Complaint Review: Champion-Locksmith

 We are a Property Management company, and one of our guests staying in one of our properties contacted us that they have been locked out of the property, on December 9, 2014. Our regular locksmith was not able to come soon enough, we proceeded to call a locksmith listed that would service our area. They were senior citizens, and since this company, Champion-Locksmith.com was able to come sooner than our locksmith, we proceeded to arrange the service.

We specified the payment will come from us, the property manager, using credit card to keep a trail for records. We were quoted $44 ($29 plus $15), and that they would to give us a call when locksmith arrived to provide the credit card information over the phone. When the locksmith called and quoted $450, we told the locksmith that this was 10 times the amount we were told, and that we needed to contact Champion-Locksmith for an explanation of this huge discrepancy, as the locksmith was not cooperating in explaining and justifying how it went from $44 to $450. We called and they said a supervisor needed to call us back regarding this. They never called, and several attempts to reach a supervisor were unsuccessful. Payment was to be dealt through us, the property manager, as representative of the owner, not the guests.

These senior citizens did not have a car at that moment and did not have this amount of money on them, and the locksmith demanded that he will take them to an ATM machine to get cash. They felt intimidated and scared. This is what the locksmith threatened and told our guests:

"I will drive you to an ATM machine to get the money and if you don't get it, I am going to call the police!"

He proceeded and drove them to an ATM machine and collected a payment of $370, which apparently was a discounted price for cash payment. These senior citizens were very scared of what happened to them, were intimidated, and were taken to an ATM machine to withdraw money. They were both shaken up and caused one of them to have a dangerous spike of blood pressure from this awful, intimidating, and scary incident. 

We attempted to contact champion-locksmith.com several times. At one time, we were on hold for about half an hour, and at another time, we were told that in order to reach a supervisor regarding this incident, we needed to submit an online request. The request for under “Contact Us” does not work. The “submit "botton" does not work and it’s not functional. Several further phone calls attempts did not work. They do not have an email address, as I requested it to send a written email, and not a verbal complaint.

Their actions caused undue stress to our guests, and jeopardized our guests’ health and peace of mind. They felt intimidated, scared, and shaken up by the result of this very disturbing incident. It is clear that they took advantage of vulnerable senior citizens and put them at risk.

I will also be contacting FTC, Florida Attorney General, and BBB. But, in the meantime, this company needs to be reported as fraududent.