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Beware of Pete Groh's British car keys

To: <autojumble@autox.team.net>, <british-cars@autox.team.net>,
Subject: Beware of Pete Groh's British car keys
From: StuCohen@aol.com
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 18:09:28 EDT
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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