Sarah was alone in her flat with her three-month-old baby when a man put a card machine in her face and demanded she pay \u00a32,209. A few hours earlier Sarah, 30, had been for a walk with her daughter when it dawned on her that she had left her keys at home. She did what most people would do in the same situation: search Google for a nearby locksmith. \u201cI had a screaming baby, so I needed someone to quickly let me in,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Sarah came across a seemingly legitimate company, near the top of the search results, which was sponsored. The company\u2019s website said prices started at \u00a345 and claimed they had received \u201c4,500-plus five-star reviews and counting\u201d, so she called them. When the locksmith arrived, Sarah says, he \u201cseemed pleasant and relatively quiet\u201d at first. After examining her lock, however, he told her it was a high-security one and the only way to get inside was to drill it open. He broke his way in and changed the lock before delivering another blow: he had accidentally damaged the internal mechanism, which also needed replacing. After Sarah got inside and placed her baby on a changing mat, the locksmith told her the price: \u00a32,209.<\/p>\n
At this point, he put the card machine in Sarah\u2019s face and \u201cgot quite pushy\u201d, repeating to her: \u201cCome on, you pay me.\u201d She says he \u201cwasn\u2019t threatening\u201d, but, being in the flat alone with her baby, she paid up, fearing he could turn aggressive. After he left, it dawned on her that she had fallen victim to a scam. \u201cI felt a bit sick,\u201d she says. \u201cHe probably thought: \u2018Here\u2019s a mum with a baby in a stressful situation, I could charge what I like.\u2019\u201d Despite generally being \u201cclued-up on scams\u201d, she says her situation shows \u201cit could literally happen to anyone\u201d.<\/p>\n
Like Sarah, I also thought I\u2019d be able to spot a fleecer straight away. But I was also conned by a locksmith scammer. It was over the May bank holiday weekend. While I was out and about, I realised my wallet (which also held my keys) had fallen out of my pocket. I retraced my steps to try to find it, then went to my mum\u2019s house to see if she had a spare key. She didn\u2019t. I was rapidly running out of options. And so I did something I\u2019d never done before: I decided to call a locksmith.<\/p>\n
My mum warned me as I Googled that she had heard about dodgy locksmiths on the news, but I batted away her concerns. I found one, listed right at the top of the search results, with an average rating of 4.7 stars based on fewer than 20 reviews. That will do, I thought. When I called up, I was told it could cost anywhere between \u00a345 and \u00a380 \u2013 which I made them confirm. The man on the phone assured me it wouldn\u2019t cost any more. I rushed home and waited.<\/p>\n
The locksmith arrived an hour later, peered at my lock and shook his head. Apparently, it would be a tough one to crack and would cost \u00a3250 to open. There must be some mistake, I said; I was told \u00a380 would be the maximum. After some rambling about different types of locks, I called the company and spoke to the same man who had given me the quote. Furious, I explained this wasn\u2019t the agreed price and that if they had known there was a possibility of it being higher, this should have been communicated before someone was sent out (the locksmith was insisting there was a \u00a345 call-out fee regardless).<\/p>\n
The man at the end of the line dropped the price to \u00a3200, then \u00a3145. It was getting late and the thought of waiting around even longer was unappealing, so I told the locksmith to go ahead. After lots of drilling, my door was finally open and I handed over the cash. Before he left, I noticed something was missing \u2013 something to put my key into. But I was flustered and he was eager to go, so I let him. I was left with a door without a lock, and an urgent need to book another locksmith to get one fitted.<\/p>\n
The UK is facing an epidemic of locksmith scams. According to the Master Locksmiths Association (MLA), the number of scams reported to the organisation rose by 147% between January and March 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. It is part of a wider trend \u2013 the number of complaints relating to rogue locksmiths rose 66% from 2021 to 2025.<\/p>\n
The main swindle being carried out<\/a> is called a 49-er, a \u201cbait-and-switch\u201d scam whereby a locksmith advertises or quotes a low price, say \u00a349, but after being called out charges hundreds or thousands of pounds. \u201cWe have seen some very frightening amounts,\u201d says Steffan George, the managing director of the MLA, which works with the police and Neighbourhood Watch groups. The industry is unregulated, meaning \u201canybody can call themselves a locksmith, buy locksmith tools and advertise their services\u201d, says George.<\/p>\n They target \u2018lone females who are less likely to fight back.\u2019 Illustration: Travis Constantine\/The Guardian<\/p>\n One reason scams are becoming more prevalent is search engines. Whereas once you might have looked up reputable locksmiths in the phone directory, Google is now the first port of call for many people looking for services. But reputable firms aren\u2019t always at the top of search results. According to the MLA<\/a>, many locksmith scammers operate out of big call centres, where workers are dispatched en masse across a city or region, but these operations often list themselves on Google as smaller, local firms to boost search.<\/p>\n Paying for Google Ads, the company\u2019s advertising platform, can often be enough to place a company high up and make them more visible to potential customers. The more a company is willing to pay, the higher its chances of being in a position that Google itself describes as<\/a> \u201cgenerally above the top organic results\u201d.<\/p>\n Google told the Guardian it has \u201cstrict ads policies<\/a> that govern the types of ads and advertisers we allow on our platforms\u201d. The company says it blocked or removed<\/a> 602 million ads associated with scams in 2025. The website Sarah used had 21 sponsored ads on Google. After I contacted Google, these ads were removed for \u201cviolating\u201d its policies. As George says, a search engine result for a locksmith \u201cis not an indication of how good a company is, it\u2019s an indication of how much money they\u2019re spending with Google\u201d.<\/p>\n George believes these rogue firms deliberately make costs spiral. \u201cAs soon as they drill the lock, then it\u2019s going to need to be replaced, because your property is now insecure. They can then overcharge you for fitting a new lock, too,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n This is the predicament in which Pat Gilks\u2019s son found himself. Gilks, 60, who works for a charity, was on holiday in Scotland when he received a call from his son saying he had locked himself out of the family home in London and called a locksmith. \u201cWe asked him how much it cost, at which point there was a stony silence,\u201d he says. The total was \u00a33,300. Gilks had the only appropriate two-word response: \u201cHoly shit.\u201d Like Sarah and me, Gilks\u2019s son had found the locksmith on Google. He had repeatedly tried to ask for a price beforehand, a question that was evaded with a vague \u201cit depends what needs to be done\u201d.<\/p>\n The breakdown of the costs was \u201cabsolutely outrageous\u201d, says Gilks. The emergency call-out fee was \u00a3280. Gaining access to the property was another \u00a3229. For parts alone, the cost of a \u201chigh-security lock\u201d was \u00a3465, a replacement door handle \u00a3420 and an internal mechanism \u00a3800. On top of this, labour to remove and install everything was \u00a3630, with VAT adding \u00a3568. A replacement high-security lock from a reputable locksmith normally costs about \u00a325 to \u00a370, while a door handle is \u00a330 to \u00a360; prices for an internal mechanism range from \u00a340 to \u00a3180. \u201cHe more or less just added a zero at the end of everything,\u201d says Gilks.<\/p>\n Gilks later contacted a legitimate locksmith who said he would have charged about \u00a3190 to \u00a3240, including the call-out fee, labour and materials. In the legitimate locksmith\u2019s opinion, the door handle and internal mechanism didn\u2019t need to be replaced. Gilks has tried to contact the scamming locksmith, but all he had to work with was a handwritten invoice that listed a dead website with an expired domain.<\/p>\n Sarah also sought to get in touch with her scammer. \u201cI called up the number that I first contacted and the guy immediately put the phone down on me,\u201d she says. Later, she managed to get through to the company to complain about being \u201chorrifically overcharged,\u201d to which they responded: \u201cWe don\u2019t care about your complaint,\u201d before hanging up.<\/p>\n There is little formal recourse for consumers taken in by rogue locksmiths and criminal prosecutions are incredibly rare. The Department for Business and Trade says those affected should \u201ccontact Citizens Advice, who can refer complaints on to Trading Standards for appropriate action\u201d, which could include a fine.<\/p>\n George says we may never know the scale of the problem, as many victims simply accept the loss, worrying about reprisals from scammers who hold sensitive information about them. \u201cThere may be a fear factor \u2013 those who are too worried to say anything because the so-called locksmith knows where they live,\u201d he says, particularly because they target \u201colder couples or lone females who are less likely to question and fight back\u201d.<\/p>\n The MLA says it is illegal<\/a> for locksmiths to be checked by the standard-level Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) assessment, which flags spent convictions, because this is reserved for certain jobs, such as those in security, veterinary care, law and roles involving children. \u201cIt makes absolutely no sense,\u201d says George.<\/p>\n So, what can be done? It\u2019s worth pointing out that Google has taken action in other countries. Locksmiths have been banned <\/a>from advertising on the search engine in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain to \u201creduce fraud\u201d. In the US and Canada, locksmiths need to be verified to advertise on Google. As for the UK, Google says it \u201ccontinues to invest significant resources to stop bad actors\u201d and is \u201cconstantly evaluating and updating our policies and improving our technology\u201d.<\/p>\n The UK government is understood to be examining how other countries have clamped down on rogue locksmiths advertising on Google. While the Online Safety Act 2023 includes provisions intended to clamp down on fraudulent advertisements, plug-ins falsely declaring thousands of five-star reviews with fake testimonies can be easily slotted on to a website. The MLA has launched a parliamentary petition<\/a> championing legislation that would require search engines to verify emergency trade advertisers, including locksmiths, before allowing paid ads.<\/p>\n Kumas Naroei, of Islington Locksmiths, advises customers to ask to see ID. Photograph: Supplied image<\/p>\n Rogue locksmiths aren\u2019t just a costly liability to consumers; they also affect everyone working in the trade. After realising my door had no lock, I called up Islington Locksmiths<\/a>, a legitimate trader, a few minutes shy of midnight, to ask whether I had been scammed. Kumas Naroei, who runs the company, said it sounded like a classic 49-er and that costs could have soared if I had let the locksmith complete the job. He asked for a picture of the lock, which needed to be replaced, and gave me a price of \u00a3165. He said he probably would have charged \u00a3250 to \u00a3300 for the previous day\u2019s job, telling me the price beforehand.<\/p>\n The next morning, Naroei came to my property. While replacing my lock, he told me he has been face to face with many a rogue locksmith. Usually, he says, the person from the scam call centre will ask for a customer\u2019s address before providing a very cheap quote and sending someone out, whether this was agreed to or not. Naroei has often turned up to a job after getting the go-ahead and been greeted by a scam locksmith working away, with the customer assuming they were from Naroei\u2019s company.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really bad for us, because we get into arguments with the other locksmiths,\u201d he says. Sometimes, if they haven\u2019t started drilling, he\u2019ll advise customers to pay the call-out fee and cancel the job, because they\u2019re going to end up being charged more. If the customer decides to stick with the rogue locksmith, Naroei says he\u2019ll stick around to \u201cmake sure that they do the job\u201d and dispute what they say, especially if they\u2019re pushing for unnecessary destructive entry. \u201cI put them under pressure. I don\u2019t like people taking advantage of vulnerable customers. I\u2019ll make sure they do the job even if I\u2019m not getting paid,\u201d he says. He advises customers to ask a locksmith for their ID and to find out what company they work for when they turn up.<\/p>\n As he handed me the keys to my newly fitted lock, having fixed the work of the scammer who conned me, Naroei said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got a vendetta against these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah was alone in her flat with her three-month-old baby when a man put a card machine in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-692489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}