Austin Lightspeed Locksmith Are Crooks Thievery through intimidation - DO NOT USE THEM! Austin Texas

    Let me start by saying, DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!  My wife and I had just moved into our new home and wanted to get the locks rekeyed for peace of mind. My wife looked online, found this company and contacted them. She wasgreeted on the phone by a woman that explained to her that there was a $15 service fee to come to the house and rekeying the locks started at $12.95 per lock, but could go up based on the type of locks.  This was reasonable, so she asked when they were available, and the woman said immediately. 

   Approximately 20 minutes later someone arrived at the house to rekey the 2 locks. He looked at the locks, told my wife they would be $15 each, but then informed her there would be a $55 service charge. He was already inside of our home and proceeded to come at her in a way that put my wife in a state of fear. He jammed the invoice at her and told her she needed to sign it! He completely invaded her area of comfort and literally scared her into signing the invoice.  She immediately called me and told me what was happening.  I told her to stay on the phone with me, and he backed off when he realized she was talking with her husband. 

   At this point he grabbed a tool, spent less than 1 minute at each lock and then a little less forcefully came at my wife again. He handed her the 2 keys and tore off the carbon copy of the invoice and went on his way.  She was frightened, and I was thankful he had left.  I told her to lock the door and we would get the house rekeyed again.  I contacted Austin Lightspeed Locksmith and asked to speak with someone regarding a recent service call, the woman on the phone said no one was available at the moment and would have someone call me back. Surprise, surprise, no return call.  I called again the next day, and again no one was available. This time I was a little more insistent on someone calling me back, the woman on the phone said I would get a call within 20 minutes.

   Almost 4 hours later I actually received a return call, but as I suspected from all of the other actions by this horrible company, it wouldn't do any good. What transpired next I would not have believed it I wasn't the one on the phone.  The individual that was calling me introduced himself as the manager, no name, just the manager and was rude from the get go.  He asked who I was and was my invoice number was, then said 'What do you want?' I started to explain that when my wife called she was not told of any "extra" service charges except that the $12.95 per lock might be higher.  Once I got to the extra $55 charge he cut me off.  He asked how she had paid for the service, and if she had signed the invoice. I said she paid with a debit carD and yes, she signed the invoice. At this point I'm thinking he has had this complaint before and was going to refund the money. That was not the case... He laughed and said 'I've got the money and you can't do anything about it? She signed the invoice, so you can't even dispute it!' I was in shock, did he just laugh??? 

   It got even worse, I asked if there was someone else I could speak with, he said, 'No.' I asked if there was an owner of the company, he said yes but wouldn't be available for 3 weeks. Again I asked if there was someone else to talk to and his response was, 'I'm the only person you can talk to and I'm not got to do anything.' I explained to him why my wife signed, his employee's intimidation of my wife, and he laughed again.  He reiterated that he has my money and won't do anything for me.  I asked if he was licensed and bonded, he said yes, so i asked who hiis bonding company was.  He said, 'I'm not telling you anything.' I got upset and threatened to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.  Who said do what you want, I've got your money.  I asked him where he was located, his response was, 'India.' I said excuse me, where are you located? Again he replied, 'India. You can file all the complaints you want, you won't get anything from me.' 

   I thought if I explained to him that I was trying to dispute the whole charge, and that I was even willing to pay up to $50 total he would be reasonable.  Not a chance, he laughed at me again and that was all I could take.  I told him was going to dispute the charge and file a complaint, and he hung up on me.  I've filed the dispute over the extra $55, filed a complaint with BBB, and now I'm writing this.  I am hoping there is a government agency that oversees locksmiths, but I doubt it.  If anyone knows of another place to file a complaint for an Austin based company, please reply to this post and let me know.  Also, if anyone knows of any review sites I can post on, please reply to this post.  

   In all, I feel like this is a cartoon version of the mafia, except my wife was the one who was frightened and intimidated because of Austin Lightspeed Locksmith. DO NOT USE THEM!  

http://austinlightspeedlocksmith.com