FAST FACTS:
Scott.Noll@wreg.com
(Memphis 4/8/2009) Weeks after an exclusive WREG News Channel 3 Investigation, the Better Business Bureau is warning customers to beware of locksmiths they say are ripping off customers here in the Mid-South.
By law, all locksmiths in Tennessee must be licensed.
But, as we discovered, finding a locksmith breaking the law, is as easy as opening the phone book.
Last week, the Missouri Attorney General filed suit against a locksmith accused of misleading customers into thinking they were dealing with a local company, when, in reality, their calls for help were going to a call center in Florida.
It's the same thing WREG News Channel 3 Investigators found happening right here in the Mid-South.
A box full of mangled pieces of a door lock wasn't what Kay Nesbitt was expecting when she called a locksmith this week to let her into her Midtown home.
"He didn't know P. Didley about it," Nesbitt said of the locksmith.
Pictures show the lock pried open, and ruined.
If that wasn't bad enough, Nesbitt says the bill kept climbing.
"I believe he said $37.50, then it was going to be $67 and then it was going to be $75, but he wouldn't take my quarters," said Nesbitt.
She paid the so-called locksmith $73.
She then shelled out another $93 to have another company put in a new lock, to replace the damaged one.
She says the first locksmith showed up in an unmarked van, and never showed her identification or a state-required license.
But Nesbitt explained the listing in the phone book was enough for her to trust the company, "There was the phone number, the there ere several branches of it, and the addresses, and the whole bit."
In fact, WREG News Channel 3 Investigators found 10 different locksmith companies using that same telephone number and address on Park Avenue.
- Better Business Bureau warns of untrustworthy locksmiths in the Mid-South
- Locksmith operators sued by Missouri Attorney General for deceiving customers
- Local Locksmiths urging state to do more to fight use of phony addresses
Scott.Noll@wreg.com
(Memphis 4/8/2009) Weeks after an exclusive WREG News Channel 3 Investigation, the Better Business Bureau is warning customers to beware of locksmiths they say are ripping off customers here in the Mid-South.
By law, all locksmiths in Tennessee must be licensed.
But, as we discovered, finding a locksmith breaking the law, is as easy as opening the phone book.
Last week, the Missouri Attorney General filed suit against a locksmith accused of misleading customers into thinking they were dealing with a local company, when, in reality, their calls for help were going to a call center in Florida.
It's the same thing WREG News Channel 3 Investigators found happening right here in the Mid-South.
A box full of mangled pieces of a door lock wasn't what Kay Nesbitt was expecting when she called a locksmith this week to let her into her Midtown home.
"He didn't know P. Didley about it," Nesbitt said of the locksmith.
Pictures show the lock pried open, and ruined.
If that wasn't bad enough, Nesbitt says the bill kept climbing.
"I believe he said $37.50, then it was going to be $67 and then it was going to be $75, but he wouldn't take my quarters," said Nesbitt.
She paid the so-called locksmith $73.
She then shelled out another $93 to have another company put in a new lock, to replace the damaged one.
She says the first locksmith showed up in an unmarked van, and never showed her identification or a state-required license.
But Nesbitt explained the listing in the phone book was enough for her to trust the company, "There was the phone number, the there ere several branches of it, and the addresses, and the whole bit."
In fact, WREG News Channel 3 Investigators found 10 different locksmith companies using that same telephone number and address on Park Avenue.
