LOCKSMITH TASK FORCE Minnesota’s Truth in Advertising Law Mike Foty, CPL, ARL, PLT, explains how he helped combat scammers in his state through legislation. moderate and answer questions. The basic premise of locksmiths attending the Scammer Meeting was that ALOA must do something to stop the scourge of the scammers. Aſter the complaining went on for some time, I stood up and asked a rhetorical A question: “Whose money are the scammers stealing?” I went on to say that scammers are stealing your business. The entire thing is a plague across the country. There is no question that these criminals are hurting legitimate businesses and — worst of all — hurting the citizens of communities across the country. The good guys need to take money away from the criminals. When they can no longer make the money they desire, they will stop bothering us and hurting our busi- nesses and the community. So, whose job is it to protect your business? It is your job. It is your business. Legally, you cannot do violent or criminal things against these scammers, but there is plenty you can do to protect your business. Rather than complaining about what the scammers were doing to us in Minnesota, we started to look for ways to combat these criminals. One of our members in our local ALOA Chapter, Vern of Minneapolis Lock, learned about a bill written by Buzz Anderson of the Minnesota Retailers Association at the request of the floral industry. The floral industry was having a serious problem with scammers just like locksmiths, plumbers, electricians and a whole host of other victims. I was asked to read it and try to insert locksmiths into this document. I then rewrote it to include locksmiths, but I was not totally satisfied with the result. My recommendation to the locksmiths and your local associations is to have a rela- tionship with your state representatives and senators. I gave the proposed document to my state representative for review. He called me back a few days later and asked me to review it again. This time, my rewrite looked better, but something was still missing. Driving down the freeway on my way to a service call, I heard a radio ad for a UPS remailing service. It hit me like a dropped key machine. This proposed bill was worthless; it didn’t have any teeth. So, I rewrote it again, and this time I put teeth in it and covered all bases. This proposed bill protected the locksmiths and the floral 42 KEYNOTES JULY/AUGUST 2018 t the 2017 ALOA Convention, once again the subject of scammers was discussed. The tone was anything but cordial or even helpful among many participants. Several were even accusing others in the room of being scammers. One person was becoming increasingly belligerent, but he gratefully calmed down aſter a few minutes. Barry Roberts tried to “So, whose job is it to protect your business? It is your job. It is your business.” industry. It gave us all the tools we need- ed to combat the scammers. This time, the proposed bill was sent to a Minnesota legislative office called The Revisor’s Office. This group rewrites proposals like mine and puts them into legislative language. The Revisor’s Office rewrote it to include all people hurt by the scammers. Usually, when the state gets their hands on a proposed bill, they wreck it. This time, they made this bill into a document that was better than what I had created. A few weeks later, it was passed in both houses with only a small hand- ful dissenting. The question is, will you do what is necessary to protect your business, or just complain about it while you go down the path of other failed businesses? It’s your business; do something about it now be- fore they hurt you so badly that you go out of business. WWW.ALOA.ORG
