Alarm New England

The experience has been great. I had no issues. The tech itself works really well. I liked how it was connected to my iPhone app. The installation process was really smooth. The crew who installed was quick. They were friendly, nice, and easy to work with.

As far as alarm service they seemed to be okay.  The day we set up the alarm the police came twice because they had not cancelled the service when the previous owners moved, but the alarm worked and the police came quickly.  The product worked as it should.  The biggest problem I have was that when we signed up we were very clear that we only intended to live in RI for 2 years.  However, when I went to cancel the contract was surpised to find out that we had been signed up for a 3 year contract.  My fault for not reading the fine print and for trusting the sales person, but very disappointed to be taken advantage of and having to pay 75% of the remainder of the contract.  Was also told by the person in accounting that he was on our side and would do everything in his power to keep us from having to pay that total and then never heard from him again.  Good product, but beware the sale pitch and customer service.

I called Alarm New England after we accidently set off our alarm system and received and "FC," or failed communication, message on the main control panel. We had changed our phone service provider a few months earlier and I did call to notify Alarm New England at the time of the phone change, but the customer service representative never recommended to me I check communication of my system with their central station.
When I called after setting off the alarm, I was told I could have had the phone service provider call Alarm New England while they were installing my new system to be walked through the steps of connecting my alarm system with the central station, but now I would have to pay $90 for the first half an hour to have an alarm technician come to my house. It would be $20 for each additional 15 minutes. After complaining that I had been paying for a monthly monitoring service for several months when my system was not communicating with the central station, I was told that the failed communication must have happened just recently because Alarm New England checks communication with all their customers on a weekly basis and notifys them of failed communication. Since my alarm had gone off on accident more than a week prior to my phone call to the company, I questioned this service. Then it was determined since I was a former HB Alarm customer (Alarm New England acquired HB Alarm last fall), I did not have this weekly communication test. I was told my system was capable of communicating with the central station on a weekly basis, but a technician had to come to my house to do something to my system to make it happen. It would have made sense for Alarm New England to contact all former HB Alarm customers and requested they schedule a service call to have their system communication tested on a weekly basis, if they truly were concerned about their newly acquired customers, but I never received such communication. Alarm New England did agreed to waive the service call fee and said the service technician would do something to make my system communicate on a weekly basis with Alarm New England.
The service technician arrived 15 minutes early for the scheduled service call, which was very much appreciated since I had to go to work. After changing my system to dial the area code in order to communicate with the central station, doing whatever he needed to do to have my system be checked weekly for communication with the central station and making a test call, it was determined that my system was broken and had possibly been struck by lightning in the storms on July 2012. I was told I would receive a phone call from a sales representative about getting a new main control panel. It was four days before I received a call from a sales representative and then a week after the service call, I received an invoice for the service call for $110, after I was told I would not be charged for the service call. On the invoice, it tells me to test my system monthly, but since I do not receive a bill each month, rather my credit card is simply charged, this is the first time I have received this recommendation. I have been a customer of HB Alarm, now Alarm New England, since 2004 and I will be cancelling my monthly monitoring service. Their monitoring service has been reasonable, but their customer service leaves a lot to be desired.