As the weeks turned into months, I noticed that the ratio of new clients to repeat clients had begun to narrow slightly. I felt at the time that this might have been due to the heavy influx of illegal aliens into locksmithing and all the other trades. Little did I know at the time that my hypothesis barely scratched the surface of reality. While unlicensed competition is definitely a serious problem for anyone trying to do business legally, I remained confident that the quality of my work and hard -won reputation of my company would sustain me, and eventually correct any trade imbalances. I WAS WRONG!!

A year later, having redesigned my Yellow Pages ads, I was ready to get back into the swing of things–I was ready to leave the past in the past, and to get back down to business. Once the new Yellow Pages were distributed I was amazed to see several ‘locksmiths’ listed within spitting distance of my own business address. Normally, I try to avoid becoming overly-concerned with the competition, mainly because I consider myself to be the competition for everyone else. But this new development had an unfamiliar stink to it that bothered me. I started calling some of these new and unfamiliar numbers, learning in the process that dozens of these phony numbers all belonged to the same phony company, which by the way, was located somewhere in the Bronx– way up in New York City, of all places!

At first, I was able to track just 10 or 15 fake locations to a company named PricelineLocksmith, Inc., which appeared to be a company within a company within a company–a bottomless pit of fraud and deceit. Disgusted, I again contacted my Yellow Pages rep to tell her what had found. She suggested that perhaps it was the economy, or my new ad (Again? How could my talent for communication have let me down two years in a row?) She then suggested that maybe it was the size of my ad, implying that a larger ad might convince potential clients of the stability of my company (which had already been pretty darn stable for years). After wrapping my head in duct tape to prevent it from exploding, I suggested that the Yellow Pages again begin checking the licenses of their advertisers (like they had done when I had first started advertising with them,).  I was then told that it was not the responsibility of the Yellow Pages to check the licensing of their advertisers. Little by little, it became more and more difficult to do business, and it was eventually discovered that these fraudulent ads have been extended into the thousands throughout the country!

Today it appears that the practice of the illegal address listing, bait- and- switch practices, physical intimidation, online and 411 monopolization have become the norm. Indeed, a great portion of America’s major metropolitan areas have been dramatically affected. I have even heard rumors of a malpractice lawsuit involving a major telephone provider (I shudder to think of the size of such a lawsuit once the lawyers have factored in the monetary losses of the legal advertisers , as well as the losses of those poor souls unfortunate enough to have responded to all of those phony ads). It also appears that the more the investigators dig, the greater the problem appears. Literally thousands of fraudulent address listings have been discovered blanketing several major metropolitan areas by dominating the top tier of locksmith service listings in SMART pages.com, and in the Verizon Super pages.com., which makes it nearly impossible for a legitimate single- listed locksmith business to get any referral whatsoever from these venues. After much investigation, it has also been recently discovered a second company was also involved in these deceptive practices (USA Locksmith from New Jersey). Then another in Las Vegas, Nevada. And then another (are you beginning to see a pattern?).

411 monopolization comes into play at this point: as fewer and fewer people use the printed Yellow Pages for information, and, as more and more people begin to use the online Yellow Pages and 411 for information, it’s practically guaranteed that they will get either a phony ‘ USA locksmith’ or a phony ‘Priceline locksmith’, after responding to the hundreds of phony locksmith numbers they may find there.

This scam activity that these companies have generated has become so big and so twisted out of shape that it may never completely unravel. It has also been recently learned that these same companies have begun to use these same methods to infiltrate and dominate other businesses, such as carpet cleaning and possibly others. These activities will continue to have a profound impact on my life and, once these scammers have robbed society of its legitimate tradespeople, your nightmare will be just beginning.

I’ll be writing more on this topic as things unfold.

Valerie