I remember the days when I used to get angry at predatory businesses. Those businesses that decided rather than operating an honest establishment and providing a true service to their customers; they would look for any opportunity they could find to rip their customers off under the belief that these consumers were not powerful enough to damage their credibility. Oh, how I love you internet!

Let’s start this saga from the beginning. About a week ago, I purchased a very slick Lexus ES 300 from a dealer in Chapel Hill. Yeah, the game’s been good to me. But not that good. There was a minor problem with the purchase in the fact that the dealer was not in possession of the original keyless entry remotes that should have come with the vehicle. Usually, I would’ve demanded this problem to be rectified prior to the purchase, but the dealer was willing to play ball on the purchase price, so I agreed to eat the cost of replacing the remotes.

I first looked to a Lexus dealership to replace the remote, but their $450 price tag on the new key & programming made eBay a much better option. It cost me about $80 bucks to replace the key (the keyless entry controls are built into the key itself) and the merchant sent programming instructions, that initially scared the shit out of me, but actually worked and it only took me about 5 minutes to program the thing. I was relieved that I had just saved myself a couple hundred bucks and figured the hard part was out of the way. Wrong.

Although, the keyless entry system was now working, I still had to get the key cut. For some reason, Lexus decided to make this process very difficult, by inserting the grooves to their keys inside the metal frame as you can see in the picture above. I called around to Wal-Mart and a couple of other places I knew to handle key duplication, who all told me that they didn’t have the technology to perform that sort of duplication and I would have to find a locksmith.

Finding a locksmith to handle the task was a bit harder than I thought, but I finally talked to a nice old scumbag guy, who recommended Marshall’s Locksmith in Raleigh. I looked them up, found their website and was even able to submit my information online and receive a price quote from them before making the trip out there.

They quickly responded letting me know they could handle the job for $35. Not bad, although still more than I wanted to pay to get a fucking key duplicated.

So I finally make the trip out there today and explained what needed to be done. The inbreed guy behind the counter informed me that they could handle the job…for $125. I gave the guy a cockeyed glare and let him know I was quoted $35 for the job. He was obviously disappointed by the news and began to try to convince me that simply cutting the key may not work because “it may have a transponder chip”, which would require the car to be hooked up to a computer and programmed. Hence the word may in the previous quote, as at this point he was definitely not certain that this would be an issue.

It didn’t make sense to me that the key would need any sort of extra programming, as it was clear that my car was already accepting whatever radio frequency this remote was emitting. I told him I’d take my chances on just having the thing cut.

Clearly disappointed that I wasn’t buying his bullshit, he takes my keys and proceeds with the duplication. This process literally took less than 2 minutes. Not even enough time for me to update my Twitter status about this adventure.

He returns with my newly cut key, rings me up for $35, which he certainly deserved for all that labor he put into this job. Then as he hands me my receipt, he confidently informs me that they will be happy to handle the programming of the transponder when I “decide” to have it done. If this guy had not been about 3 times my size, I would have tried to stab him in the eye with the key right there on the spot. I knew before I got to my car that this key wasn’t going to work and so did he.

And, of course, it didn’t. I’m still not sold on the idea that a transponder has anything to do with this, as the key definitely seemed to fit awkwardly in the ignition and for all I know the guy used some secret locksmith trick to ensure that the thing would come close, but not start the car. Frankly, I don’t care. My problem is that this guy knew from the time I explained the job, what it would entail and I’m confident that he didn’t learn anything new between the time I walked in and after he had processed my payment that would allow him to predict that simply cutting the key would not work.

Rather than spend any more time on this stupid process, I’m cutting my losses and will just shave the non-working key down to function as a keyless entry remote (which is all I wanted to begin with) and continue using the key I’ve got.

As for Marshall’s Locksmith, I’m happy to use my secret search engine optimization tricks to ensure that anytime a customer looks them up, they will not fall prey to their deceptive business practices.

Thanks Marshall’s Locksmith! It was a pleasure being ripped off by doing business with you…