My husband and I were looking for outdoor surveillance cameras and decided to go with ADT, our existing security company. A salesman came out to the house the end of November and quoted us a price of $2760 for the new equipment (to be paid over three subsequent months) and a monthly cost of $50.39 (up from $31.99). Install was supposed to be completed 12/5/13. Well, they showed up and worked all day, but did not complete the install. We had to wait another week, 12/12/13, for completion. On this day, they did not show up until after 12:30 pm, citing an office meeting as the reason. Needless to say, the install was not completed and the two technicians left without giving us a completion date and leaving us without any alarm that night. They assured us, however, that they could not come the next day. Lo and behold, next morning we get a garbled message from the salesman. I called him back and found out the techs were coming that day to complete the job. They were at our home all day, finally completing the install, not leaving until after 7 pm. Now the real fun began. I checked my credit card statement and found that we had been billed $893.34 on 12/9/13 for the first of the three installments, this was prior to the completion of the work. I didn't call about that, but check a few days later to find we had been billed another $893.34 on 12/13/13 and $31.99 (the cost of the original alarm monitoring). Now I call the company and am told that I had to call Broadview Security and cancel my old account and I should have my husband do this because they wouldn't talk to me since the alarm was in his name. My husband called the number they gave me and it was disconnected (of course, the company no longer existed, ADT had purchased them). So, we call ADT again and are told that two new accounts were created without cancelling the old one. We were assured this would be corrected and we would be credited the $893.34 since we had a contract stating three payments over three subsequent months. OK, hang up. Next day I check my credit card statement and find more charges, no credits and when all was said and done, we were now billed almost $6000 for a $2760 job. Now I call the salesman (the third time, actually) and he finally answers the phone and tells me he will get his office girl involved because she was good with straightening out billing problems. Wondering why they would need someone like this, I explain the whole situation and she assures me that she will have all the charges reversed and start over. Oh yeah, I forgot, while all this was going on, we received a paper bill for $1027.80 - couldn't even figure out what that was for. The office girl tells me to give it a week for all the charges to be fixed. Guess what, another charge was added on , bringing the grand total billed to approximately $6800.
Next thing you know, we cannot get online to access our PULSE account so I place another call and find out that I discontinued my service. Now, I don't even know if I have alarm coverage. Next call to ADT, I get put on hold for over ten minutes before I was disconnected. As this is so very frustrating, I waited another day before calling again and was told they couldn't help me if I wasn't at home but that it didn't "look" like I had service. That evening at home it took another 35-45 minutes to get someone on the phone who could actually get us back on line.
So, what have I learned from all of this? Not to be so quick to give an existing provider more business, that's for sure. Through all of this, the only bright spot was the two installation techs who worked their butts off in extreme cold to get our new equipment installed. Unfortunately, the job was not a one day install but that was the salesman's fault, the same salesman who washed his hands of us after he made the sale. I still have not gotten a call from him to see if the billing situation has been resolved. And we have gotten credit for all but the first installment of our payment (as well as two more paper bills), even though I was promised EVERYTHING would be credited and then billing would start over.
Am I looking for a new company to monitor our equipment, you bet I am. We signed a two year contract, but ADT did not keep up their end of the agreement, why should I?