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| - I called Tri-Color to ask about pricing for a basic key change on the front door lock of a house I'd recently bought. The person who answered asked if I was bringing the lock in or if he was coming to me, and I suggested either could work. He told me it was $15 to change the lock if I brought it into the store, or $50 if he had to do it at the home. I then spoke it back to him as I contemplated it "hmm $15 or $50". I decided I would just bring the lock in. After removing the faceplate and mortise to the lock, I then realized I wasn't really sure how it came apart and I didn't want to spend the time so I stopped and called back and told the person that I started taking the lock out but wasn't certain how to do it and I'd prefer to just pay the $50 to have him do perform the key change onsite. He asked how many keys I wanted and I said 5 ($3 per key he quoted). I expected the total bill to be $50 for the lock change and $15 for the 5 keys, so $65.
When Joey showed up I showed him the lock and parts which we neatly lined up on the floor. I asked him if I made more work for him and he looked at what I'd done and said "no you were halfway there". I let him do his thing while I tended to other things. At some point I saw him playing with the lock mechanism on the floor and spraying oil onto it, which over-sprayed onto the floor (he didn't put anything under it). When Joey was done he wrote up the bill and said the total is $101.35. I was astonished. He was charging $50 to show up PLUS $15 to change the lock, $15 for the keys, and $20 to put the faceplate & mortise back in. I told him that I'd called in twice and inquired about the fees and was told it would be $15 OR $50, not both - I even spoke it back to the person on the phone. I also told him I thought the $20 assembly fee was ridiculous as I could have easily done that myself. I said I thought the total would be $65 and suggested we meet in the middle. He wouldn't budge and quickly became irritated. When I asked him why I'd been misquoted on the phone he said, "oh you must have been talking to John" as though he was already aware of the problem. He said they usually charge $40 to oil up a lock, but I never asked him to do that. If he was planning on charging for extra services he should have declared that from the beginning - I would have declined. I can spray oil on a lock myself and not get oil on the floor. Joey started playing the "I'm just an employee I can't do anything about the charges game." Not wanting to pay over $100 for a simple lock change I asked him to call his boss, and he walked out to his van for a while (I'm not sure if he actually called).
Joey came returned with a mean stride and told me if I didn't pay the full bill he would have to switch the lock back. He seemed quite angry and it felt more like a threat than a proposal. It was the end of the day so I wouldn't have been able to get anyone else in there that day so I told him fine, I'll pay the total, but would have to file a complaint about their company. At this point Joey became irate, he burst past me into my house and grabbed my old key off the banister and started jerking around with the door. He seemed ripe to break something. He said if I was going to leave any kind of bad review he'd come back and change my locks. I'm quite serious - he actually threatened to mess with my property if I took any such action (I assume this Yelp review counts). He was man-handling the door like he wanted to bust something and I immediately started trying to calm him down, telling him "no no, I'm writing the check right now, I'm not leaving any reviews, forget that". I was lying and pretending to be polite just to get him the hell out of my house without incident. I wrote him the check, smiled, watched him leave, and then called the police immediately about his threat to return to my property should I complain in any way. The same day I filed a complaint with the state attorney's office.
It baffles me that a locksmith would ever behave in such a way. Maybe Joey is a new employee, but threatening a customer like that is insane and I can't imagine ever trusting this company. If you quote someone a price you should stick to it. If you already know that someone in the office is giving out the wrong pricing information, you should still charge the price quoted. You should not tack on a charge for extra services without consulting the customer. You should definitely not threaten to return to a customer's house and mess with their locks should they issue complaint with your conduct.
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