Oregon next state to lock out 1-800-LocksmithScammers

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, (D), has about 30 days to sign into law a bill that will create a Board of Locksmiths to oversee and license the state’s estimated 2,000 legitimate locksmiths and to combat untrained sub-contractors from posing as such.

The sub-contractors, working for call centers, defraud consumers with shoddy workmanship and bait-and-switch schemes. They have overwhelmed the phone directories and Internet with hundreds (and thousands) of bogus business listings. Unknowingly consumers have called the imposters thinking they were calling a legitimate locksmith.

According to the bill, the Board would be established within the Construction Contractors Board (CCB) that now licenses locksmith businesses but not individuals. The new Board would adopt rules concerning the passing of a competency test, background and fingerprint checks, continuing education standards, fees and penalties for violations – all with a deadline of July 1, 2010. Until then the CCB must make locksmith certification available no later than Jan. 1, 2010.

Ernie Blatz is licensed by the CCB. He is also the President of the Pacific Locksmith Association (PLA), owner of Ernie’s Locks and Keys in The Dalles and has been in the field more than 20 years. He said the PLA has a membership of 70-80 locksmiths from 4 states: Oregon, (South West) Washington, Idaho and (Northern) California.

Blatz said one problem with being licensed with the CCB was that all the continuing education is geared toward contractors. “We just want to be able to get accredited classes through the Associated Locksmiths of America (ALOA),” he said.

“It wasn’t just the 1-800-LocksmithScammer that was the problem,” said Republican State Representative John Huffman, who sponsored the bill. “There are very serious breaches of security going on and the consumer doesn’t even realize there is a problem.”

Huffman cited the following case relayed to him by a locksmith who had been hired to rekey a 12-unit apartment complex. For many years, the manager rekeyed and maintained the lock system at the complex. The locksmith, however, discovered the pinning system was flawed. Every laundry room key, which the tenants each had, was actually also a master key to the entire complex.

Huffman feels confident the governor will sign the bill, if not; the process to pass a locksmith law will begin next March 2010 when the Oregon legislature meets again.

As of today’s post the bill was not signed. However, Jillian Schoene, the Governor’s Deputy Communications Director, said she expected the bill to be signed within the next few weeks.

Only 5% of locksmiths listed in 3 Central Florida phone directories are legitimate, 15% for a 1-page Internet search

Dell Sterling, a Colorado locksmith, was interviewed for a story on locksmith fraud by Denver Post reporter Anthony Bowe. According to Sterling, up to three-fourths of the locksmith listings in phone and internet directories are from a handful of shady firms operating under dozens of names and phone numbers.

That means he believes 25 percent of locksmiths listed are legitimate. I think his number is high especially when he’s including Internet listings. But not having seen any of Denver’s phone directories, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

I have, however, seen the three phone directories in Central Florida published by Embarq, AT&T and Verizon. With a total 1791 locksmith listings and only 88 legitimately registered locksmiths, that’s a rate of 5 percent. However, since all the legitimate locksmiths are listed at least once in each directory that would bring the total rate to about 15 percent, if you look in all 3 books and who’s going to do that?

As for the Internet, I checked every link on the first page of a Google search for a locksmith in my own city of Altamonte Springs. There are 31 ads and listings – only 5 locksmith listings are legitimately registered in Seminole or Orange County. So that breaks down to about a rate of 16 percent for the Internet.

My survey broke down as follows for the 31 ads/listings:

Legit - Position of ads/listing on 1st page of Google search
0 --- Top 3 Featured Google ads were all bogus or call centers
1 --- Only 1 of the 10 map ads (A-J) lead to a legitimate locksmith
2 --- Only 2 of the 8 side ads were legit, plus there was 1 school, 1 directory
2 --- 10 listings: 2 legitimate locksmiths, 4 directories, 4 bogus locksmiths

The 4 directory ads led to the same process over again - bogus and legitimate locksmith ads and listings together. Will discuss the directories in another blog.

Two of the questionable locksmith ads actually had local Altamonte addresses, so my husband and I went on a field trip. The first locksmith had the name 24 Hour 1 Day Altamonte Springs Emergency Locksmith. (Geez, don’t think you could squeeze in any more keywords into that name.) Their address on Miller Drive was actually a restaurant supply company that had never heard of them.

The second locksmith, Mack’s Locksmith Service, was legit until December when his state and county registrations ran out. We called the owner Bob Jacko when we couldn't find his street location. He told us it was the address for his storage unit. Jacko is legally registered in Orange County as Bob Jacko Locksmith in Apopka. Since Seminole County is a reciprocal county, Jacko's Orange County registration is perfectly legal.

“Locksmith” uses bogus job ad as new marketing strategy

It’s always bothered me when legitimate locksmiths use several bogus names and websites to draw people to their service. I use the online name A-Florida-Locksmith.com on our website but say it right on the top of my site that it’s our online name. I list the legal name of our business as well (Martin Security Group, Inc.), however, I haven’t created additional websites with bogus names and had them point to my website. I haven’t used bogus marketing techniques to push my site up to page one of a Google search.

Locksmithmiami, however, has a new marketing strategy – to post the same message of a bogus job on hundreds of forum, blog and guest book websites. I’ve tracked the same message on forums for gambling, adoption, young entrepreneurs, Buddhist, anarchist, gaming, appliance repair, writers, tech forums for both MAC’s and PC’s, British, website design and even job forums.

He’s also posted his bogus ad on Korean, French, Spanish and Vietnamese websites – in English, of course. It’s even on The Ethical Hacker forum. Not that I noticed that one before, but if you are going to post a bogus ad at least don’t post it on a site with the word “ethical” in the name. On every profile he lists himself as male and in the USA, except a soul sisters website, then he’s changed his gender - I guess to fit in.

Almost all forums were created within the last few days and most said that he was “offline,” except for one site that said he was online. I was tempted to jump in and ask him a question, but the forum title had such a perverse name I didn’t even want to click on it for fear I’d start getting Google ads flashed on every site that I go on including my homepage. It is possible to read the Google search listing summaries without clicking into the link to see where he’s been.

The forums administrators are beginning to catch on to his trick. I saw where he was banned from some forums including the pornography and sex addict support group - banned permanently, mind you. (so says the Google listing –didn’t go in). Boy, now he’s really in trouble.

Yuck! Who would want to answer a job ad from this guy? Would you want this guy coming to your home rekeying your locks? Not me.

Well, it looks like it’s almost over. He’s been reported several times to Stop Forum Spam with his one user name, his IP address (that’s his computer info) and his multiple email addresses. To see that, here’s the link:

http://www.stopforumspam.com/search?q=locksmithmiami

I did track down his actual website and called both the Miami phone and fax numbers listed and did not get an answer. Now his 866 number is forwarded to another Ft. Lauderdale, FL cell phone that’s not answered.

Missouri Attorney General sues Florida locksmith company

Attorney General Chris Koster filed a lawsuit last Thursday to stop Dependable Locks, Inc. of Florida from fraudulent business practices. Koster is asking the court to approve an order which stops the company from advertising itself deceitfully with at least 16 different business names and bogus addresses and from charging consumers two to three times more than the price quoted for service. None of the 16 businesses are legally registered with the state to conduct business in Missouri.

Since Missouri is not one of 13 states with laws regulating the locksmith industry, Koster was required to go through the court process to stop the fraudulent activity. An online search of both the Missouri Senate and House of Representatives revealed that there is no locksmith legislation currently working its way through their legislative process.

In addition, Koster notified AT&T (a regulated industry) that it is carrying deceptive advertisements and demanded that the phone company take all appropriate steps to remove the ads, including removing them from electronic sites such as “The Real Yellow Pages” and yellowpages.com.

According to the State of Florida Division of Corporations website, Dependable Locks, Inc. is owned by David Peer of Dunedin, Fla. Peer lists his former address on the 2006 incorporation papers as Bronx, NY. He is listed as the sole officer of the company. According to the 2008 forms, the principal place of business is at 407 S. Arcturas Ave., Clearwater, Fla. 33765.

Koster requests that victims of Dependable Locks, Inc. file a complaint at www.ago.mo.gov or call his consumer hotline at 800-392-8222. Investigators in the Attorney General’s office found the following business names being used by Dependable Locks, Inc.:
A #1 24 Hour Locksmith
A 24 Hour locksmith
AAA 24 & 7 day Locksmith
A Always Available 24 Hour Locksmith
A Emergency A Locksmith
A Locksmith Always 24 Hour
A Locksmith A 1-24 Hour
A Locksmith 00 24 Hour
A Locksmith O Always 24 hour
A Locksmith Service 24 hour
A Locksmith 24 Hour Emergency
A Locksmith
A Kansas City #1 Emergency Locksmith
24 hour A Locksmith At St. Louis
24 hour A Locksmith
Locksmith
0 24 Hour Locksmith

Are phone directories cleaning up their act?

Got a call from a local phone directory sales person this week wanting me to buy an advertisement in their “yellow” pages.

First I asked her if we could advertise using our online business name, A-Florida-Locksmith.com instead of/ or in addition to our legal name which is Martin Security Group, Inc. She said we could as long as we showed her a business license with that name. When I said I didn’t have one for A-Florida-Locksmith.com, she then said that all I would need would be to print out a fictitious name filing from the State website.

Next I began asking her about all the bogus locksmith listings in the phone book.

“Oh, those were a lot of unscrupulous people. They didn’t pay us so we took them out. You’ll see a big difference in the phone book this year,” she said. “I had other locksmiths ask me the same question.”

Okay, I thought. So it was the sales people’s fault – they just sold advertising to anyone who said they would pay.

“Now with anyone who does more than $300 a month in advertising with us, we have to do a fraud check on them,” she continued.

“So what about all the bogus online listings?” I asked

“If they don’t pay, then we pull them right away,” she said. “We can do that much easier with the internet whereas the book doesn’t change for a year.”

Those policies sounded much better but were they accurate? I checked their website for a locksmith in Altamonte Springs. After the first ½ page of advertisers (none in Altamonte), came the bogus listings. Two of the advertisers, by the way, were not registered with the State of Florida – guess they forgot to check that.

Apparently we were talking about two different things. She was talking about how if the advertisers don’t pay, then they pull them. I was asking about bogus unpaid listings not advertisers. I don’t think customers can tell the difference. They just look for a locksmith with the name of their city in its name and call that one. None of the advertisers had the word “Altamonte” in their name, so one would keep scrolling. There were 12 unpaid listings with the word “Altamonte” in their name and not one of them is a registered locksmith in the city or on the State website. It was the same old list of bogus listings with bogus addresses which I had checked out previously.

Well, either the phone company is still working on this and way, way behind or it looks like not much has changed.