Sussex Installations' director 'Jeff Scott' on BBC South East today, warning Ford Transit owners about lock pick tools

When BBC journalist Colin Campbell became a victim of someone breaking into his van, he embarked on a mission to warn other Ford van owners just how vulnerable their vans are to be broken into using lock picking keys; which are easily available on the internet.

Colin's online research had led him to find us here at Sussex Installations and he contacted me (Jeff) to see if I'd be willing to participate in the feature. So of course I agreed as we here at Sussex Installations know just how many Ford Transit owners fall victim to theft from Transits or theft of Transits every week. The problem is that all the wrong people know about this lock pick key, but there are so many Ford Transit owners who still do not know about it.

I went with Colin to a few local places in Eastbourne, where we were on the hunt for Ford Transit owners that were with their vehicles. We found a few of them and then asked the owners to see if they would like us to show them how their vans could be broken into without any damage using the lock pick that is readily available. Some owners were not interested and I was only able to pick around half of the ones that were interested as I actually had only tried the lock pick 2-3 times before out of curiosity and was not practiced in using it. However I was able to unlock some of the vans and those owners were shocked at just how easy it could be done and they were very glad that it had been myself and the BBC making them aware of the problem and not them finding their van emptied out one morning by thieves (which is how most van owners seem to learn about it). In fact one of the van owners came by the following morning to purchase one of our replacement locks as he hadn't been able to sleep the night before!