How To Avoid Phony Locksmiths

If there is one thing a scammer is good at it is scamming people and coming up with new scams all the time and the newest trick that the scammers have come up with is the locksmith scam. Unfortunately this is not a small problem, there are hundreds if not thousands of dishonest individuals that have been posing as locksmiths when in fact they are just the opposite and have only one intention, and that is ripping off the customer. There have been tons of complaints to local and federal law enforcement agencies stating that these people have ripped off the general public with their variety of scams.

Sometimes it just so happens that we lock ourselves out of our car, home or workplace and we are not carrying any spare keys. So then we are left with only one option and that is to to call a locksmith, who will come and eventually unlock the door for a fee. Depending on the type of lock, and the security measures in place, we can expect to pay somewhere between $5 - $60, and sometimes even more if the locksmith has to do any kind of electrical engineering due to biometric or encoded key card locks.

All of this is pretty simple but the real problem arises when the person who we have called turns out to be a criminal posing as a locksmith. If this is the case then what can we possibly do to prevent ourselves from being ripped off by these scam artists ??

a) The first thing is to make sure that you are dealing with a legal locksmith. This can be done by asking the locksmith for proper proof of certification and licensing. 

b) If a locksmith finds out that a lock is damaged and he wants to replace it with a less secure lock don't accept the replacement lock. It is very common for phony locksmiths to damage a lock and then insist that a new one is necessary when a simple fix would have kept the old lock in place.

c)  Don't judge a locksmith by the big and gigantic advertisements that he has placed. Most of the time we tend to assume that companies that have placed such ads are reputable and can easily afford to pay for these ads but what we don't know is that the illegal locksmiths are well aware of this they know that these large ads are worth the money if they draw a great amount of customers and even if they don't do up to the mark work, they make a lot of money just by the sheer number of people fooled by these large advertisements.

d) Never forget to get a written quote even if it was first given over the phone and when the locksmith arrives at your place ask for the quote before he starts any of the work. If the locksmith hesitates or tries to inflate the amount simply walk away from the deal.

Make sure that you don't fall victim to these scams and if you are in need of a perfect and trusted locksmith please visit the website: www.lasvegaslocksmiths.com