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Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Vending Thieves - Your Silent Partener

Do you have silent parteners in your vending business? I know I have had silent parteners from time to time. Fortunately I figured it out pretty quickly and was able to stop them. How did I do this? I simply changed the locks on my machines.

Did you know (I sure didn't) that most vending manufacturing companies use a very small set of keys for the machines they sell. Of course they deny it - but then we all know that they are lying. While this is more of a problem with the gumball and bulk candy vending machines it is certainly not exclusive ti these machien either. Most companies have 4 - 8 keys and they "try" not sell other vendors in your area the same key. I say try because if they have more than 5 people buy machiens in your area you can be sure they aren't getting an entire new keyset created. Add to this the fact that so many people are buying and selling machines on eBay you can be sure that your "unique" key is anything but unique. Unfortunately, if you bought machines from: Vendstar (aka Multivend), North American Vending, Silent Sales Force Antares (aka Orion Corp or Natural Choice), Ultravend, and any number of other companies the key on your machine is NOT unique.

The first thing to understand is that your machine IS NOT as secure as you may think. Don't worry though the solution is simple. For about $10 a lock you can replace the lock/key for you current vending machines. If you have lots of vending machines this may be expensive but I can guarantee it is cheaping then having a "silent partener" stealing from you every month. Change you locks today and fire you silent partener.

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