Gateway Locksmith

If there was a way to give these people NEGATIVE STARS, I would.
Their operators and technicians are incomprehensibly stupid. Couple that fact with their unreasonable expensiveness, and you end up paying a lot of money for keys that do not work.
Sunday evening I call a locksmith and say, «I need you to send a guy out to my car and change the ignition switch in my car. You may need to change the cylinders or gut the whole thing.» He says, «Ok, tomorrow between 10 and 2, and it will be $ 140.00.»
Sat out in my car in freezing temperatures for 5.5 hours waiting for the locksmith to come work on my car. I waited and waited and waited. The guy finally shows up at 3:30, fiddles around, makes a new key and tells me that he cannot fix the problem, which is GO FIGURE that I need a new ignition switch. That will be 140 dollars, please.
I said, «I told your operator what I needed and he said 140 bucks.»
«Well, you need a new ignition lock. I can order the part and come back Wednesday. For parts and labor it will be $ 400.»
I called my mechanic, and he gave me the price of 250, plus a 75 dollar tow.
The locksmith began to get impatient with me while I talked on the phone to the mechanic. He made some remark, and that led to a cursing tirade. If he was never insecure about his physical appearance BEFORE we met, I hope that is the thing he remembers most from our meeting even more than the 140 bucks he ripped me off.
Kids, don’t ever call Gateway Locksmiths.

Won’t use ‘em — now or ever.
Why?
* As detailed in Dee S.‘s review, this place is extremely
unprofessional, unethical and inefficient.
* Subsequently a 4-​star review for Gateway was posted by a
«Frederic N.» on 1/​21, claiming Dee failed to get her facts
straight (providing no corroboration for that assertion).
* Also on 1/​21, «Frederic» posted a 1-​star review for Johnson
Locksmith (whom Dee had praised for finally fixing her
locksmith issue). Made inappropriate and juevenile slams
at both Johnson Locksmith and Dee.
Let’s see: who to believe?
a) Dee S. — an esteemed Unilocaler, who earned Elite status in ’05,
’06 and ’07 and who has written 900+ reviews, or…
b) «Frederic N.» — who popped up on Unilocal yesterday, sans
picture or biographical info, and whose two other cursory
reviews for gentlemens clubs also bespeak of a juevenile
mentality.
Yup, gonna have to go with Dee. «Frederic,» take your ass hattery elsewhere. Zero stars for you.

First Review — One Star: We were recently locked out of our condo and in desperation, just started calling down the Yellow Pages and somehow, came across Gateway.
One locksmith came and charged us $ 80 — he said that for an additional $ 60, he would replace the cylinder that he drilled through. (It was only supposed to be a cylinder replacement) so we paid him an additional $ 20 for him to come back that very day and would pay him the remaining $ 40 when he came back to fix it. We waited for him to come back — he never did.
So, the next day, I called the locksmith company and they sent another guy to come out to take a look at it. This guy showed up and spent two hours at my place. He then informed me that the first locksmith drilled into the lock and should have just drilled into the cylinder. He took out the lock and handle and then, he proceded to sit at my kitchen counter trying to look up prices of the lock to give me an estimate. I spent $ 50 for this guy to take out my lock, look up stuff on the internet, and then, put my lock (still damaged) back into my door.
Then, the next day, he called me and quoted me at $ 300 to replace my lock (he says that the first guy — from the same company — drilled too far into the cylinder and damaged the lock so the whole thing needs to be replaced). Confused, I asked why were we at fault and have to pay for the whole lock to be replaced when it was their company at fault since they’re the ones who drilled past the cylinder.
When I asked the guy to break down the $ 300 — he said that $ 220 was for supplies and $ 80 was for his time plus the $ 50 to send him out there so he was actually requesting $ 350 (I got frustrated because we paid $ 20 extra originally for the guy to come back that day and I paid $ 50 the last time he was here to sit at my kitchen counter surfing the internet for two hours supposedly looking up parts so he could give me a quote but he couldn’t come up with a quote)
To make matters even worse, he had taken my copy of that lock’s key and he had my key. When I requested that he either drop it off or mail it, he gave me some grief about it. I finally requested that he mail it and requested certification with it. Three days later, I still hadn’t received the key and when I called him, he said that he still hadn’t mailed it. I asked him about the certification and he said that was too much work for him to do. Finally, we ended up driving half an hour out of our way to go and get my key. The only good thing is that he gave us good directions to the McDonald’s to pick up my key. (We have now changed our locks however)
Side note — I looked them up on the BBB (Better Business Bureau) and there were 10 complaints (soon to be 11 with my recent letter) and 8 of them were unresolved because they couldn’t actually find a real office for this locksmith company.
*EDIT: I waited a whole week to simmer down and after writing a letter of complaint to both the main office and the BBB, I gave them one more chance and I called their office asking to speak to a manager because maybe, they are unaware of this sort of thing happening. The manager I spoke to — Sabino, was very polite and understanding. He definately handled the whole situation very well and will be refunding me the $ 49 for the last visit. I appreciate the efforts and applaud them for at least, the customer service that I received over the phone. For that, I will be upping this review to three stars hoping that what happened to me was a one time thing.
*Edit: After reading Frederic’s very biased review on how it was my fault that it was a delay getting my key back — I’m going back to my one star review. Here is his review «Dee W.‘s review is a very sad song, but she failed to get the facts straight. Reports say that she was actually cause of the delay in getting her key returned from the locksmith. Also, $ 50 for 2 hours of a locksmith’s time — that seems like a steal, not to mention the fact that he even went so far as to put the lock back in the door after identifying the parts needed for the repair. Sounds like a real first class guy! What’s his number? There are far too many discrepancies to list here, but don’t believe everything you read.»
This obvious employee or affiliate with Gateway then, proceeded to write very inappropriate reviews on Unilocal and insulted me — claiming that my picture of steak as my profile picture is genitalia and it offends him. He also posted very inappropriate reviews. Your attitude, actions, and immaturity are obviously very unprofessional and is a reflection of Gateway Locksmith.