You may have seen this article on the BBC website relating to dodgy locksmiths- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20825qwgz2o

This is what usually happens

• a person locks themselves out of their home
• in desperation they load up Google on their phone and go for the top result which suggests the company is 24/7 or local
• the locksmith company will give a call out rate like £50 – and will suggest that is all it will cost to pick the lock
• the locksmith will turn up and say the lock cannot be picked and must be drilled out – costing more than anticipated
• they will then sell you a crap lock for 20 times its normal sales price (telling you it’s a premium lock of course)
• you may also be charged VAT on top and/or double labour costs if there is a second man
• most people will feel vulnerable and intimidated into paying because they are on their doorstep
• the bill will be anywhere between £300 and £3000.

This is happening to thousands of people every year.

This scam has been going on for many years and is well known. It has been allowed to continue because the Police and Trading Standards are underfunded and do not have the resources to tackle it. It is not a case of not knowing what’s going on or even not knowing who is doing it. But it is very labour intensive to investigate these kinds of things. Given that many Trading Standards departments in London have fewer than 5 Trading Standards Officers it is hardly surprising why this stuff goes unchallenged. The Police are pretty useless at dealing with this type of fraud – I bet there are thousands of reports on the Action Fraud database sat there with nothing ever being done with them.

If you look at the most complained about companies on the review websites and then look the companies up on Companies House, you will see most are Eastern European.

This isn’t a few guys setting up dodgy locksmith companies – this is organised crime where there is a whole network of people working to set up different companies all over the place to rip people up.

To investigate properly it requires a single national Police or Trading Standards department to look at the whole issue holistically because the same people are likely operating across Police/Trading Standards borders.

The easiest way to deal with this is to forced deletion of their Google adverts and websites – prevention is better than cure. Unfortunately, the systems we have for that are not very good either.

Remember that underfunding of Trading Standards is allowing criminals to make millions.

Note: this type of thing also happens a lot in the plumbing and drainage industries.

You can report fraud to the Police via this website which replaces Action Fraud

https://www.reportfraud.police.uk

You can also report such fraudsters to Citizens Advice Consumer Service

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/get-more-help/if-you-need-more-help-about-a-consumer-issue/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=9442053801&gbraid=0AAAAAD8FlpzGXHW5UQNnn52fbzzm8R-6y

Note: if you happen to be in the middle of being ripped off, it is useful to get the following as evidence

– name of the locksmith and a photo of them

-their vehicle registration/make/model

-any paperwork with business details

-the card receipt

If you have been a victim it is always worth asking your card company for a refund.