Watch Out for Fake Locksmiths Online

Nobody ever wants to be locked out of their car, it can be extremely annoying and expensive to rectify. Fortunately there is a wealth of options available to have the problem fixed, most notably finding a reliable mobile auto locksmiths in the 85206 and 85207 areas of Mesa as opposed to having to have your car towed to your local dealership. Most often we look up these locksmiths on Google and give them a call based solely on what the search results say about the company. Unfortunately there is a dark side to finding locksmiths online as there are scammers pretending to be legitimate businesses and they are looking to advertise as super cheap only to perform the service and charge a lot more than what they advertised. There have been countless reports on this practice and it is important for you to know what to look for when shopping online for a reliable Arizona mobile auto locksmith company. These scammers usually involve having an online listing as a “local” business who, in reality, are shady companies that deploy poorly trained subcontractors who are looking to charge customers a whole lot more than what they are supposed to be charged. So today we go over a few things to educate you on what to watch for when selecting a reliable Arizona car locksmith.

First, these lead generators are adept at the bait and switch. There are many companies that are listed on Google that instead of being a local service company are in fact call centers. These call centers are often times not in the state of Arizona and can even be located at times in other countries. These companies have become known as lead generators, or lead gen for short. They have duped Google into showing them as having a physical address in your neighborhoods, but they are actually known as “ghosts”. Most times these shady businesses will advertise their services as costing as low as $30 for their locksmith services. The catch happens when the service tech shows up to your vehicle, performs the required services and then bill you for a lot more money for said services, and they often want it in cash only. This is a big red flag. In the United States this practice has become one of the fastest growing reasons behind thousands of complaints by consumers according to the Consumer Federation of America.

Second, many times the ads are offering an online quote for as little as $19. These ads are most likely too good to be true. These locksmith ads change depending on where you live, but a lot of these ads are on the first page of a Google search as a result of using Google’s AdWords program. A vast majority of these ads tout the $19 service, or somewhere in that area which is a very low sum and therefore is suspicious because many of those ads cost around $30 per click. So the suspicion is that the company pays more for every click the ad receives than how much they supposedly charge for their service. A quick search online will reveal many of these low cost quotes, and history has shown that they are very shady, unreliable and almost always lead to a major rate hike once service is completed.