I-Team: Deceptive Locksmiths
Jenn Rourke
Shady locksmiths continue to cheat desperate Milwaukee consumers. The I-Team tracks these guys down to their home base outside Wisconsin.
The company claims to be local, but we discovered they operate out of New York. We traced the trail of deception and ripoffs a thousand miles from home.
Complaints and lawsuits in several states tell the tale. People locked out of their homes and cars call for help. They're quoted one price over the phone, but after the work is done, they discover it costs much more than the quote. One customer was told the cost would be $55. When the guy showed up, she was hit up for $140.
We decided to check it out. We locked ourselves out of a Milwaukee home and then called a "Local" locksmith— Dependable Locks— for help.
Dependable showed up, took two minutes to open our door, and charged us more than we were quoted. Then they refused to answer our questions.
"I'm an employee. The managers... You should talk to them, " one guy told us.
There was something else disturbing. Our locksmith never even bothered to make sure we lived in the house he just opened for us.in fact, we had permission to use a house. But it didn't belong to ANYONE there that day. We just borrowed it for the investigation.
"This isn't even his house. You allowed one stranger to get in another stranger's house, " we pointed out. The response?"Sometimes the guy moved in an apartment... I'm sorry. I have no comment for you. If you have something, go to the company."
We did go the company. But this 'local' operation is nowhere near Milwaukee.
"Our search brought us to New York... America's financial and cultural center. Its also the headquarters for Dependable Locks... A company ripping off people in Wisconsin and across America."
Not far from midtown Manhattan... in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty... Dependable Locks does it's dirty business from this Bronx office building. We decided to pay the owners a visit.
We were told to knock on a specfic door to talk to a manager. But no one ever answered. They then asked us to wait ouside. We did. No one ever came.
But former employee Mekesia Brown says she was told to elude customers' questions. "They're making so much money and it seems they just don't care about what they do or how they do it, " Brown told us. She used to work in the Bronx call center.
We asked her, "Is it fair to say that there were policies in place for you guys to not be 100% honest... To be kind of vague... Kind of not on the level?"
"Yes, " she told us. "And it was joked about by the staff and the supervisors."
Speaking of supervisors, affter 15 minutes we thought one had finally come out to talk to us.
"I'm going to ask you to wait outside the parking lot, " the man said. He refused to talk to us. He then told us yet another place to wait. We waited. For a long time. But managers at Bronx headquarters never came back to chat.
Mekesia Brown remembers how her bosses told her to deal with Wisconsinites. "Some would be crying. Some would be really angry, agitated, and still, and get that information from them as fast as possible and not give them any information as much as we could, " she recalls.
And what about those fake Wisconsin addresses used by Dependable Locks? The address of a Waukesha gelato shop was listed in one ad.
Brown explains how that worked. "If there was a really angry customer who wanted to know where our location was, we would pull up our GPS system, " she admits. "We would give them a random address for a Taco Bell... Or a parking lot."
A shady business. A trail of lies and lawsuits. A former employee who wouldnt even call her old company for help...
"If I was ever in a situation where i needed a locksmith... I would think twice. I would make sure to find out where that locksmith was. Because I hope to never deal with that company myself, " Brown says.
Dependable Locks has operations in several states. They are being investigated in almost all those... including here in Wisconsin.
The state of Illinois is suing them... And their license there has been suspended.
The problem here: we license hairdressers... Auctioneers... Even bait shop owners. But not locksmiths.
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