£2,209 for a lockout: what the reported cases actually look like

It is easy to read a warning about locksmith overcharging and assume it means being charged £250 instead of £150.

The reported cases are not that. They are an order of magnitude worse, and reading the actual figures is the fastest way to understand why the two minutes of checking is worth doing.

Everything below is drawn from reporting by the Master Locksmiths Association, the BBC and the local press. Nothing here is our own investigation, and every claim is attributed.

The numbers

£3,300 for a lockout. A single documented case.

£2,209, charged to a customer reported as Sarah, who found the firm through a sponsored advert claiming 4,500 five-star reviews.

£2,200 for a “baby lockout” — a parent locked out with an infant, in the one situation where nobody is in a position to shop around.

Ten to twenty times the advertised price. A BBC investigation found several cases at that multiple.

402 overcharging cases recorded by the MLA in 2025, up 66 percent on 2021.

A 147 percent rise in complaints in the first quarter of 2026 against the same period in 2025 — the sharpest quarterly spike on record.

Sit with the third one for a moment. A parent locked out with a baby is the least able customer to negotiate in the entire market, and the reported figure is £2,200. That tells you the pricing is not tracking the work. It is tracking your desperation.

The mechanism, in one sentence

The trade calls it the “49er”: a low-cost search advert, usually £39, £49 or £59, buys the visit. The real number arrives afterwards.

And the step that makes the number stick:

Firms deliberately escalate costs by drilling the lock, which leaves the property insecure and forces the customer to buy a replacement.

That is the whole trick. Once your lock is destroyed you cannot walk away, cannot get a second quote, and cannot leave your front door as it is. The drilling is not incompetence. It is the business model.

Most standard UK domestic locks can be opened without damage by someone competent. Full breakdown in how the scam works, step by step.

The newest variant: impersonating a real firm

This one is worth knowing about because the old advice does not fully catch it.

In February 2026, reporting in south-west London described rogue operators running bait-and-switch scams while impersonating long-established local traders — borrowing the name, the reputation and sometimes the review history of a genuine firm.

So “I checked and they have been trading for twenty years” is no longer, on its own, sufficient. You may have checked a real company and then rung somebody else entirely.

What defeats it:

• Find the number yourself, from the company’s own website or from the MLA directory — not from an advert at the top of a search page.
• Be sceptical of sponsored results. In the reported cases the entry point is very often a paid advert, not an organic result.
• Ask on the phone which company is attending, and whether they are subcontracting. Then check the van and the ID against that answer.
• Look at the review counts. “4,500 five-star reviews” for a local locksmith is not a reassurance, it is a warning. Genuine local firms have tens or hundreds of reviews, spread over years, with some lukewarm ones in the mix.

Why the police cannot simply stop it

Because locksmithing is not a licensed trade in the United Kingdom, and it is not even covered by the Private Security Industry Act 2001 — no SIA licence is required.

There is no licence to revoke, no register to be struck off, and no regulator with the power to shut a firm down for overcharging. Enforcement runs through general consumer law, Trading Standards and the Advertising Standards Authority, which is slower and requires people to report.

Which is precisely why reporting matters even when your own money is gone. See how to report an overcharging locksmith.

What the cases have in common

Read enough of them and the same five features appear:

1. The customer was in a hurry, at night, or with a child or animal involved.
2. The entry point was a paid search advert, not a firm they knew.
3. A low price was quoted — or a “from” price, or no total at all.
4. The lock was drilled, making the customer captive.
5. The final figure appeared after the work, on the doorstep, with pressure to pay immediately and in cash.

Break any single one of those and the sequence usually fails. That is genuinely the whole defence.

The two minutes that prevent it

• Get the total in writing, by text, before anyone travels — callout, labour, parts and VAT.
• Verify the firm on the MLA’s own directory, not from a logo or an advert.
• Ask whether they will open it without drilling, and ask again on the doorstep before tools come out.
• Pay by card. Never cash under pressure.

Or work down the checklist, and sanity-check any figure with the price check tool.

Sources

• Master Locksmiths Association — rogue locksmith scam reports up 66% since 2021
• South West Londoner — rogue locksmiths impersonating long-established traders
• MLA — are locksmiths licensed?

Figures as reported by the sources above and checked 27 August 2026. We have not independently verified individual cases, and we name no companies. If any figure here has been superseded, the source pages are the authority.