A1 24 Locksmith Services

Long story short, I called A1 24 Locksmith Services because I hadn’t used a particular side-​door to my garage in many years and while I was able to get the door unlocked after trying for a ½ hour on my own and using half a can of wd-​40, I couldn’t get it to lock again. So, I called A1.
I should have known something wasn’t quite right when they answered my call with a brusk «hello?» instead of any sort of professional greeting. They got a technician to come over in about ½ hour, which was good, but he proceeded to quote me $ 210 to change the lock cylinder. I don’t call locksmiths often and don’t really have a frame of reference, but it seemed like a pretty outrageous price to me when I could have called a handyman and gotten a brand new lock installed all for probably less than $ 150. Anyway, I said, «There’s no way I’m paying $ 210». After some friendly back and forth, he said, «let me make a call and see if I can do better». He then pretended to make a call and came back with a price of $ 160, to which I reluctantly agreed. It was Sunday afternoon and I needed that door to lock and didn’t want to waste a lot more time on it. So, he replaced the cylinder .the whole job probably took 15 minutes. I wasn’t even a brand name cylinder. Oh well, at least it works.
The other thing I want to mention is that I got the impression that A1 isn’t a locksmith, but more of a dispatch place that takes calls, and then calls a locksmith and takes a cut. I could be wrong on this, but… I don’t think so. Anyway, they did an «ok» job, but the whole transaction left me feeling a little dirty.