage Securekey - coming soon

Schlage, hot on the heels of Kwikset, introduce their own field re-keyable locksets.

I find it rather interesting that many of these types of products are finding their way to market (now - since bump keys, showed why the previous products were infantile)

To be honest, whereas there may be a market for these products, more often we locksmiths are finding that many homeowners do not know they have "that" kind of lock and still will call us to rekey their locks.

Wait until you lose your key.

I havent seen the specs on this product yet, but they say that it is bump proof and pick resistant, but I suggest that it would actually be rather easy to pick (given the quality of many modern day Schlage products) and someone could easily lock you out of your house.

The extra security may or may not be worth it to you, but if you want excellent security for a competitive price with all the abilities that this product brings, look at Bilock. It has been around for decades and has proven itself the world over for it's quality, aesthetic value, ease of use and reliability.

See also Schlage Securekey Problems

See also Kwikset Smartkey problems

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Crime Rate Statistics - Maryland Heights MO 12/12/09 - 01/12/10

This month we bring you just the Maryland Heights crime statistics as reported by the Maryland Heights Police Department.

Theft - 47 (Includes Property Theft, Fraud, Grand Theft Auto, Theft From Vehicles)

Breaking & Entering - 4

Assault - 5

Indecent Exposure - 1

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