I mostly lurk here, since I don't have any expertise to add, but you've graciously helped me a couple of times in the past.
I have a gripe, but want to check it out before I fly off the handle. Well, too late, I was pretty p.o.'d yesterday, but maybe you can explain this one.
My wife took a Sears X-Cargo car top carrier to a well recommended local locksmith. We'd bought it used from a friend, they'd lost the key. He charged $100 to cut a key - the carrier itself is about $100 new. This seems outrageous to me. The lock has a four digit code (3201) stamped on it, isn't it just a matter of looking up the manufacturer's code and cutting it? I expect a locksmith the have to charge more than the $1.50 at the hardware store <grin> but this seemed a bit out of line. They kept it two days, said something about trying different keys between other jobs.
I would have thought they would have advised my wife it wasn't cost effective to fix it. I do admit she didn't request an estimate and I have no legal recourse, but this certainly built some bad faith with one local merchant for me.
Yeah, I tried to buy a new lock from Sears, tried their customer service, their parts line, their email assistance. No luck. If I know the exact part number they can look it up, if I don't there is no known way in the universe to solve it. I bet it's a $10 lock though.
Sorry to gripe on and on. If I'd know up front what it would cost I'd have put a $3.00 padlock hasp on it and been done with it. But maybe I'm out of line, and it really does take this amount of effort to work on one, and I'll apologize.