In March 2025 Google sued an operator of fake business listings and removed more than 10,000 of them, naming locksmiths and towing as the categories targeted because people search for them under duress. A house lockout runs about $75 to $200 before the trip fee is added. The number quoted to you on the phone and the number charged at your door are frequently not the same number at all.
| Service | Typical |
|---|---|
| House lockoutNational range | $75 to $200 per job |
| Car key replacementNational range | $60 to $500 per key |
| Document shredding, mobile on-siteNational range | $130 to $175 per project of 1 to 10 boxes |
Ranges last checked September 2026. They come down automatically when they are due to be rechecked.
Every figure above comes from a named source we can link to, with the date we last checked it. We publish ranges rather than single prices because a range is what a provider will actually give you: the same job moves with what is being worked on, the materials, how hard it is to get at and how busy the trade is locally. Treat these as the order of magnitude to expect before you call, not as a quote.
The figures here are national. Where a source publishes figures state by state, the state pages carry that local figure instead of this one. We do not scale a national number by a multiplier of our own invention.
Every range carries a review date. When that date passes the number comes down until it is rechecked, rather than sitting here undated.
On 19 March 2025 Google sued an operator inside an international network for creating and selling fake business profiles on Google Maps, and removed more than ten thousand illegitimate listings. Google's own term for the categories targeted is duress verticals, meaning services people need urgently and cannot shop around for. The two it named are locksmiths and towing.
Two mechanics were in use. Fake listings placed in front of people searching for a local service, and calls to real businesses intercepted and routed through lead-generation services to the operators. Once connected, the price demanded ran well above the phone quote. The same network sold fake positive reviews to bury genuine negative ones.
This is why a locksmith listing is worth verifying rather than assuming. It is also why the phone number matters: a local address, a marked vehicle and a technician who will show identification are the checks that a search result cannot give you.
The pattern consumer bodies describe is consistent. A low price is quoted on the phone, usually hedged with an and up. A subcontractor arrives and charges a multiple of it. The technical tell is method: the technician insists on drilling the lock rather than picking it, which forces a hardware replacement sale on top of the labor. Payment pressure completes it, with cash or debit demanded and credit cards refused, because a card payment can be charged back.
None of that requires a dishonest trade. Most locksmiths pick the lock, quote in writing and take a card. It requires knowing which one you called.
There is no federal locksmith license. Two independent surveys give the same list of states that require one: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Virginia. New York City, Nassau County in New York, and Miami-Dade and Hillsborough counties in Florida license separately at the local level. Nebraska and Tennessee repealed their requirements in 2021.
So asking for a license is a sensible question in thirteen states and a meaningless one in the rest. Where no license exists, the checks that remain are a local business address, insurance, a written estimate before work starts, and identification on arrival. Each state page on this directory answers the licensing question for that state; this page deliberately does not, because the answer is not national.
Two things separate a shredding vendor. The first is the certificate of destruction, which mobile and off-site services include and drop-off shredding does not. If the shredding exists to satisfy a legal disposal obligation, the cheapest option does not produce the document that obligation needs.
The second is certification. NAID AAA, administered by i-SIGMA, audits secure processes, chain of custody and employee background screening, and the audit program includes unannounced reviews as well as scheduled ones. That last detail is the whole point: a certificate of destruction from an unaudited vendor is a piece of paper with nothing behind it.
The FTC Disposal Rule, in force since 1 June 2005, applies to anyone who uses consumer reports for business purposes. The FTC's own list includes lenders, insurers, employers, landlords, mortgage brokers, auto dealers, attorneys, private investigators, debt collectors and any individual who pulls a credit report on a prospective employee or tenant. It requires disposal practices reasonable and appropriate to prevent unauthorized access, and names burning, pulverizing or shredding papers so the information cannot be read or reconstructed, and destroying or erasing electronic media to the same standard.
The rule expressly permits hiring a destruction contractor, and it tells the hiring business to do the diligence: review audits, check references, verify trade association certification and evaluate the contractor's security policies. That is a federal instruction to check the certification, which is a stronger reason to ask about it than any vendor's own marketing.
Find the locksmith before the emergency. The FTC's advice on this has not changed since 2008 and is still the single most useful thing on the subject: research one the way you would a plumber or an electrician, then put the number in your phone. Nobody makes a good decision standing on their own doorstep at midnight.
Ask where the business physically is, and whether the person answering is at that address. A local street address, a marked vehicle and a technician who shows identification are the difference between a shop and a dispatch center.
Get the total in writing before work starts, and ask specifically whether the trip fee is included in it or added to it. That one question resolves most of the gap between the phone quote and the invoice.
Ask whether the lock will be picked or drilled, and what happens to the price if it is drilled. A technician who reaches for a drill first is choosing the more expensive outcome.
On shredding, ask for the certificate of destruction and for the NAID AAA certification number, and ask whether the audit behind it is scheduled or unannounced.
About $75 to $200 for the job, with a trip or service call fee of roughly $35 to $100 often charged on top. Angi reports most homeowners paying $107 to $242 in total, and after-hours call-outs sitting above that.
That is the documented pattern in this trade. A call center quotes low, dispatches a subcontractor, and the subcontractor charges a multiple. Google removed more than 10,000 fake listings in March 2025 and named locksmiths as a targeted category.
Ask for a street address and whether the person on the phone is at it. Look for a marked vehicle, identification on arrival, a written total before work starts, and a business that takes a credit card.
In thirteen states: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Virginia. There is no federal license, and in the other thirty-seven states there is no state one either.
Published guides disagree by roughly threefold on this and none of them explains why, so no range is published here. Ask for the per-cylinder price and the trip fee separately, and ask what the second and third lock cost once the technician is already there.
Mobile on-site shredding runs about $130 to $175 for a one to ten box project, and off-site about $110 to $130. Drop-off is $1.00 to $1.50 a pound but does not include a certificate of destruction.