Alexandria Baldino's Lock & Key in Alexandria, VA Open now

Reviews about Alexandria Baldino's Lock & Key

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  May 10, 2019, by J J
  STAY AWAY FROM THIS CON JOB BUSINESS! I will give you my whole story. Last weekend my front door stopped locking from outside. I stopped by Baldino's on Duke and Picket Street and ask them to send someone over to take a look at it. A few hours later a technician showed up. Without even taking the assembly out of the door he diagnosed in less than 5 minutes that it was broken beyond repair. The only solution would be a replacement. Since this was a lot more than I expected, I asked him if he could install a deadbolt lock above the existing locking system and just leave the broken one as it was. The answer was NO. And the reason was, according to him, that in order to install a deadbolt he would need, in writing, an authorization from the Fire Marshall. I need to remind everyone that we are talking about a residential building and this is the front door to my unit; I could not understand why the Fire Marshall would care at all how i Iock the entrance to my apartment. He charged me the $99 visit fee and left me his contact information in case I wanted to order the $1300+ piece of hardware. I was in a situation where I needed the thing fixed so I almost believed the con man. I decided to do a little research before falling for this con job. I live in a building that has 12 units per floor (18 floors total). First I walked around my floor and noticed that 3 (including me) out of 12 units did not have the extra deadbolt installed. I than walked around other floors and noticed that the ratio was almost the same (3 or 4 out of twelve did not have the extra deadbolt). I then came back to my floor and knocked my next door neighbor's door (she had an extra deadbolt installed). I told her my story and then asked her how I would go about getting the Fire Marshall's approval and how long it took for her. She laughed and said she didn't have to get approval from anybody. This was her front door and she did whatever she wanted with it. I knocked the neighbor across the hall from me and the answer was the same. Out of diligence, I decided to go to the main office downstairs and ask them the same question. Again, the same answer: I don't need Fire Marshall approval; just call a locksmith and they are allowed to do it. I called the con man back and relayed to him what I have found out from the neighbors and the main office. He insisted the he could not do it because that would put his license and his company license in jeopardy. At this point I was convinced that all he wanted me to do was buy the hardware from him. The next day I called someone else. The technician showed up and I explained to him that I need a deadbolt installed because the original lock was broken beyond repair. He asked me if he could take a look at it and said yes. Fifteen minutes later he calls me up and shows me what the problem was. He did what I would expect a serious technician would do: he took the whole assembly out of the door and examined it. The problem was one spring inside the assembly that was broken and could be easily replaced, he told me. One simple spring. After he finished, I asked him if could install an extra deadbolt just in case the one he fixed stopped working again. Yes, he said. He then proceeded to install the new deadbolt and a little over an hour later I had both the main lock fixed and a deadbolt installed. Bottom of line, I was conned out of $99 by Baldino's and all they wanted me to do was to buy an expensive hardware from them. I guess from their business point of view it works just fine: they come over, give you, in 5 minutes, a BS story, attempt to sell you stuff, charge you $99, and walk away (if they are lucky, you panic and call back to order the expensive part; if you don't call back, they made $99 in 5 minutes). From the customer point of view is a loose-loose situation: I flushed $99 down the toillet in less then 5 minutes, almost bought something that I did not need, and had to call someone else to do the job.