Professional Locksmith

horrible business skills. nothing wrong with the actual work. but make sure to ask ahead of time as to their charges regardless if anything is wrong or not! I have learned my lesson.
found them online, as my entry door 1940′ mortise lock was not working properly. It is an older piece and hard to find replacement parts. That, I know. So I wanted a professional to look at it. I called asked if they dealt with the antiquated mortise locksets, in which they said yes, that there was a 15 $ charge for coming out. I said, ok and asked, «so its $ 15 to come out then we will assess what needs to be done and go from there?» he replied «yes thats correct.»
he arrived, and said, that to assess whats wrong, he needed to put the lock in the door, so he closed the cover on the mortise set. put it back into the door. and then was able to assess, and i witnessed, that there was nothing wrong with it. (aka .when you take your car to the shop and it stops making noise?)
the good bit –my door is working, as it was apparently before I called in a professional. nothing needed to be done. he then proceeded to write up a bill for 109 + 15. yes, thats $ 124 for 5 minutes and no mention of his fees ahead of time.
Unapologetic, and said that he ‘fixed’ my door that he was a professional and if i didnt need a professional then why did i call him? that is his rate for his services. I simply had asked to know ahead of time. i thought i had… but as there was nothing wrong and he was there all but 5 minutes, there was no convenient time to let me know that apparently… «Hey, there is nothing wrong but I’m going to charge you 109 anyway, is that cool with you?» Disgusted. I usually see this coming. with him i didnt. definitely professional in skill, but totally unfair charges given this particular situation.

professional locksmith is a terrible business. we called them on a saturday night and asked if they could help us with a broken key (we only had one key) to an old car. we had both parts of the key, and it was a clear break, just in half. they quoted us $ 99 over the phone, then when they called back they said it would be $ 120 because they were closed (didn’t they know that they were closed 10 mins ago when i called?) they sent a guy over and he took the only key we had, shoved it in the ignition, couldn’t get it out, then said he couldn’t fix it. what?
we went to a different lock smith and he said if he had both pieces, he would have been able to cut a key for us. now we have to have the whole ignition removed and replaced.
when i called to let the owner know what his guy did, he pretended not to understand what i was talking about and told me «bye, have a nice day»