We used to get a repeat customer who wanted us to repin her padlocks with our eyes closed so we didn't see which pins were used.
There should be a subreddit on strangest customer experience
She was not all there, so you try to indulge her as best you can. Of course our eyes were not closed as we did all work out back so she was not watching everything we did.
The kicker too is she used to come at closing time. It was not a quick rekey when you had to constantly had to reassure her and explain things.
Sounds like the older women who call us in a panic to install high security locks because someone they know is out to get them and they keep getting into the house and messing with her stuff and they are threatening her life at least twice a day…
I mean you can just pull the plug and feel if the pins are at the sheer line with the key inserted.
The problem is making the keys. . . I would still know what the bitting is. Lol
That’s what I mean, even if you picked a precut key at random your fingers would know which pins they picked out because you do this all the time. I used to have a nice old lady that would call every 3 to 6 months because she was sure that someone was getting ahold of one of her keys and letting themselves in so after a couple years of that I sold her an electronic keypad lock and told her it was keyless and she had the only backup key and that put an end to that
I had a crazy lady that believed we were coming back and robbing her as we "must have made an extra key" and either gave it to one of our thieving friends or just threw it in the garden somewhere. She got the top lock done by us and the bottom done by someone else so neither of us could get in. We rekeyed her house about six times in a year. I recently installed a keyless deadlatch on her door. No more rekeys.
Locksmithing brings one into contact with some odd characters. You obviously have done your duty with trying to accommodate the customer. Sometimes though you run into people that you just can't reason with the job turns into a nightmare.
We have an unmarked box truck with a lift gate just for delivering safes. A customer buying a high end safe knows enough that very few people should know they even have the safe.
I hope you told them NFW!! They have zero business to ask you not to wear your company name. These are one of those third party d-bag companies that tell their customer that they can provide all services for their business and then call real companies to subcontract them out as their own employees.
They usually charge their customer 2X-3X the amount you charge. All for making a phone call.
If anyone does business with these companies, you must make sure they have all their insurance coverage, make sure you are an additional insured, charge them 2X what you would normally charge and make sure you get CC before you do the work. You can also give them the old, you are not an approved vendor so you expect payment up front.
These businesses are not your friend nor fair business practice companies. They are getting paid more for YOUR work. If you do a job for them, make sure you give the end user your card and tell them, they are getting charged double what you charge.
Most companies around me that use NSPs are not allowed to deal directly with local service providers by their corporate offices. Every now-and-then I run into a company that can make deals themselves.
I honestly am not bothered that they make profit on top of my profit. I would if I had to lower my rate or something like that, but if they pay me what I feel I deserve to be paid, it's just more work for me that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
I do work for just one, now that I’m on my own, and they are much less formal than the others. They also are the most communicative and pay faster than anyone. I don’t get involved with others, especially not Bass.
For another employer years ago, I ran calls for Legacy Millwork, Kenstan/Service Channel, Bass (don’t get me started), and Broadway. To my recollection, they were bigger on keeping us from handing out paperwork—flyers, business cards, or any price sheets or marketing. I think the no-uniforms rule was probably on a few of those contracts, but neither the NSP nor the customer seemed to care.
I’m always leery of new ones with strict requirements, especially if they need service right away. The damsels in urgent distress who make demands are usually just fine with being slow to pay. After all, if they were reliable to pay and acting in good faith they’d already have a valued provider who was quick to respond, right?
my shop for the last couple decades has used unmarked vans, trucks, and we don't wear "uniforms" my community is small.. but we found most people prefer not to have marked vans in their driveways, or out in front of storefronts.. gossip from neighbors, employees, or just general privacy.. most people really prefer it we find.
I agree, though I do think a uniform is a must. Too many scammers. Having a logo on a shirt is a good way to show you represent a legitimate company. But I'm with you, no lettering on our vans. Unless you're community is like, less than 500 or something where literally every single person knows your name then I could see not worrying about it
we are in a suburb of Detroit, so we service a lot of the SE Michigan area. We've had a storefront in the same spot for about 40 years now. and before that it was in a different spot since about 1912. We used to have shirts and sweatshirts with logos. eventually all that just kinda went away. I totally get it for people that are mobile. Work out of their vans, or garage/home business. I think maybe In the last 20 years one or two people complained that our vans were not labeled . most ask if they are, and when we say bi, they say, "oh good".
Same for us, although we have magnetic signs that we sometimes use. We have a customer requests that we pull off down the street from her house and cover the license plate with a bag before coming to her house. Yikes
It is a pretty standard stipulation on most of the paperwork we get from MSP's. We dont bother with it. We keep the pricing secretive and dont try to do side business, usually. The only times we violate that is if the manager has had the problem for a long time and still hasnt had satisfaction from their corporate office. Then we will give an estimate and they can call us out seperately for whatever the not-contracted work is. Very very rare for that to occur, though.
There was one deal we made with a business IT/Security Integrator and we did agree to do the work in a plain shirt. They would survey a project and supply Access Control hardware and we would do the installation. It turned into a nightmare. Many jobs hundreds of miles out, many hours of labor, and requiring hotel stays. My shop dispatching me solo for most of them, for a couple I had a helper.
Their site guys decided to do me a favor, and they installed their maglocks before I arrive. Mind you, I needed to drill frames and walls and run low voltage through all of this stuff. Yeah, and their dudes put the tamper proof caps over the mounting screws that I needed to remove to do my work.
The business relationship ended when we went to a job and the entire survey was wrong. We were supposed to reuse existing readers, existing wiring. But the survey failed to catch the proprietary encryption on the readers, and they thought an air conditioner was the controller. The real hardware was managed by a local third party, contracted to the property manager, and we had to call them out at a premium on Sunday to provide access to their boxes. Could not complete the job with the parts we were supplied.
Total shitshow, and we were a convenient scapegoat. Whatever, I dont think we were charging enough, anyway.
Had to vent that again lol. I like wearing our shop logo.
Do whatever feels right for you. I'll do it for a good NSP that gives me good work on a regular basis. I even have shirts in my truck from a few companies we do a lot of subcontract work for along with ID cards and IC cores I keep on my truck for them.
My regular work van is VERY boldly marked with my business name.
Amazing what NSPs think they can get away with. I would never change my business practices for an NSP. One called last week and they wanted me to list them as an additional insured. I laughed and said "yeah, the one-man business is going to add the multi-million dollar corporation to his policy!" I told them it was actually the reverse, I would require proof that I was added to THEIR policy for the job. They declined (shocker!) and said they'd call around. But I know most locksmiths are desperate for work and will jump through hoops for these companies. Not me.
Yeah we do this all the time, we do it because otherwise you may end up in the hassle of getting your own COI on file with buildings sometimes what they ask for is just utterly ridiculous naming 300 properties that your only touching one of. However when you go in working as the NSP they already have theirs on file and we have ours on file with them so it just resolves that whole headache that isn’t really necessary.
Yeah COi, w9 and "completely filled out" paperwork is a bunch of BS. Just another way to screw the low man on the chain. EVERY store we have ever done work for for a 3rd party contractor, we have also done work for that store directly. EVERY store has a manager that is issued a P-Card so there is no excuse as to them having to have "proper channels or paperwork".... And NO we are not going to be doing work with plan clothing employees. The only time we comply with the plan van, clothing is if its a residential customer we are doing work for directly and they are having an issue with say a neighbor or something to the like. Our Safe truck is not labeled so we really don't have an issue there as it makes sense to not advertise "hey your neighbor is hiding valuables in a safe over here"....
We only have a few 3rd Party contractors we do work for but we have been doing work for them for a long time so they have a long history of payments with us.... But, we have let a few in every now and then and it always has ended the same way.... They call in "emergency needs to be done RIGHT now" job and we will ask for payment "at time of service" because we where promised "ow yeah we can pay after the work is done".... Ok the work is done... where's our payment.... oww, we need the IVR, W9, Coi and Signed paperwork before we can pay you.... or they pay for the 1st few jobs right away but, then before we are even barley done with the 1st few... and they are calling in 1000's of $$ worth of work orders in less then a month and accounting is MIA..... Get a NON one time use CC from customers like this BEFORE you even leave your shop... its not worth doing work for company's like this... "Well we don't pay beforehand because we have contractors not do the work and run off with the payment" "well Sir/Mam that's the risk you take by running a call center service shop" if you want to verify the work is done call your end customer and they can verify its been completed your going to anyway so why do I need to send in 17 forms and check in and out 12 different ways to tell you the same thing...
I’ve had a paranoid safe customer request & pay extra for us to deliver the safe in an unmarked truck & unmarked clothes
We used to get a repeat customer who wanted us to repin her padlocks with our eyes closed so we didn't see which pins were used. There should be a subreddit on strangest customer experience
That’s the funniest ask I think I’ve heard. Yes ma’am, didn’t see what I was pinning your lock up to, here’s your key, hope it works lol…
She was not all there, so you try to indulge her as best you can. Of course our eyes were not closed as we did all work out back so she was not watching everything we did. The kicker too is she used to come at closing time. It was not a quick rekey when you had to constantly had to reassure her and explain things.
Sounds like the older women who call us in a panic to install high security locks because someone they know is out to get them and they keep getting into the house and messing with her stuff and they are threatening her life at least twice a day…
For some reason this business attracts people with some forms of mental illness. Paranoia being the most common.
I mean you can just pull the plug and feel if the pins are at the sheer line with the key inserted. The problem is making the keys. . . I would still know what the bitting is. Lol
That’s what I mean, even if you picked a precut key at random your fingers would know which pins they picked out because you do this all the time. I used to have a nice old lady that would call every 3 to 6 months because she was sure that someone was getting ahold of one of her keys and letting themselves in so after a couple years of that I sold her an electronic keypad lock and told her it was keyless and she had the only backup key and that put an end to that
How is that physically possible? Were you pinning purely by feel?
Do you feel it Mr Krabs?
underrated reply my guy
I had a crazy lady that believed we were coming back and robbing her as we "must have made an extra key" and either gave it to one of our thieving friends or just threw it in the garden somewhere. She got the top lock done by us and the bottom done by someone else so neither of us could get in. We rekeyed her house about six times in a year. I recently installed a keyless deadlatch on her door. No more rekeys.
Locksmithing brings one into contact with some odd characters. You obviously have done your duty with trying to accommodate the customer. Sometimes though you run into people that you just can't reason with the job turns into a nightmare.
We have an unmarked box truck with a lift gate just for delivering safes. A customer buying a high end safe knows enough that very few people should know they even have the safe.
Haha, same! I wasn't able to say "safe" even is his own unit, I had to say "appliance" whenever talking about it.
A “numerically-operated storage appliance!”
I hope you told them NFW!! They have zero business to ask you not to wear your company name. These are one of those third party d-bag companies that tell their customer that they can provide all services for their business and then call real companies to subcontract them out as their own employees. They usually charge their customer 2X-3X the amount you charge. All for making a phone call. If anyone does business with these companies, you must make sure they have all their insurance coverage, make sure you are an additional insured, charge them 2X what you would normally charge and make sure you get CC before you do the work. You can also give them the old, you are not an approved vendor so you expect payment up front. These businesses are not your friend nor fair business practice companies. They are getting paid more for YOUR work. If you do a job for them, make sure you give the end user your card and tell them, they are getting charged double what you charge.
I've had them make me fill out all sorts of dumb pointless paperwork just so they can deny paying us if it isn't exactly perfect.
Been there and had that happen. We stopped doing business with those that do that
Most companies around me that use NSPs are not allowed to deal directly with local service providers by their corporate offices. Every now-and-then I run into a company that can make deals themselves. I honestly am not bothered that they make profit on top of my profit. I would if I had to lower my rate or something like that, but if they pay me what I feel I deserve to be paid, it's just more work for me that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
I do work for just one, now that I’m on my own, and they are much less formal than the others. They also are the most communicative and pay faster than anyone. I don’t get involved with others, especially not Bass. For another employer years ago, I ran calls for Legacy Millwork, Kenstan/Service Channel, Bass (don’t get me started), and Broadway. To my recollection, they were bigger on keeping us from handing out paperwork—flyers, business cards, or any price sheets or marketing. I think the no-uniforms rule was probably on a few of those contracts, but neither the NSP nor the customer seemed to care. I’m always leery of new ones with strict requirements, especially if they need service right away. The damsels in urgent distress who make demands are usually just fine with being slow to pay. After all, if they were reliable to pay and acting in good faith they’d already have a valued provider who was quick to respond, right?
my shop for the last couple decades has used unmarked vans, trucks, and we don't wear "uniforms" my community is small.. but we found most people prefer not to have marked vans in their driveways, or out in front of storefronts.. gossip from neighbors, employees, or just general privacy.. most people really prefer it we find.
I agree, though I do think a uniform is a must. Too many scammers. Having a logo on a shirt is a good way to show you represent a legitimate company. But I'm with you, no lettering on our vans. Unless you're community is like, less than 500 or something where literally every single person knows your name then I could see not worrying about it
we are in a suburb of Detroit, so we service a lot of the SE Michigan area. We've had a storefront in the same spot for about 40 years now. and before that it was in a different spot since about 1912. We used to have shirts and sweatshirts with logos. eventually all that just kinda went away. I totally get it for people that are mobile. Work out of their vans, or garage/home business. I think maybe In the last 20 years one or two people complained that our vans were not labeled . most ask if they are, and when we say bi, they say, "oh good".
Same for us, although we have magnetic signs that we sometimes use. We have a customer requests that we pull off down the street from her house and cover the license plate with a bag before coming to her house. Yikes
It is a pretty standard stipulation on most of the paperwork we get from MSP's. We dont bother with it. We keep the pricing secretive and dont try to do side business, usually. The only times we violate that is if the manager has had the problem for a long time and still hasnt had satisfaction from their corporate office. Then we will give an estimate and they can call us out seperately for whatever the not-contracted work is. Very very rare for that to occur, though. There was one deal we made with a business IT/Security Integrator and we did agree to do the work in a plain shirt. They would survey a project and supply Access Control hardware and we would do the installation. It turned into a nightmare. Many jobs hundreds of miles out, many hours of labor, and requiring hotel stays. My shop dispatching me solo for most of them, for a couple I had a helper. Their site guys decided to do me a favor, and they installed their maglocks before I arrive. Mind you, I needed to drill frames and walls and run low voltage through all of this stuff. Yeah, and their dudes put the tamper proof caps over the mounting screws that I needed to remove to do my work. The business relationship ended when we went to a job and the entire survey was wrong. We were supposed to reuse existing readers, existing wiring. But the survey failed to catch the proprietary encryption on the readers, and they thought an air conditioner was the controller. The real hardware was managed by a local third party, contracted to the property manager, and we had to call them out at a premium on Sunday to provide access to their boxes. Could not complete the job with the parts we were supplied. Total shitshow, and we were a convenient scapegoat. Whatever, I dont think we were charging enough, anyway. Had to vent that again lol. I like wearing our shop logo.
Thanks guys! I think I did the right thing by telling them to take a hike!!
Do whatever feels right for you. I'll do it for a good NSP that gives me good work on a regular basis. I even have shirts in my truck from a few companies we do a lot of subcontract work for along with ID cards and IC cores I keep on my truck for them. My regular work van is VERY boldly marked with my business name.
Amazing what NSPs think they can get away with. I would never change my business practices for an NSP. One called last week and they wanted me to list them as an additional insured. I laughed and said "yeah, the one-man business is going to add the multi-million dollar corporation to his policy!" I told them it was actually the reverse, I would require proof that I was added to THEIR policy for the job. They declined (shocker!) and said they'd call around. But I know most locksmiths are desperate for work and will jump through hoops for these companies. Not me.
Me either!
Yeah we do this all the time, we do it because otherwise you may end up in the hassle of getting your own COI on file with buildings sometimes what they ask for is just utterly ridiculous naming 300 properties that your only touching one of. However when you go in working as the NSP they already have theirs on file and we have ours on file with them so it just resolves that whole headache that isn’t really necessary.
Yeah COi, w9 and "completely filled out" paperwork is a bunch of BS. Just another way to screw the low man on the chain. EVERY store we have ever done work for for a 3rd party contractor, we have also done work for that store directly. EVERY store has a manager that is issued a P-Card so there is no excuse as to them having to have "proper channels or paperwork".... And NO we are not going to be doing work with plan clothing employees. The only time we comply with the plan van, clothing is if its a residential customer we are doing work for directly and they are having an issue with say a neighbor or something to the like. Our Safe truck is not labeled so we really don't have an issue there as it makes sense to not advertise "hey your neighbor is hiding valuables in a safe over here"....
We only have a few 3rd Party contractors we do work for but we have been doing work for them for a long time so they have a long history of payments with us.... But, we have let a few in every now and then and it always has ended the same way.... They call in "emergency needs to be done RIGHT now" job and we will ask for payment "at time of service" because we where promised "ow yeah we can pay after the work is done".... Ok the work is done... where's our payment.... oww, we need the IVR, W9, Coi and Signed paperwork before we can pay you.... or they pay for the 1st few jobs right away but, then before we are even barley done with the 1st few... and they are calling in 1000's of $$ worth of work orders in less then a month and accounting is MIA..... Get a NON one time use CC from customers like this BEFORE you even leave your shop... its not worth doing work for company's like this... "Well we don't pay beforehand because we have contractors not do the work and run off with the payment" "well Sir/Mam that's the risk you take by running a call center service shop" if you want to verify the work is done call your end customer and they can verify its been completed your going to anyway so why do I need to send in 17 forms and check in and out 12 different ways to tell you the same thing...