Pop-A-Lock

Especially in the Durham/​Chapel Hill area, it seemed as though some of the locksmiths were rather rude and costly. Pop-​A-​Lock was the exception. They were cheap, efficient, and good! The key works, the service was great, and the entire process from call to key took less than an hour. Mike, specifically, was who I had. He was friendly, willing to come down a little on the price, and an all-​around good personality. Great service, will make sure to use them again should I need to!

It was nearly midnight when my family discovered that we had all managed to leave the house without a single house key. I called another local locksmith who never returned my call. Pop-​A-​Lock said they would be there within 45 minutes and they were. It turns out we have a difficult lock but they still managed to get us inside within 15 minutes. The man who showed up was very kind and gracious even though I am certain I pulled him out of bed.

So the other morning I accidentally lock my car keys in my car for oh, about the millionth time ever, and I had somewhere I really needed to be. I jumped on my smartphone and googled «locked out of my car raleigh nc» (or similar) and chose Pop-​A-​Lock at random from the search results.
I called just to make sure they were available to come help me and that they didn’t charge more than the standard $ 50 to let me back in my car. The dispatcher said the locksmith would be in touch with me shortly and I hung up, with pretty low expectations. I figured I’d wait about 20 minutes and if I hadn’t heard anything, I’d call someone else.
Less than 10 minutes later, my phone rang. It was the locksmith verifying my location. He said he would be there in «ten minutes or less». I’m totally expecting this to be like a cabby’s version of «ten minutes», meaning up to 30 but no less than 10 minutes, but sure enough, about 8 minutes later, the van pulled up and he called to let me know he’d arrived.
We chatted as he worked to get my door unlocked and I mentioned that I would be paying cash, as I didn’t want my husband to know I’d locked my keys inside AGAIN, and he asked if I didn’t have a spare key. I told him we’d gotten two keys when we bought the car (the fob keys with the remote lock/​panic button etc), but we’d lost one years ago, and it was $ 80 to replace.
Turns out they have a key machine in the back of the van. SMART MOVE. Maybe other locksmiths have this service as well, but I’ve never had one mention it… perhaps they’re worried about losing repeat business? In any case, for another $ 10 and less than 5 minutes, I now have a key that won’t turn my engine on, but will at least let me open the door to get my real key out in the event this happens again.
And I think we all know it will.
As happy as I was with my service from Pop-​A-​Lock, here’s hoping I won’t need them again now that I have my shiny new spare key!