Local Consumer Reporter Sting operation Exposes Crooked Locksmiths.

There are rip offs in all industries

most locksmiths are like most of us just trying to make a living

I can get into any car without having to do anything to the lock...and I can also get any car rolling down the road running in about 10 minutes though the steering wheel will be slightly damaged as the lock must be broken.

I could make a fortune at the mall or wal mart on weekends but I do it for free.

not a locksmith either.....

any man who cannot get into a car and drive off within a few minutes without keys is not really a man is he ???

And what about the cases where the locksmith did a professional job at a reasonable price. As for the 'roadside assistance' one, they probably hire the cheapest 'locksmiths' they can lay their hands on.

An what about customers who bilk locksmiths, such as by calling out several for one lock-out, or contacting the police or fire departments after contacting a locksmith (in communities where these departments render this sort of assistance).

ROFL.

Doosey the Troll, Unless you can give us the station , time and date of the "news cast" your comments are nothing more than urban legend, Thanks, it was interesting to hear your version of what you think locksmiths do.

Due to your extreme level of ignorance and general rudeness,

You have beeen included in the difficult and ( fairly exclusive) to join club " The Plonked"

PLONK

Got Ripped off by midas muffler once too:(

That doesnt mean every muffler shop is a thief.

In the case of midas muffler I finally got my $$ back after speaking to ron moore the actual president of mdas. within a few months he knew his franchise was a crook, after the media did some secret shopping:)

The local midas shops never really recovered from the news coverage many closed:)

What do I care if he speaks English well. I'm not entering a Scrabble contest with him. Snob.

Funny, I got that feeling about you.

Have you ever had a business? The car owner should have, in almost every case would have, checked all the doors before they had someone come out. Now that he's out there, it's better for all concerned if he opens a locked door. He'll get his money without the customer's complaining, and the customer won't feel like a jackass.

I used to fix tv's as a hobby for 15 dollars, 20 for color, and I'd do it while the customer waited if possible. Well I did that a couple times, and even though I was by far the cheapest guy in the city, the customer wouldn't want to pay me the full amount because it took me so little time. So I learned. I didn't fix anything until after they left, and I didn't call them for at least 3 hours. No one complained after I started doing it that way.

It was a shame. Because of the cheapskate jackasses I met early on, everyone had to make two trips to my apartment, even if they could have waited a half hour and taken it with them.

"After". What good does that do? It's a stupid test.

He's right.

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That's like asking the local crime reporter to report on all of the non crimes! How about all the non accidents or all the non activities. Don't want to hurt the feelings of all those normal people by reporting on murderers.

Jees!

A *real* locksmith would have probably quoted $200, found the door was unlocked and possibly charged minimum callout only. This is tricky, since if the customer accepted a quote (as distinct from an estimate) of $140, the locksmith would be entitled to the $140 no matter how easy the car was to open, but conversely the customer would be entitled to pay no more than $140 no matter how long the opening took (perhaps there were exceptional circumstances, such as if someone somehow fitted Medeco locks to the car).

A locksmith would be wise presumably to 'hedge' the quote with something like 'unless there were unusual circumstances'.

What city, what area, was this?

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BTW, my uncle died last winter and I drove to the funeral. Lots of snow and ice. The day after the funeral, I wanted to drive around the state I had grown up in, but I also wante dto wash some of the snow, ice, and salt off my car, so I stopped at a do it yourself carwash.

Never did this before iirc, certainly not in this way, but locked my keys in the car. Went to a store a half block away to borrow a wire hanger, which might not have worked very well with the badly designed lock buttons. The guy behind me in line heard what happened and offered to help. When I went outside, he had a truck labeled as a locksmith.

He opened my car in about 3 to 4 minutes, and wouldn't take money, I guess because it was Christmas day.... but still.

A young guy in his 20's, ENE of Indianapolis and a little SW of Anderson.

He also had better tools and did a better job than the cop did when a friend of mine locked himself out of the car. The cop didn't have the wedges to pull the frame away from the window, and didn't have the wierdly shaped thing to hook the thingy. He only had a standard slim jim and he disconnected something so that the outside handle didn't work anymore.

But he got the car open and he didn't charge either. This was a small town in a sparsely populated county. I don't think they do this in most cities, but he did it, and it only took less than a half hour from the time we called the police. (When my friend dropped me off, at home where I had tools, I took apart the door and repaired it.)

But this is why one should break in from the passenger side. Because the drivers door wouldn't open from the outside, every time he locked the doors that day (or maybe it was even if he didn't lock them, he had to enter on the passenger side and crawl over the console.

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sorry, I mean 'unless perhaps there were exceptional circumstances ...'

It's about time someone brought that up. Exactly what I was thinking. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a locksmith called to open a car to assume the person who called him over had at least the sense of a turnip and had tried all the doors. Sure, he could have checked again, but I don't think it makes him a crook or dishones just because he didn't. This isn't like taking a reporter taking a TV with just a blown fuse to be fixed and then receiving a bill for all kinds of uneeded repairs. They called the locksmith to open the car door and he did.

It's like insulting the customer.

"Are you so stupid to have not tried the doors? I'm going to check to make sure you aren't stupid."

Sunsh>