Getting a decent locksmith in New York can be quite a challenging undertaking. Good ones can be found just by searching on line using terms such as Locksmith or Manhattan locksmith service. Excellent locksmiths can be discovered in the upper east side, mid-town, Brooklyn, downtown, Little Italy and New Jersey.
People must be careful, however. The industry has been struck quite hard by posers, scammers and mid-western call centers who sell jobs to the highest bidder. The situation became so bad that for years Google would no longer accept new locksmith applications in its very rewarding maps directory, Google Places. The situation persists today and if individuals are not careful, they may find themselves in a pinch with an unlicensed locksmith.
Here’s what usually takes place: Someone gets locked out of their car in say, Chinatown or even their home in the upper west side and turns to their cellphone or a neighbor’s computer to search for a New York City locksmith. Search engines like google provide the results, and the consumer is normally in such a rush that they often select one of the first results they see. Now the bad guys understand this so they buy up all the top NYC locksmith results and create virtual lock and key websites, simply to get indexed by the search engines. The consumer generally doesn’t make an effort to investigate which locksmiths are authentic and which aren’t. Even if they had the time to thoroughly investigate their choices, these posers have become so good at making their bogus listings look real that the majority of consumers can’t tell the difference. This typically occurs no matter the search phrase; NYC lock out service, key replacement, change locks, change keys, lost key, vehicle locksmith companies, best locksmiths in NYC, ignition key removal, New York security service and more.
When the consumer makes the call, their particular request is sent to a centralized call center and then offered to the highest bidder. So the client receives a totally different locksmith than the one they thought they were calling. The trouble is that many of these locksmiths aren’t even accredited or just do poor work. They almost always charge as much as they think they could get away with.
There are plenty of very good New York locksmiths who have been servicing the city for a long time. They have been fighting to stay ahead, regardless of their new challenges. Many have specialties such as automobile key removal services, commercial services to change locks, security and surveillance equipment, 24 hour emergency lockout service and key duplication services. Many have very efficient mobile locksmith services as well. Shops such as M&D Locks and Keys, Brooklyn Manhattan Locksmiths and Joey’s Locks and Keys are quite effective New York locksmiths. They are licensed, certified and some of the most trustworthy locksmiths in the tri-state area. Best of all, they’re genuine local New York locksmiths. Try a search for Locksmith and you will have no trouble finding them.
So how do you know the good locksmiths from the bad? It’s much easier than you suspect. Don’t simply check one source. Make sure the professional locksmith you are hiring has many postings. Is he or she in Google Maps? Have they got a listing in Yahoo Local? Check different internet directories such as Citysearch, Yelp, Insider Pages, the online Yellow Pages and Show Me Local. Each one of these directories enable consumers to write testimonials in order to see what others are reporting about them.
And don’t automatically choose the locksmith with all the best reviews. The bad guys will frequently load up these review sites with dozens, even hundreds of phony ratings and critiques. If a listing has got dozens of 5-star reviews in Merchant Circle, for example, and almost no reviews in Yelp, then you can certainly bet something is wrong. Yahoo and Bing are a lot worse than Google right now. Google is ordinarily reliable and it’s very difficult to publish artificial reviews in Yelp.
Choosing a reliable New York locksmith is not that difficult if you take the time to search some of the free tools that are available to you on-line.