9 ms·

Fake Online Locksmiths May Be Out to Pick Your Pocket, Too

• codeulike 11y ago
  Their description of what happens sounds like every emergency locksmith I've ever dealt with, irrespective of Google. When people call emergency locksmiths out they are in trouble and often taken advantage of.
  • danieltillett 11y ago
    Avoiding all this pain sounds like a great idea for a startup.
    • forgetsusername 11y ago
      Tellng a couple of kids to disrupt the lock picking industry would probably end up with a situation less scam-like, but equally terrible.
      • danieltillett 11y ago
        At least it would be cheaper until the VC money ran out.
    • yitchelle 11y ago
      I was going to say uber locksmithing but the uber method for fee calculation would but their fees way higher. :-)
      • danieltillett 11y ago
        Actually an uber like surge pricing would be quite a good idea.
      • bryanrasmussen 11y ago
        uber for locksmithing would basically be having people come over to your house who happened to have lockpicking kits handy.
        • spicerguy 11y ago
          And would have the associated effect of providing a very clear analogue for the protesting licensed taxi operators.
  • pmorici 11y ago
    Higher prices for faster service is just the nature of any professional services business. Look at PCB fab and assembly there is a premium paid for shorter lead times. Likewise if call out a plumber or locksmith or whatever in the middle of the night it is going to be more expensive than if you can wait until the next business day. Granted the tactic of quoting a very cheap price like in the story and then charging substantially higher on the spot is not ethical but I would be suspicious for any on demand professional service that responds immediately and quotes a low price.
• roel_v 11y ago
  It's gotten to a point where I now prefer contractors (hvac stuff, plumbing, electricians etc, but also a carpenter and a stained glass restoration guy I needed a few months ago) who do not have a website; if they've been in business for 5+ years or so, they are most likely getting enough work from referrals to not need having to spend money on a website. And those getting their work from referrals are the ones you want (usually).
  • dazc 11y ago
    I've been involved with a contractor who relied exclusively on internet leads (nobody in their right mind would recommend him) and much of his time was spent giving quotes for low value work that rarely materialised into an order. Most people using the internet for sourcing a tradesman, in my experience, are those looking for the cheapest price or just fantasists and time wasters. I think most consumers expect a contractor/tradesman to have some kind of web presence but it really should be just a brochure type site and/or blog. The best work is almost always going to come from word of mouth referrals.
    • dustingetz 11y ago
      Or people age <= 30
      • Spooky23 11y ago
        Pretty much what he said. :)
    • Blackthorn 11y ago
      To give some opposite anecdote... My wife and I recently (under a year ago) moved into a house in an area that was totally new to us. If it wasn't for Angie's List we'd have been screwed. Really great website there for people new to an area, absolute bargain. We received a couple of referrals from our otherwise excellent realtor. One turned out okay, but we could tell immediately that one was going to be bad and didn't go with him.
    • Someone1234 11y ago
• thedlade 11y ago
  Pay per call
• furyg3 11y ago
  Apps like HotelTonight and AirBnB also mean that your chances of finding a last-minute deal on a place to crash are probably better than finding a last-minute deal on a locksmith. Even better is a friend's couch :) A friend of mine got scammed like this in the middle of the night, it ended up costing him somethings like €300. One night I found myself in a similar situation and just walked into a nice nearby hotel, gave them my story, and they let me have a unbooked room for a decent rate. After a nice night's sleep, 15 minutes in the gym sauna, and a good breakfast I was able to go to my local locksmith who could get my door open for a reasonable rate.
• rcarrigan87 11y ago
  Why Israelis? The moving industry is just as bad, if you look at the DOT's most wanted movers list it's almost all Israelis.
  • Spooky23 11y ago
    You have a tight community that will keep their mouths shut and a steady pipeline of people coming in looking for work. Great fodder for criminals.
  • tamana 11y ago
    It starts with one enterprising individual, who grows the industry via a personal network (people with no opportunity in the legitimate market, which especially applies to immigrants who have no other connections to the larger community)
• rcarrigan87 11y ago
  There is also a selection bias when it comes to the lead gen business model. The best locksmiths or movers don't usually buy leads. They either have enough word of mouth referrals or have built their own marketing. Buying leads is typically a very low return on investment decision for companies not planning on using bait-and-switch tactics. Case-in-point: if you're going to try and disrupt this market, realize your acquisition costs are going to be just as high as the scummy lead gen providers and the high-quality lock smith companies aren't going to want to pay you.
  • josefresco 11y ago
    Word-of-mouth doesn't work if you service an area with visitors/tourists or those unfamiliar with your brand. Auto lockouts are common in these areas, less so in areas where the customer lives as they can call a friend/relative for help. This requires good, reputable locksmiths to utilize and optimize for Google - and that's where they are exposed to these competitors and (from my experience) a cautious Google.
• cooper12 11y ago
  Regarding Google's Mappers, I find it absolutely absurd that the guy interviewed would spend 10 hours daily and even signing an NDA just to help, as the article says, "one of the world’s richest companies" for free. And then instead of acknowledging his stunt they just ban him. If only he'd discovered freely licenses projects like OpenStreetMap where the data belongs to everyone and where the community is put first. That's why I can't stand crowdsourcing, you're essentially doing free labor just to make some company's crappy data better for yourself. It's a nice bit of social engineering which masks the true beneficiary of the scheme and hides the actual power structure. > The company is dominated by software coders, and they want to solve the most interesting problems, or create the coolest products. This remark also rings true for software in general, no one wants to maintain "legacy" code or do maintenance in lieu of new features. That's why we have so many rewrites and NIH syndrome. Of course higher-ups incentivize this because it makes it look like the products are growing and innovating, leading to cruft like a random program evolving to send email.
  • realusername 11y ago
    I totally agree, I've contributed myself to OpenStreetMap for a few things which were not totally correct and I this way at least I know it's something everyone (including myself) will be able to use it after.
  • michae1ochurch 11y ago
    >The plan was to demonstrate that it was too easy to hoodwink Google. The plan failed. Google fired him from his unpaid job. (A Google spokesman declined to comment.) Yay sharing economy!
  • ciamac 11y ago
    He made fake edits that were against the terms of service. Why should Google tolerate that?
    • cooper12 11y ago
      Oh they're well within their rights to do that. However my complaint had to do with the fact that one of their higher ranked volunteers was trying to point to an issue with the system after being dismissed and instead of trying to work with their community and address it, they just ban him instead. To quote him: > For me, it was always like I was looking at a five-alarm fire,” he said. “To them, it was smoldering.
• ck2 11y ago
  Doesn't solve the google spam problem but regardling locksmiths to get into your car specifically, check your auto insurance. If you have brand name insurance, they often have an AAA-like option for $10 every six months. Does towing, gas, locksmith, etc. I know geico has this and probably progressive and others. For $20 a year it is a no-brainer. You'll use at least one of the services every couple years so it pays for itself.
  • a3n 11y ago
    I used my insurance's towing service. Never again. It's worth having AAA, even if your insurance includes this "service."
    • ck2 11y ago
      Could you explain?
      • a3n 11y ago
        I used the insurance twice. I had to wait three hours both times, in Denver. Both times I had to call back to remind them I was waiting. On one call, the original company just never sent anyone, and the "service" had to start over again. The operator actually chastised me for calling back too son. My impression was it was a call center somewhere in the country, and they did the equivalent of looking up a tow for you in the yellow pages/internet. AAA has always been within the window they said, always professional, always effective. I've had them out for tows, jump starts, locked out, even had a battery replaced once by the guy who came out. The subscription is per person, so if you're riding with someone else and they don't have AAA, no problem.
        • ck2 11y ago
          Thanks for that. My policy also states a reimbursement method (within limits). I would probably go that route given your experience.
    • rwmurrayVT 11y ago
• coldcode 11y ago
  I wonder how much of Google's massive ad revenue is things like this. From a purely financial point of view, fixing this wouldn't be much of a priority.
• erroneousfunk 11y ago
  This happened to me, about 6 years ago, and it was a fairly widely-known phenomenon then, too. Fortunately, I wasn't on the hook for the bill -- the only key to my apartment had been ruined by Home Depot while cutting a copy, during a series of mistakes on their part. They are generally the first listing you'll find when Googling something like "locksmiths near <your city>" The only negative part was that, of course, he announced after pretending (badly) to work on the lock for a bit that the (very standard, relatively low-security) lock on my door was "too difficult" and he wouldn't be able to cut a key for it, so he had to drill it out and give me new keys, which I then had to distribute to my landlord. Other than that, I got in, was reimbursed, so win for me. I hired a legitimate lock smith a few years later to create a missing key for my motorcycle, and the difference between the two was VAST. He had a key-cutting facility in the back of his van that was better-stocked and had more tools and machinery than the ones you sometimes find in brick-and-mortar lock smith shops.
• shiftpgdn 11y ago
  I got hit by this scam a few years ago. My wife called the first number in google and they said for $50 they could come open my front door. The guy gets there and says "oh these locks are too complicated I need to drill it out and it'll be $350". I told him I'd give him $50 cash under the table and he could tell his boss I told him to go fuck himself. He drilled the lock which spurred my wonder of how hard it was to actually pick a simple residential lock. I bought a lockpicking kit, a new lock and learned that even somebody with little skill and some practice could have picked that lock in 10-15 minutes. It would seem they drill all locks out regardless of difficulty to eliminate any required skillset.
  • herbig 11y ago
    It's not the difficulty of the lock but just the fact that it's there as a deterrent. If someone really wants to get into your home they'd break a window or kick down the door. The lock is mostly for crimes of opportunity and personal reassurance.
  • arbitrage 11y ago
    It's faster to just drill out the lock. A worker can handle more clients per day that way. Also, they get to sell you a new lock, and install it too. It makes perfect rational sense from the locksmith's point of view.
  • griffinmb 11y ago
    Recently my car battery died on a side-street without much through-traffic. No one else I know has a car (I live in NYC), so I had to call someone to jump it for me. It cost $75. The guy used a portable jump-starter, which I'd never seen before. So I looked it up when I got home, and bought it on Amazon for ~100 bucks. When my battery died again, I jumped it myself and I'm now just one jump away from 'saving' money. I guess this is a roundabout way of saying all these services (like locksmiths, car-jumpers, etc) can be avoided with minimal effort and a little bit of know-how. There is something rewarding about being self-sufficient in that way. Sorry if this wasn't completely on point!
    • rashkov 11y ago
• locksmithtx 11y ago
  As a locksmith in i Agree. Before calling an locksmith check all detail about them, whether they are licensed or not.We are 24 hours licensed locksmith in Texas area. http://carroltton.toprated-locksmith-service-24hr.com/ http://carroltton.toprated-locksmith-service-24hr.com/