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“Dishonest and Unprofessional”

written by on 09/02/2015

Unfortunately, I locked myself out of my house on Sat 7-2-15 and contacted Able Group as they appeared first on the search engine.
The website claimed, no call out charge and attendance would be no longer than 60 to 90 minutes etc.

I rang the mobile number at 1319hrs and was informed that there was a local locksmith available who would be with me within 60 to 90 minutes.This turned out to be incorrect as I found out over 2 hours later.

Ater 90 minutes of standing outside my house in the freezing cold, I recontacted the company only to be told that they would contact the locksmith for an eta and ring me back. They also said that infact they allow 2hrs for attendance due to traffic. I informed them
that their advert was therefore misleading! I was told that the 2 hr limit would be reached by 1320hrs.

After a further 30 minutes, with still no sign of the locksmith and no returned call with an eta,I rang again at 1518hrs.

I was put on hold whilst they contacted the locksmith and was then told that he was 20 minutes away. By this point I was extremely cold and said I had little confidence in what they were telling me and I wished to cancel my request. I was told " Well you have waited this long, what is another 20 minutes" !
Angry as I was, I agreed to wait a further 20 minutes if they would give me a discount. They agreed to a 10% discount.

At 1537 hrs, the company rang me to say the locksmith was having difficulty locating my house so I stood on the main road outside my house and waved in the private estate car that appeared to be searching for my house. It was not a company vehicle and only had a " Lock Smith" logo on the side of the car.

It took the Lock smith less than 2minutes to gain entry as it was a simple yale type lock.

I explained to him how long I had been waiting and although apologetic, he informed me that he only received the callout at 1500 hrs ( 1hr 40 mins after my initial call ).

He completed the paperwork for me to sign. He had written that work started at 1520 hrs ( yet at 1537 hrs the company rang me to say he could not find the house ). So in effect he had started work 17 minutes before he arrived! How dishonest !
He wrote that work was completed at 1545hrs which was correct.

When I pointed out the error regarding the time on the paperwork he just shrugged his shoulders. Being a female on my own, I did not feel comfortable challenging this any further, but I felt it was obviously a conscious time management fraud for his own benefit.

Each time I rang the company, not one of the people who answered, stated the name of the company, and only one of them gave me their name. They were indifferent to the fact that I had no where to keep warm, as I had no neighbours and could not gain access to my car. Just imagine if I had been a vunerable person !

All in all, I will never use this company again. Such a shame that I did not see the reviews first but being locked outside in February, it was not top of my priorities. I assumed, wrongly, that recommended Companies would be at the top of the search engine results.

Hey Ho... Lesson learnt. Just need to write a review on Google Plus now.
I do hope that someone reads this review BEFORE calling Able Group.