"The Medway Handyman" wrote in
message . ..
Had a job booked in today, house divided into 3 flats. One of the
tenants has complained that another has stolen his mail, so the
(remote) landlord asked me to fit 3 exterior mailboxes.

The landlord obviously wanted each mailbox keyed individually, so he
gave me three Argos catalogue numbers for three entirely different
mailboxes. Didn't have time to get to Argos earlier & typically one box
was
discontinued, one was out of stock & one had a changed part number.

Finally managed to sort this out & bought three mailboxes each
completely different from each other. Different price, shape, size,
finish. Having been caught out by Argos before, I unpacked each one in
the
van before I drove away to check for missing bits.

Unbelievable. Any of the keys would open any mailbox.

Identity theft? Easy! If your chosen victim has an Argos mailbox. No
security whatsoever.

Are these people completely thick?

I suppose it rather depends on what they see the pupropse of the lock
being. A keyed-alike system will prevent access from the causal,
curious passer-by, which may be all they expect. It also has some
stocking advantages to them and would allow them to provide spare
keys easily, were they minded to do so. They should, however,
advertise the boxes as keyed-alike.
In France, you have to have a mailbox on the perimeter of the
property, so even the ones you buy in a shed have a high-security
lock.
Local security centre solved the problem. Three identical mailboxes
all with completely different keys.

I would have gone to a locksmith to start with.

I will next time.



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257