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Locksmith Warning
Jul. 7th, 2008 08:47 pmOn Sunday morning, I tried to open the master bathroom door when I got up and it was stuck. It had a habit of sticking in warm weather, so I didn't close it all the way. Mark (husband) had closed it in the middle of the night not realizing this.
We both pushed and jiggled. Then we called a handy friend of ours, Rich, to see if he could help. Even with his tools, he had no luck with it. So I took a photo of the door knob and all of us went to Lowe's to see if they sold anything that could budge the little screw holding it on. Lowe's doesn't sell locksmith tools, but we ended up getting a new doorknob to install.
Then we decided to call a locksmith. If you look in the phone book around here - there are many,many numbers for them. It turns out a lot of them are very similar "24 hour locksmith Little Ferry", "24 hour locksmith Hackensack". we called a few and they didn't seem willing to give an estimate over the phone or a firm price. We finally found one that seemed reasonable - it was called "Five Star Locksmith". When they came, it was a guy who had an accent and came in a plain white SUV, not a business vehicle. Anyway, he claimed the latch was stuck but managed to break the door in the process - it's cracked around where the lock is. My husband refused to pay them - especially since they were going to surcharge for credit cards (not mentioned on the phone). We took photos of the damage - so we have a before one (not great) and 2 after shots.
We did some research and discovered that "Five Star Locksmith" is yet another alias for "Dependable Locksmith" which has been reported as a scammer by the Better Business Bureau.
http://www.bbb.org/Alerts/article.asp?ID=773
Mark sent e-mail far and wide with our complaints - we've heard from WOR-TV's consumer reporter who may want to review us.
In short - make sure you use a LOCAL locksmith, if they answer the phone with just "Locksmith" hang up. Or if you are locked out of a car, use AAA.
We both pushed and jiggled. Then we called a handy friend of ours, Rich, to see if he could help. Even with his tools, he had no luck with it. So I took a photo of the door knob and all of us went to Lowe's to see if they sold anything that could budge the little screw holding it on. Lowe's doesn't sell locksmith tools, but we ended up getting a new doorknob to install.
Then we decided to call a locksmith. If you look in the phone book around here - there are many,many numbers for them. It turns out a lot of them are very similar "24 hour locksmith Little Ferry", "24 hour locksmith Hackensack". we called a few and they didn't seem willing to give an estimate over the phone or a firm price. We finally found one that seemed reasonable - it was called "Five Star Locksmith". When they came, it was a guy who had an accent and came in a plain white SUV, not a business vehicle. Anyway, he claimed the latch was stuck but managed to break the door in the process - it's cracked around where the lock is. My husband refused to pay them - especially since they were going to surcharge for credit cards (not mentioned on the phone). We took photos of the damage - so we have a before one (not great) and 2 after shots.
We did some research and discovered that "Five Star Locksmith" is yet another alias for "Dependable Locksmith" which has been reported as a scammer by the Better Business Bureau.
http://www.bbb.org/Alerts/article.asp?ID=773
Mark sent e-mail far and wide with our complaints - we've heard from WOR-TV's consumer reporter who may want to review us.
In short - make sure you use a LOCAL locksmith, if they answer the phone with just "Locksmith" hang up. Or if you are locked out of a car, use AAA.
