Fraudulent Locksmiths Illegally using Logos to Confuse Unknowing Consumers

We all have experienced it, you arrive home to find the latest edition of the local phone book has been delivered, sometimes wrapped in a plastic bag, sometimes just thrown in the general vicinity of your house. As the owner of a reliable, trustworthy local mesa locksmith business, I open it, fearing the worse; that the fraudulent locksmiths have again multiplied in number and/or increased their ad sizes to try and further suffocate local, reliable locksmiths out of our own market. And there it is - several more fraudulent locksmiths trying to look like local businesses. What makes them fraudulent? See below for the very concerning, very long list of reasons.

I'll leave the name of the business that prints this particular phone book that I just received out of this post as we are still in discussions with them about their blatant lack of policing who they allow in their book, even allowing these scam artists to claim to be part of their guaranteed business programs indicating to a consumer that that particular business has been verified as trustworthy. I would laugh if it wasn't so absolutely ludicrous at how many scammers are "verified" in this particular book.
On top of the increased amount of fraudulent listings and that the amount of full page ads for the fraudulent locksmiths now far outweighs the large ads for real local locksmith companies, these fraudulent scammers have now sunk to an all new low - they are illegally using logos in their ads to look more trustworthy to unsuspecting consumers. Why? They are counting on consumers not being in a position to be able to cross check all the different websites required to ensure that what a company claims is actually the truth.
One such fraudulent locksmith ad is using the ALOA logo, which is an organization of verified American Locksmiths that are doing business legally, that pay to be members and take an oath to abide by the organizations by laws, upholding the locksmith industry's good reputation. Cross checking the company's name on the ALOA's business listing website, http://www.findalocksmith.com/search.aspx confirms it, they are NOT ALOA members. Sadly enough, ALOA has a contracted advertisement contract with this book to ensure only verified, legal locksmith companies are associated with their logo and name. Unfortunately, that did not stop the phone book company from not checking the authenticity of the company claiming they were members. ALOA told me that they have filed a cease and desist with the fraudulent companies and are contacting the book publisher for legal recourse.
Among the fraudulent locksmith company ads are fake business names where they claim to be corporations and limited liability companies but the names are not registered with the state. The most shocking of the new ads is that these so called locksmiths are actually using the local chamber of commerce logos as well as the Better Business Bureau logos in their ads leading consumers to believe that they are members. Of course, when cross checked - none of the companies were actual members of those organizations.

How are you supposed to know who to trust when these illegal tactics are being used so frequently? See our website for consumer tips on avoiding being taken by one of these price gouging scam artists, http://www.americankeyandsafe.com/FAQs.html, but the MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO - is find a LOCAL, RELIABLE, TRUSTWORTHY locksmith TODAY - go to their location and make sure they are who they say they are! Then you can program their info into your phone now to use when you need them. Put some of their business cards in your car, your wallet, your desk, at work and on your fridge. If you use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Linked In or any of the multitudes of social media sites, link to the company now, then accessing their info is as easy as logging in at work, home or on your cell. It's a lot easier to think clearly now and plan ahead than it is to make an informed decision when you're locked out of your car, in a dark parking lot in the middle of the night.

Peace and blessings!



They're fraudulent because they are guilty of one, but usually all, of the issues that make them unreliable, untrustworthy, price gouging wanna be locksmiths. They are more accurately classified as scammers.

-They advertise under business names that are not legally paid for or registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission or the Arizona Secretary of State offices. They even use names that are almost identical to reliable local companies, but because they don't register them and phone book companies don't always enforce policing business names, it slides by. Then one book sells their printed list to the next book and the number of fraudulent locksmith listings has just been multiplied many many times over!

-They are almost ALWAYS out of town, by this I mean that they have a local phone number, and sometimes even a local address. If you Google map this address you'll find it's either a fake address, a residence or a different business that is in no way affiliated with the business using it. You call but their "local" phone number rings to an out of state call center where they dispatch a local so called locksmith to you.

-Usually this person they call an employee has no real training, is not actually employed as a locksmith or by a real locksmith company (they are subcontractors), and has not been professionally trained in any locksmith techniques. He has been trained on how to price gouge, take advantage of innocent consumers and then given the chance to buy lockout tools through them along with the "right" to say they work for them.

-This "locksmith", I use the term loosely, arrives usually in their personal vehicle, not a company supplied vehicle clearly marked with the company's name on it. They usually are in normal attire, not a company supplied uniform. -They attempt to help you, but it most cases, they are forced to drill out your lock or do so much damage while trying to open your lock that replacing your lock is the only option, as they do not have the proper tools or posses the proper training to know what they're doing.

-The one thing they are trained on and know how to do, is defraud consumers. Their ads say $35 plus labor, or they quote you a similarly low amount "plus the opening" or "plus a service call". They get you into your car or home, either by damaging your lock or drilling it out all together, and then you are handed a bill for usually HUNDREDS of dollars more than you were quoted. Now, there's nothing you can do. If they did the work, it's illegal to not pay them. This is what they build their businesses on! More people are willing to empty their wallets than report this fraudulent activity, as they are fearful of the embarrassment and lack of anyone doing anything about it.

These companies have one call center, out of state usually, but saturate phone books in every state with fake business names, fakes addresses but phone numbers that link to the one call center. Low overhead = HIGH PROFIT, but at your expense! These unscrupulous individuals even have the audacity to use actual local locksmith company names, again adding in a fake address and their rolling phone number. We have been victimized by this in almost every phone book in the state at one time or another. We, at one point, even had one of our websites stolen by one of these companies. They eventually went under but by then the damage had been done.

Customer's should "know" better according to YELP! Representative - CONSUMER WARNING!

ANOTHER DAY FIGHTING THE FRAUDULENT LOCKSMITH LISTINGS THAT SATURATE ONLINE LISTINGS:
******** CONSUMERS BEWARE************
Interesting meeting today with a YELP! representative about their website. She directed me around their site for a while when I realized that as of page 38 (there were MANY more pages but at this point I was physically sick to my stomach of their blatant lack of providing reputable listings) of locksmith listings in Mesa, AZ, with 10 locksmith listings per page, that there were only 4 locksmith companies that I knew for a fact were local reputable companies. 4 out of 380! The rest I had recognized, because they were on the list of fraudulent locksmiths put out by the BBB. Among those I found 5 listings for a well known local locksmith, using his legal company name but a fake address and a phone number other than the legitimate company's phone number in every listing! I pointed it out to her and she told me that that locksmith must have someone putting those listings on there, and seemed shocked when I pointed out that the 5 fraudulent listings had different addresses (not one Arizona locksmith company has more than one location) and the phone numbers went in a sequential order. I then directed her to that company's website telling her to see for herself their real address and phone number. She seemed appalled and told me she was going to her boss and they were going to have to do something about this!
After several hours of proving to them that a few simple online steps proves that MAJORITY of the locksmiths listing on their local site were fraudulent, she met with her boss to present the extremely easy steps I showed her to weed out the hundreds of fraudulent locksmiths listed, at least on a legal first step basis. I even provided her with the list of known fraudulent locksmiths that the BBB posts on the internet. I thought FINALLY, a company that can actually say that they are the first online resource for fraudulent free listings!
Their response: that it would be a "waste of their time" to remove them and that their customers should know better than choose to do business with one of the many fraudulent locksmiths listed. I asked her how in the world someone that's searching those listings is possibly supposed to be able to find the 4 legitimate locksmiths among the hundreds of fraudulent ones??? She said, by basing their decision on the number of reviews the company has and that their listing says they're members of ALOA. A side note, she had spent 15 minutes earlier in our conversation explaining to me that their site is not based on reviews as their customers are smart enough to know that any more than 20 5 star reviews is proof that the company is writing it's own reviews. That their customers pick companies with 4 star reviews or less.
I pointed out to her that between the 4 legitimate locksmiths on the site, that I could find, they had a total of 3 reviews! The locksmith with the most reviews on their site:
A) Does not have their business name legally registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission or the Arizona Secretary of State's office for trade names
B) According to Google Maps street view the address is an empty building and a search for a locksmith within that map's vicinity does not produce any results C) According to ALOA's locksmith member list that company is NOT a member.

So here I sit, wondering how a company that claims to be promoting trustworthy, reputable local businesses can turn their cheek to the fact that they are doing their customers' a huge disservice by leaving them to fend for themselves, allowing them to be fed to the price gouging wolves by willingly listing and promoting known fraudulent locksmiths?

How are we supposed to increase local revenue and help Arizona's economy recover if people are unwillingly using locksmiths based in other states?

CONSUMERS BEWARE!

For further information and a complete list of tips on choosing a reliable, local locksmith, please see our website, http://www.americankeyandsafe.com/ or feel free to visit our retail shop at 6055 E. Southern Avenue Suite #103, West of Power Road on the South side of Southern in the WalMart shopping center! We'd love to see you!

Fraudulent Locksmith fined $75,000 and kicked out of the state

It took nearly two years, but finally justice has been served for many consumers taken by another fraudulent locksmith company! A judge in Tennessee fined Dependable Locks $75,000 for practicing business with no regard for the Tennessee laws regarding locksmiths and demanded that they stop doing business in the state. The state said it took longer to prosecute because they did business under a variety of names and were based out of state.

http://www.newschannel5.com/global/story.asp?s=12267478