Locksmithing Blog

The First Post is an online daily web newspaper, and I’m quite taken with it. And this made me laugh.

A lot of people might have been confused by this, I know I was. If you are using Grisoft’s AVGFree version 7.1, you’ll have seen various pop-ups telling you that it was being stopped. However, what that meant was that the product support for 7.1 was being stopped, and that you should upgrade to the 7.5 version, which is the same, but better, and still supported.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/downloads-free75cnv/lng/us/tpl/v5 is the main downloads page. Get updated! And thanks Grisoft, for keeping us safe(r) on the internet.

No, not a post about the perils of using the wrong lube on your locks, this is about three things all at once.

Firstly, when talking to a customer and agreeing a time, make sure you ask for more than the postcode! I actually did this once before, but that time there were only three possible houses. This time, it was 29 possible houses! Oops.

Secondly, people need to look around for better quotes, and, argueably, better behaved locksmiths. This customer was very happy with my charge, which was less than half what they paid last time. And, I feel it is morally wrong to fit a £2 lock to someone’s door, a lock that can be picked in under ten seconds (as I showed the customer after I swapped it), that has no anti-drill protection, and in fact, has no redeeming features at all. Amazingly, for that utter stiffing on cost, the other “locksmith” didn’t even fit the right length cylinder!

Thirdly, I *only* fit CEN 4 rated locks. That *is* my cheap option. I can go far more expensive, but I won’t go cheaper. For my own comfort of mind, I know that all my customers are that bit (lot?) safer, and for an extra, to be honest, £3 in profit, I just couldn’t live with myself if a lock that I fitted was so obviously substandard.

A brilliant feature of the already brilliant Google Maps system is that you can now place multiple markers, and get directions. Forget your old route finding tricks with a paper map, or even your GPS or a site like the AA’s. This is so fast and easy.

You are going out for the day to do a warrant run. You obviously don’t know the area like the back of your hand, and there are, in our example, 6 jobs.

Grab the postcodes, and do the following in a text editor, or even right there in the google maps page at http://maps.google.co.uk

from:BB5 7DD to:BB5 0EE to:BB5 5HH to:BB5 3JJ to:BB5 3QQ to:BB5 3EE (Don’t click this link)
First, it validates the postcodes (useful when making up examples like this!) It really should be

from:BB5 6DD to:BB5 5HH to:BB5 3QQ to:BB5 0EE to:BB5 3EE to:BB5 3JJ

Press go again, and the amazing Maps API at maps.google.co.uk will show you a neatly zoomed map with route directions (hidden by the little [x] until you click on each leg to expand it)

Now, that isn’t the best route. So you could re-type the string as

from:BB5 6DD to:BB5 5HH to:BB5 0EE to:BB5 3EE to:BB5 3JJ to:BB5 3QQ

and see if that makes things better. However, because Google programmers know their javascript, and how it should be used, you can do this instead. Go to the left side, where the postcodes are, then click and drag one. This will rearrange the map for you within moments. Visually, you will see the markers change if you tweak the first and last ones, and the mileage between each stop will also be recalculated in a few moments! After all of 30 seconds, you can optimise your route for the day. Brilliant.

For the next trick, switch to “Hybrid” mode in the top right of the map. This is my favourite view, and it pops up a road map overlayed on an aerial photgraph. Et voila! I’ve optimised my route. Now for a smart part 2. Zoom the map right in, then click on any of the markers. This will zoom to the destination. Now, using my leet locksmithing sense, I can tell that we are looking at a house, not a factory unit, and this tells me what sort of locks I can expect. The third one could be either, and the fourth looks like a garage, or at least somewhere without enough parking! And the last two are rows of houses again.
Not that this part makes much odds. Were this a real run, the doors would be opened regardless. Also, we normally do commercial one day, and residential another. I just like to know! Gives me some idea of where to leave the van too - all those tools are heavy!

So, as in the life of most businesses, we come to the crunch point, where a person or company has had work done, but has then decided that, since the emergency they were having is now over, they don’t want to pay. Never mind that most locksmiths won’t do work on account for unknown companies for exactly that reason. I now always run a credit check on any company I get calling me, since I am subscribed to a checking service it takes only a minute before heading off.

Well, back in August last year, I got a call from a solicitor. Urgent, need you tomorrow, please, please. Never even asked the cost. So I go and do the job. The solicitor tells me what he wants on site, I do it. All finished, I invoice, and wait. And wait. Eventually it goes overdue, so a phone call goes out. No response. I leave it another two weeks, and send out the reminder notice with penalties. I now do this as a matter of course, and I include a letter that tells the late payer why. Basically, I offer a low priced, high value service, and if you get 14 or 30 days to pay, you are, in reality, lucky. If you were stood outside your door late at night without any way to pay, in the rain, most locksmiths would kind of insist that you go with them to the cash machine. And I would, too. If you have ever wondered why, this is why. It is less hassle.
So anyway, we hear nothing. More phone calls, more chasing. It all adds up. Lots of promises that he will call back when he is in, that messages will be passed on, that he will call when he is back from court. But, of course, nothing happens. A second invoice with a letter goes out recorded. So he definately got that one. But still nothing. So, today, I went to https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp and signed up.

This handy page is actually the latest court idea for small claims, and it allows you to file a Small Claims action via the internet. It’s a pretty naff interface, but I got through it without too many issues. So papers are filed.

But our man is a solicitor. Aside from knowing he could easily pay if he wanted to, this also means I can find him online at the Law Society. So I did. And I asked them what they thought of a solicitor who refuses to pay his debts. They said call back when I filed papers, please. In the meantime, I found he has also not paid another locksmith I know, for doing the same thing, a repossession lock change, a few months later. So today, I called the Law Society, and let them know about their deadbeat lawyer. I also let the other locksmith know, so he can do the same thing.

It really is sad that some people abuse their position. Some locksmiths do, and some lawyers do, just like everything else. But it is very silly for a lawyer who claims to specialise in bankruptcy law and repossession work to play such silly games. I wonder what the Law Society will say to him? Actually, I wonder more what he will say to them…

A company director whose firm charged customers up to eight times more than the prices it quoted was fined last Thursday.

Watford magistrates convicted Mark Makowski of Phoenix locks Ltd, based in Potters Bar, on five charges of consenting and conniving to mislead customers when his company committed the offences.

The court heard that Phoenix quoted a Watford householder £90 for the replacement of two locks in August 2004. Theywere subsequently charged £347 for the work.

Another customer from Hampstead, London, was quoted £120 after locking themselves out. They were subsequently charged more than £1,000.

Watford magistrates fined Makowski, of High Rd, Wormley, Broxbourne, £500 for each offence, disqualified him as a director and banned him from driving for a year because he used his car for business use. The ban is suspended pending an appeal by Makowski.

Phoenix Ltd was also fined £2,500 and ordered to pay £1,341.40 in compensation to customers. Hertfordshire trading standards court costs of £5,800 will also be paid by Makowski and Phoenix.

But will it stop him? (He has been in trouble before for sharp practices, and is well known in locksmithing circles for all the wrong reasons.) See this Hertfordshire County Council press release for more.