Bike lock nightmare! One key for two gold standard £60 locks

butler_helen

Afternoon all,

We have two bikes, which to remain within their insurance agreements need Gold standard locks, which I have dutifully purchased. However, the two locks, purchased from Halfords in different cities in different years by two different people (me and OH) open and lock with the same key! :eek:

After many emails to Halfords, [EMAIL="service@magnumlocks.com"]service@magnumlocks.com[/EMAIL] (the address on the key fob with the lock) and the Magnum site (http://www.magnum.ws/helpdesk/index.php), I am now at my wits end. Halfords say it isn't their problem because I bought both locks more than a year ago and Magnum simply don't reply. I've emailed trading standards and am awaiting a response but I'm inpatient and would love some impartial thoughts

Obviously I've tried this key with other lesser standard Magnum models and it does indeed work with them too... magic you might think - I have a master key! :rotfl: but I don't know who else has a master key too. :eek:

Any ideas what I can do? Ideally I'd like a refund on both locks and I will get the same standard locks from elsewhere but for now I'd settle for a replacement or just a reply!

thanks in advance for any suggestions.

(I can't just write the locks off, they're £60ish each... too much to simply bin).

clever_username

are all individual locks unique though? for example if a manufacturer makes 100,000 padlocks does this mean that everyone of of those can only be opened by the matching key, or do they just make a certain number of batches of matching locks and keys?

if this is how this is done then it's probably just a highly unlikely coincidence that you've managed to buy two locks that can be opened by the same key.

Bobbysocks

Not that it helps - (sorry) I locked myself out of my landrover once, so I borrowed my colleagues keys and surprise suprise they let me in. You'd be amazed how common this is.

Bob.

shaun_from_Africa

I've had a look at the "sold secure" website, (who seem to be the company responsible for the system) and there doesn't appear to be any standard for the number of keys or key combinations to differentiate between the 3 tiers of lock standard.

All the Bronze, Silver and Gold standard are for is for how long the individual lock will last against someone trying to force it.

http://www.soldsecure.com/about/

As CU stated, you may just have been lucky/unlucky in getting 2 locks with very similar or identical locks.

pulliptears

Bobbysocks wrote: »

Not that it helps - (sorry) I locked myself out of my landrover once, so I borrowed my colleagues keys and surprise suprise they let me in. You'd be amazed how common this is.

Bob.

I recall taking my Morris Minor to a show a few years ago and managing to move a friends Mog to the other end of the field with my keys while he was in the loo Got him worried for a while hehe

butler_helen

Yes, the gold standard means a theif has to spend longer trying to relieve me of my bike, rather than being a 'better lock'. However, I was thinking that perhaps the silver/bronze levels would be a different locking mechanism and thus the key wouldn't work.

I will talk to Halfords again, see if they have a non-muppet on duty in store or manning their emails!

Hmmmm cars with transferable keys seems more dodgy!

pulliptears

butler_helen wrote: »

Hmmmm cars with transferable keys seems more dodgy!

I think it was more the done thing back then, certainly with the Mogs they all seemed to have interchangeable keys, but car crime wasn't as prevalent then I suppose.

Trying to get on topic again, it does seem ridiculous that the locks share a key. Have you tried taking your key down to Halfords and trying the other locks to see how widespread this is?

butler_helen

pulliptears wrote: »

I think it was more the done thing back then, certainly with the Mogs they all seemed to have interchangeable keys, but car crime wasn't as prevalent then I suppose.

Trying to get on topic again, it does seem ridiculous that the locks share a key. Have you tried taking your key down to Halfords and trying the other locks to see how widespread this is?

OMG that's a GENIUS idea! ... I shall be doing that next weekend... I can see me having some fun... perhaps I could unlock the bikes on the forecort and say I will continue to do so until they replace or refund my locks?... I need to sit back and plot this out.

clever_username

not sure if it's that ridiculous to be honest. locking nuts for alloy wheels for example only have a certain number of different types, so if you had one particular 'key' and a hundred cars fitted with that brand of nut chances are you could take the wheels off say five of them or something.

chances are the bike locks we're talking about here are the same way. for every hundred locks probably not a hundred different keys, perhaps there are only fifty different keys for example.

i think the op is just the victim of a very unlikely coincidence where they've bought the same brand of lock miles apart and at different times that happen to have come out of the same batch.

hartcjhart

clever_username wrote: »

not sure if it's that ridiculous to be honest. locking nuts for alloy wheels for example only have a certain number of different types, so if you had one particular 'key' and a hundred cars fitted with that brand of nut chances are you could take the wheels off say five of them or something.

chances are the bike locks we're talking about here are the same way. for every hundred locks probably not a hundred different keys, perhaps there are only fifty different keys for example.

i think the op is just the victim of a very unlikely coincidence where they've bought the same brand of lock miles apart and at different times that happen to have come out of the same batch.

yes as you say,maybe the company have a policy of dispatching locks with the same key format to different areas to try to avoid this happening,perhaps had she bought 2 locally there would be no problem

butler_helen

hartcjhart wrote: »

yes as you say,maybe the company have a policy of dispatching locks with the same key format to different areas to try to avoid this happening,perhaps had she bought 2 locally there would be no problem

So assuming this is true, there should be a process for dealing with it? One would have thought that Halford wouls 'oh and ahhhh' and give me a replacement set of locks which don't mix and match keys...

anyone think I have any chance of them doing that?