I needed a locksmith to do a rekey late at night as my keys had been stolen and I needed my house secured asap.
I hesitate to refer to this company or the guy he sent out as locksmiths at all. Just because you can work on a lock that doesnt make you a locksmith. What happened to me proves as much.
The first clue there was something strange going on is when the person who answered the phone at this "24 hour locksmith" asked me to call him back on his "personal line" when I called that number I was told to text my address to that number and that his tech would be back with me within the hour. This was at 11:30 at night.
When the tech got to my house at 2:30 am (after I had to call him back to get him there) he tells me a price of $130 per lock to rekey the 4 deadbolts I wanted rekeyed. This was after having been quoted $25 each by the first guy for the rekeying, classic bait and switch.
Being tired and now annoyed I told him to just do the job so I could go to bed. He proceeded to take my deadbolts off the doors and took them to his vehicle to rekey which he said would "take awhile". He came back in about 10 minutes telling me this was the fastest rekey he had ever done before telling me the bill was $600.!!
In the state of California all persons working as locksmiths are required to be licensed and if. doing jobs over $500 they must also have a contractors license, the numbers of both are required to be on any invoice and any business card as well as displayed on the vehicle used by the "locksmith". None of which the guy had.
Due to feeling uncomfortable about the job that was done, I had the deadbolts rekeyed by a licensed locksmith who told me the job should have cost no more than $ 250-300 even at that late hour, and as an added bonus he told me that the key cutting he rekeyed my locks to - 55452 was an extremely poor choice as it makes the lock more vulnerable to picking.
Using the proper way of rekeying you put deep cuts next to shallow cuts using an odd, even, odd or even, odd, even pattern, such as 58361 (which is what the licensed locksmith did).
So the guy that came out didnt even know what he was doing and charged me more than a licensed locksmith would have, or he knew that the way he did it was not the best way and did it like that on purpose, neither of which speaks highly of the "locksmith" or the locksmith that sent him out.
Bottom line avoid this locksmith and those he sends out as they are engaging in a known and illegal business practice, using google adsense to get themselves listed high in the search results, and employing unlicensed hacks with little to no way to hold them accountable should something go wrong, a proper locksmith will have (because its the law) his license number on his invoices and vehicle and if doing a job over 500 his contractors license number will be on those things as well.
I resent having to pay "some guy who isnt a locksmith" double what an actual licensed locksmith would (and did) have charged me and still had have to have the locks rekeyed because of the poor job done. (The guy also filed down the pins in one of the locks for some reason and re keyed them all the same When i specifically requested he key them differently)
Preying on peoples lack of knowledge using deception and scare tactics and lying to them is the type of service you may get from this company which presents itself as a "locksmith" and in the long run will cost you more money for the annoyance of being ripped off than the quality of the work justifies. read more