How to Avoid Fly By Night "Locksmiths"

Within the past fifteen years the locksmith industry has become plagued with fly by night operations.  These operations rely heavily on bait-and-switch tactics, they subcontract all of their work to unskilled staff and are next to impossible to track down when something goes wrong.  These operations typically rely on flooding the phone books and online listings with multiple phone numbers, business names and websites that all forward to a call center in one central location.  They are notorious for inflating their prices to three to four times what a legitimate locksmith would charge for the same work.  Further, being that they are typically unskilled, the work they perform is often questionable and may need to be fixed by a skilled professional.

1) When calling them, ask for their full business name:  When you call most legitimate locksmiths, their greeting includes the name of their business.  For example, our company’s scripted greeting is “Thank you for calling Wooters Lock Company, LLC this is [insert name of employee] speaking, how may I help you?”  By contrast fly by night operations tend to answer the phone with a very generic greetings such as “locksmith services”.  When calling, ask for the full legal name of their business.  If they become evasive and refuse to provide this information, advise them that you will not be needing their services and call a different locksmith instead.

2) When browsing their website, there should be more than just stock photos or clip art:  Most legitimate locksmiths that are online love to show off their storefront or service vehicle and post a brief bio of themselves, how they got into the locksmith trade and how they started their business.  Fly by night operations on the other hand typically use generic photos that they have pirated, or they rely on royalty-free images.  The webpage of a legitimate locksmith should contain photos of at least one of the following: employees in company uniform (with company name or logo to ensure they haven't pirated the image), a marked company service vehicle or a photo of the company's storefront.  This can usually be found on the website's About Us page.

Photo taken from our About Us page
Notice the lettering on my shirt.

3) Pay attention to how they provide their price estimate:  What often happens is one price is either printed in an advertisement or given over the phone, such as $19 for the service call.  As for the services they perform, they almost always add the words "...and up" to their estimates.  When they arrive that's when the price goes up...way up.  By contrast, legitimate locksmiths will give an estimated price range and advise of any increases in price before any work is performed.  A legitimate locksmith will typically ask questions ahead of time to try and determine what type of lock they will be dealing with.  A legitimate locksmith will say something along the lines of:  "based on what you told me, you can expect to pay between $110 and $130 to have your home rekeyed."

By being aware and knowing what to look for, you can better protect yourself against these bait-and-switch tactics.  Many of these companies operate as “locksmith referral services” so even when they are tracked down, it is difficult to hold them responsible for the damages you may have incurred.  Knowledge is power and by looking for the identifiers listed above, you can better protect yourself as a consumer.