Heartland Security

I would never recommend them.  I had turned them over to the Better Business Bureau and they just wrote a better story.  I still have all the repair work on the walls.  They'll think I didn't think about getting a metallic sticker and put it on my car and drive it around and bad mouth them.  Mr. Jamie Benson is the owner.  They are the most unprofessional people I have ever worked with in my life.  Had I really had my wits about me, I would have looked them up on Angie's List.  I never even thought about Angie's List.  My husband had died and everybody insisted that I get a security system.  They were recommended by my insurance company because they had just done for a house.  I thought that I didn't want one more person in my house that knows that my husband is dead so I didn't get another bid which was my fault.  The young rep came in and said that they could go wireless in my house and I was going to have the glass breaks here and there and that's going to be up to the installer.  I said that I was okay as long as I don't have anything showing.  I had to work and I had a friend here at the house.  The guy showed up and he walked around my house for probably 45 minutes trying to figure out how to install my system.  I've got a stupid box in my ceiling in my living room and in my kitchen and I came to find out that I didn't have nearness to glass breaks and that won't even cover if they break into the glass.  Nothing will trigger until they are already in my house.  It won't even cover my dining room and I don't think it's going to cover my sunroom.  They just put in a base unit and they just wanted the sale.  He was here for almost 5 hours and when I came home that night I said that was okay and wanted the key panel.  They were going to make my key panel out by the back door and I said I had to come all the way down the stairs just to alarm it.  I asked him to put it in my bedroom and he said that he couldn't do that.  I walk into my utility room and I have the most awful huge box above my door in the utility room.  He has run wires down my wall and stapled them to my wall and he was going to leave it like that.  I said that I want it to be moved.  I called the kid that sold me the equipment, he came out and he called the manager and said that he's got to come out here and look at what had happened.  I called Jamie and said that his installers are coming out on Friday because I was going out of town and he can't come back until the 15th of May.  My contractors were here in May and they had to repair all the walls.  They had to repair all my sheetrocking where he had drilled out the holes.  My daughter was getting married and we were out of town.  I came back and said that he needs to come here because I'll be there and I'll take a look at that.  His installer came back out and he was here for almost 10 hours.  He cut my carpet, he moved it upstairs upon my request and left all the holes in the walls, did all the work and instead of putting the alarm a little below sensors on my door so that I don't see when I open and close the door, he wobbled on the side of my door and when I open the door I see that stupid white knob.  He left the mess, screwed up my back door and I had to have the contractors fix all the wood work.  He split my door back here.  It was so bad and I called Jamie and asked where he was the previous day when his installer was here.  He said that he was at the airport.  It said that it was a huge mistake.  He didn't contact me and he never tried to make things right.  I contacted my lawyer and he asked me to stop payment on the automatic withdrawal and that cost me another $30 to stop that.  I then heard from Jamie when he got a letter from my lawyer.  He showed up at my door when I was at work and my friend told him that I was at work and if he wanted to talk to me, he needs to call.  I was so mad at that point that I didn't want to talk to him.  There wasn't anything that he could have done at that point to make me happy.  I contacted the BBB, not quite a year later as I thought I would report them.  They said that they had made their specifications and they let me out of the contract.  They didn't let me out of the crap; I was the one that cancelled payment on the modern trade system.  He never notified me and he never did anything.  They were horrible.  I would have never felt so used in all my life.

When I needed to call Heartland to let them know that I had a house sitter, I was unable to contact them because their phones were down. In order to avoid trouble(all my emergency friends were out of town) I left the country telling the sitter not to set the alarm. At my next opportunity I switched to Brinks but discovered that Heartland would not release me from my contract for two more years. I notified the company that I had dropped their service. This contract was finally up March of '08 but the payments continued to be taken from my checking account. I had called Heartland to be sure that I was no longer a customer and I was assured that I wasn't. I finally spoke with the payment agency and was told that in the fine print of my contract I should have notified them one month prior to March of '08 in writing and I was now under contract for another year. Oh yes. I had gone to my credit union to stop payments but the payment company used a different name and my prior info to continue withdrawing from my account. Finally, with hours spent on the phone I think I am finally finished with it all. Also beware that it is up to you to see that your system is connected because I was informed that Heartland has no way of knowing that. It is your responsibility!!!!!

I had been using ADT for about 8 years until and was not completely satisfied until Heartland had bought them out. It was then that I realized that I was being charged too much before. Now that Heartland is running things the city licensing is included in the price where as before we had to pay that extra. I like it more now that they are local and I don't have to call a national toll free number and wait on hold to talk to someone.