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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