About every month or two, a new locksmith appears online. Although I am referring to Tallahassee, this happens in every city in Florida, all of the time. I mentioned in a previous article how Florida does not regulate the locksmith industry, so anyone can call his or herself a locksmith. Often some guy discovers he can open a car, and confers the locksmith title upon himself; sometimes they can’t even do that, but takes the title, nonetheless\u00a0 Regardless, these folks are the scourge of this industry.<\/p>\n
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There are several basic things you should be observant of:<\/p>\n
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1. Do they arrive in an unmarked vehicle, or, just as bad, do they arrive in a vehicle marked with the word “locksmith,” with no other contact information? This is a MAJOR warning sign!<\/p>\n
2) Do they have company identification, and\/or company uniforms of some kind?<\/p>\n
3) Do they have a company website? Now, this factor alone is not a determinant; Tallahassee has a few bona fide locksmith companies who have NO website, and one company (with a good website) who\u00a0 is NOT a locksmith, but merely a referral service;\u00a0 you cannot discern this by looking at the web site.\u00a0 A website is an important piece of information, though; there is no excuse for a real locksmith company not to have a web site. In this day and age, anyone can have a web site.<\/p>\n
4)Do they give you a straight, upfront price for specified work, and do they STICK to that price?<\/p>\n
5) Do they have liability insurance? A real locksmith company has this. Always. A real locksmith company will show you their insurance binder if you request.<\/p>\n
6) Do they have ties to the community? Are they members of any business organization (Chamber of Commerce, etc.)?<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About every month or two, a new locksmith appears online. Although I am referring to Tallahassee, this happens in every city in Florida, all of the time. I mentioned in a previous article how Florida does not regulate the locksmith industry, so anyone can call his or herself a locksmith. Often some guy discovers he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-hq-locksmith-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hqlocksmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}