The Locksmith Rippoffs Are Real

These counterfiet locksmiths are real. They are nationwide and spreading like cockroaches. I am The Vice President of the Illinois Indiana Locksmith Association and have bee tracking these gypse type ripoffs for more then two years. They have been impersonating locksmiths all over the country. It is so large and almost Mind boggling how widespread these phonys are. The are in every major city in the US. there are many of these companys springing up all over the nation and they are all some how related to each other. The common denominator is that they all appear to be Israeli run. Most of the employees are here on tourist visas. There have been some in texas that were arressted for acting as locksmiths without a license and it was found out their visas were expired and they were deported.

They are not small individual locksmiths but rather large organized crime type outfits.

the actual people who come out to homes to do the dirty work are employees that have been trained to ripoff the consumer. The actions and mo of all the individuals seem the same. They are taught to rip off the consumer by the big dog scum that run these outfits. There general scam is to qoute a service call price of usually 55.00 and then up the charge when they get there. they routinly will drill house locks and actually charge you extra to destroy the locks so they can rip you off some more by selling you a 5.00 crap lock for 100.00 or even 200.00. they use bait and switch pricing.

Verizon has deleted almost 100,000 phony locksmith listings from there online directory in the past year. They have also about a week or two ago actually separated there advertising from the phone company portion of the business. The new company is now called idearc. I can only assume this is a logical action to avoid the possible liability of what is going on.

If you want to do a test go to smartpages.com and search for locksmith and choose a city and or state. Example if you search locksmith and Pensylvania the first 1000 listings and even more are all two different scam locksmith companys. The addresses are all fraudulant. Try Miami florida, las angelas ca, and many other large citys you will see the same thing.

These phony companys are raking in millions each year. One of the newyork companys it has been said they are making 20 million a year.

I spoke to one of the employees at a state court hearing here in chicago. I was told by this scammer employee while engaging in some friendly intelligence gathering conversation that they have inside people at the yellow pages and they receive hugh discounts for the large full page ads they are placing in citys across the nation.

This is one of the scary parts they have a near monopoly on the cell phone 411 system. They have filled the data bases with so many phony address listings in most major citys that when you call 411 on your cell phone ( which most people do now)
you will get the same counterfiet locksmiths over and over again. you could ask for 10 listings and they will all be one of these scammers or another with some local adress that is phony. they use thousands of different names also. It is always the same 55.00 service qouted for a lockout and after they unlock your stuff the price goes much higher. These companys are really not in the rural areas but the are in just about all major citys from coast to coast and from top to bottom.

Some of these companys are as follows

superb solutions- Now known as Dependable lock
this company is in the bronx new york.
some of their aliasis
sos locksmith
speedway locksmith
priceline locksmith
always available locksmith
chicago-locksmith.com
houston-locksmith.com
miami-locksmith.com
( the citys go on and on with websites that use the citys name then a dash and then locksmith.com)
usatotalsecurity.com
they use hundreds of other names such as:
locksmith 24 hour inc.
24 hour locksmith
emergency locksmith
the names just keep going on.

These companys almost always ask for your zip code.

The next company.

USA Locksmith- aka prestige business solutions
teanick - New Jersey
many of their names look like this.
#0#0#0 emergency locksmith
01 01 01 24 hour locksmith
# 1 3 1 000 locksmith
there are an untold amount of combinations like this.
in the detroit suburban area they are using common names such as oniels family locksmith, townsquare locksmith, and many more.
This company has untold thousands of phony addresses and listings all across the united states.

Another company is called:

Golden locksmith solutions - Chamblee georgia a suburb outside of atlanta.

They use names such as :
A locksmith
papa locksmith
24x7 locksmith and others

THESE ARE JUST THREE THERE ARE MORE!!!

IF you want to see a collection of some of the news storys around the country you are welcome to go to http://www.aloa.org/and click the phony locksmith link on the home page and it will give you a page full of news links all over the country.

ALOA stands for associated locksmiths of America.
Unfortunatly some of these scam outfits are using the alao logo in their ads. we are currently trying to stop this.

Some of their full page ads say they belong to the american locksmith association and there is no such association.

I am sorry this rebuttal was long but this is about as short as I can make it and it is just the tip of the iceburg.

I am a locksmith and I tell you our industry is under seige by con-artists. It seemed to have statrted in new york.

Some of these companys are also in the following businesses.

Towing ( from what ive seen on the east coast)
carpet cleaning
florists

USA Locksmith In Maryland

Any company doing business in the state of Maryland should have a registration number for that trade name in the State of Maryland. If a company is listing themselves in print advertising as Anytime Anywhere Locksmith, your town, USA, then they should have a record of owning that name with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation, or they should not be allowed to use it. There are reputable locksmiths who have had their names used without their permission and you need to be careful in trying to determine who you may or may not have done business with. If you have contacted a company recently and you are not absolutely sure who you called, then be advised that while we proudly display our credentials in an effort to assure you that we are locally owned and operated, we are also victims of these unqualified, unregulated companies, and we can do little more than urge our elected representatives to write locksmith legislation as soon as possible. If you have done business with a company that fails to provide or refuses to provide this information on your request we urge you to contact the Department of Consumer Affairs immediately. Please understand that this problem affects us more than any individual consumer, as the disreputable companies will use anyone's name without their permission, and with impunity. There are companies listing hundreds of names in the 411 directory and in print advertising that are disreputable and harming consumers. Our company is in the process of taking civil action against Eric Cohen, aka USA-LOCKSMITH, aka hundreds of listings in your local directory. USA-Locksmith has harmed many consumers in the state of Maryland. We suspect that Mr. Cohen is actually an attorney and we will do everything possible, with the assistance of the citizens of the State of Maryland and the Associated Locksmiths of America to get these rats out of the state forever. In the meantime, when you need a locksmith, we urge you to request the dispatcher to tell you where they are located. If they refuse to tell you, hang up. If they cannot identify local landmarks, hang up. If they ask for your zip code before they even ask what you need to do, hang up. Local locksmiths know where the Giant food store or local ACME is. They don't. Please take time to review this video to see just how outrageous USA - Locksmith's business practices are and contact your elected representives to recommend that locksmiths be required to have licenses in the State of Maryland. If you have been harmed we need your assistance in seeking a civil claim against USA - Locksmith. Please contact us to be placed on our list of consumers that have been confused into thinking that USA Locksmith was us. The monopolistic efforts of USA - Locksmith include phone calls to reputable companies asking if they need working capital and threats to our lives and livelihood. Once again, if USA - Locksmith was devised by attorneys then it seems they have designed their scam in such a way that it is quite difficult to prosecute them for criminal wrongdoing. However, there are countless incidents in which consumers are reporting incidents to us where they have mistaken USA - Locksmith for being the reputable company because of their stealing trade names from the State Department of Assessments and Taxation. We have not given any locksmith company permission to use any trade names that we own in the State of Maryland. We use them ourselves under the parent company of Allied Locksmiths. If there is damage to any of your properties from having called USA - Locksmith , we will assist you in repairing their damage and can use that to seek damages against them in civil court. Thank you for your cooperation.