I've recently had some real problems dealing with Pete Groh, the guy in
Maryland who sells and cuts old British car keys, and I'm wondering if anybody
else has run into a similar problem.
I bought a British Leyland key blank for my Spitfire from him at British Car
Day in Bowie, MD last month. I took it to several locksmiths who refused to
cut it because it was a steel key. Pete e-mailed me that his local hardware
store would cut a steel blank, or he could cut it by code if I had the numbers
available. I e-mailed him the numbers from my production record trace, and he
said those would work. I was thrilled at the prospect of having an original
British Leyland key cut to original spec, since the only key that came with the
Spitfire when I bought it was an old copy...how many
generations down I have no idea.
So I mailed him the steel blank, along with a copy of my copy to make sure that
the hand cut matched what I already had (just in case someone had replaced the
ignition somewhere in the car's history), and a note (as well as an e-mail)
saying not use my copy for duplication, since it was already several
generations down, and asking him to contact me if there was a
problem. If for some reason the codes didn't match, I would send him my better
original copy for copying at the hardware store.
A few days later the keys came back in the mail, and the key he cut fit fine.
So I e-mailed him again asking him to cut me one more. He e-mailed me back
asking me to send that copy I sent the previous time so he could take it down
to the hardware store again and have another copy made. I was puzzled, since
he advertises cutting keys by code and I specifically said in the note and
e-mail not to use that copy I sent for making another copy at the hardware
store, so I asked him what happened. He e-mailed me saying that the British
Leyland blanks don't fit his key cutter so he had to take it to the hardware
store for copying.
There were nearly two dozen e-mails between us. Pete uses this bizarre e-mail
short-hand in which he writes in incomplete sentences, partial words, wrong
conjugations, bad mispellings and references back to things that he never said
in the first place. So it took me several e-mails before I could get an
intelligible answer to my questions about what type of key I had bought, and
whether he could cut it. But after all of these e-mails it was clear to him I
had a British Leyland key and he wanted my code numbers to cut
it. So I don't know why he didn't tell me he couldn't cut the key by hand
using the numbers in the first place, and why he says he cuts keys by code if
he knows full well that the British Leyland keys (and who knows how many other
types he sells) don't fit in his cutter.
Now he won't return any of my e-mails asking why he didn't tell me that he
couldn't cut that key by hand early on and why he didn't pay any attention to
my note and e-mail saying not to use that old copy for making a copy down at
the hardware store.
I feel like I've been scammed. He clearly advertises on his webite and his
paper literature that he CUTS KEYS BY CODE, and makes no mention of exceptions.
Has anyone else had a similar experience, i.e. having trouble communicating
with him in standard written English, and finding him misleading, evasive or
just plain negligent in his business practices. If you have a key from him,
are you sure you have what you paid for? And if you're planning on doing
business with him, be forewarned about these problems.
I'd appreciate any help with this.
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