Brooklyn Top Locksmith

Review: A representative from Brooklyn Top Locksmith came to my apartment to change the lock. When he first walked in, he stated that I would have to pay $200. My response was that $200 was an unreasonable amount. He then told me that I had clearly not worked with Top Locksmith before. I said that I had. In response, he then said that I could be charged $165, but would have to pay in cash. In less than 10 minutes, the locksmith changed the cylinder, and I paid him in cash. In addition to the fact that he did not provide me with a receipt, he also took the cylinder from my door.

After a friend saw the new cylinder that was put in, he said that not only was the cylinder not worth that amount of money that I was charged, but that the locksmith should not have taken the old cylinder. I called Top Locksmith on 8/**/14 and their response was that they could not control how much the locksmith charged and that they had nothing to do with it. However, they said that more complicated work that took a longer amount of time, would be more expensive. Since the locksmith changed the cylinder in a minimal amount to time, I didn't feel that I was charged a fair amount. I was told that they would check the invoice and call me back. Since they did not return my call that day, I called them on 8/**/14. No one had checked the invoice, but the customer service representative said that he would ask the locksmith that came to my apt to return the cylinder.

On Thursday, August **, I called the Locksmith company again. I was told by customer service that there was no manager on duty. I asked for the name of the person that I was speaking to, and he said his name was "[redacted]". He refused to give me his last name. In this conversation, he told me there was nothing he could do, and that I would have to call back and speak to a manager. After this conversation, I called back and asked for "[redacted]" to let him know that I would make a formal complaint against Top Locksmith if no one got back to me. I was told by the person who answered the phone that there were "many people working here," so she didn't know who "[redacted]" was; and she then proceeded to hang up on me. When I called back, I was placed on hold for more than 30 minutes. No one picked up my call.Desired Settlement: I would like the locksmith to return my cylinder.

Review: I contacted the business for a locksmith at 8:52am on October [redacted] to clip a simple lock at a [redacted] storage facility. On the phone, the woman quoted a price of $15 (which is the advertised price) PLUS a labor charge of $35 for a total of $50. I agreed to this price and was guaranteed that a locksmith would arrive in 15 minutes. At 9:46 am, the locksmith arrived at the storage facility. After looking at the lock, he said that it would cost $170 to cut the lock off. I told him that this was absurd and we called his office. Even his [redacted] said that this was a ridiculous price. So he asked to speak to the locksmith. Ultimately, the locksmith relented and said he could do it at a "fair price" of $100. I was pressed for time, so I allowed him to proceed. In the process of cutting the lock, he did not have all of the correct tools. He ended up cutting the door on the storage unit. When I refused to pay him until we spoke to the facility to make sure they would not charge me, he "assured" me that they would not charge me and tried to receive payment and leave. We finally tracked down a [redacted] who agreed not to charge me for the door. But I was also informed that the average rate was $65 for this service. I honored the verbal agreement but still feel taken advantage of by this shady business tactic. I thought I was going to save time, but TWO hours after starting the process, we finally finished what should have been a 5 minute job.Desired Settlement: The best possible outcome would be a refund of $35 as the differential for the shoddy service versus the standard service/fee.