ADT - Service Problems

After seven months of trying to get ADT Protect You Home to understand that they owe me and my family for the lost of my things on July 13, 2011. They still will not understand that my home was burglarized on July 13, 2011 and that the crook had to have went into the front living room in order for my alarm to sound off. When I came home on July 13, 2011 I heard my alarm was going off and some kids outside were pointing it out to me that it was going off for 30 minutes. I do have some letters that I gotten from ADT claims. In those letters a man named Jeff **, was making up lies about the technician not finding nothing wrong, which is a lie by Jeff.

I have the work order from that technician and he stated that his workers did not hook the system up right and also they put in a weak/dead battery. I'm very mad about all this ADT not wanting to pay up. I will do what I can to shut them down and make them lose everything just like me and my family did because their employees didn't hook my system up right. I will fight till I'm happy and my family is too. If I have to call News 12 I will. If I have to write the different people who got the power to help me win I will.

Sensor failure on smoke detector generates a loud beeping every four hours. Service tech showed up, after four weeks, without the parts. Blamed it on Hurricane Irene. I made numerous calls to customer service. Their response was, "We will send an email to the center to get you expedited." Nothing came of that. They offered me one free month. I am canceling today going with another provide. The actual customer experience in terms of service delivery was awful. Under Brinks, my service was stellar. My recommendation would be to stay away from ADT.

In December 2010 I signed a three-year contract with Protect Your Home, a subsidiary of ADT, for a security system for my mother's farm house in eastern Washington. I had power of attorney for my mother and had to make all the arrangements from my home in Oregon, 450 miles from the farm. By September 30, 2011, the system had failed several times. The first time we contacted ADT, we had a wait of several days before a technician could come out and fix the system. Because we had to stay at the house with the alarm sounding, we finally got someone to talk us through disarming it until the technician could come.

The second time, the alarm malfunctioned the day before people were to start preparing for an estate auction at the house. The company couldn't get a technician out for four or five days, and there was no way we could ask the auction people to work at the house with the alarm blaring. Once again, we had to disarm it ourselves. At that point, because we cannot keep solving the alarm problem from 450 miles away, and because it is close to impossible to get a technician to the house in a timely manner, we left the system disconnected and I decided to try to get the remainder of my money back. After all, on behalf of the farm corporation, I had paid $3,546.23 for three years of service and was forced to drop the service after 10 months because it simply wasn't working for us.

In an attempt to get some money back, I have called both ADT and Protect Your Home. Again and again, each company tells me that I have to call the billing department of the other company. No one takes any responsibility. No one gets back to me. This isn't just bad customer relations; it's no customer relations at all. Ideally, I want part of my $3,546.23 back. However, I would be happy to start with some kind of contact from the company. I do not believe ADT is set up to handle security in remote places.

And I've certainly been warning other farmers about them. The company has seemed very short staffed from the start (I had to drive 40 miles in December 2010 to meet with the company rep who took my money, and ADT's technicians have an enormous area to cover). I think the logical next step, maybe the only one open to me, is to take this up with the Better Business Bureau.

First, my husband was given orders to deploy to Afghanistan for an 18 yr deployment so we decided to obtain the services of ADT as I travel 11 months our of the year. We live in a very rural area and had to obtain a phone number specifically for the ADT system. After his return, we tried to use the phone lines in the house and they did not work. We contacted AT&T, electricians, and ADT and no one was able to help us get this situation sorted out. Everyone is saying that the phone lines are not working and ADT is saying that they worked at "some point".

My alarm tripped at 3:00 in the morning. I went downstairs, entered the code, then it stopped. I got a sensor failure message. Several hours later, coming home from church, I learned the alarm went off again. I checked the sensor, the battery was good. I called ADT and was told the unit might be bad - and they would have a tech to check it out in about 6-8 weeks. That's a month and a half to two months - with my basement door unsecured, the door that is the most likely to be used to break into my home.

I asked the service person why I didn't get calls when the alarm tripped off in the middle of the night. She said that I hit the right code in a 'timely manner' - that would be about two minutes or so. That was certainly enough time for an armed intruder to force my wife to enter the code. Their response when I mentioned that - 'stop being ridiculous.' So, it is ridiculous to be concerned that I have an unsecured door and that they don't follow the protocols they claim to follow as part of their contractual service obligation? Meleleuca Security didn't think so.

The salesman ordered the wrong cameras for my home. I can't get him or his boss to call me back for a resolution of the problem. I plan to contact BBB of Michigan very soon if this matter is not resolved. I have paid for something that does not work for the application and willing to pay the additional cost if needed, but I need to be contacted.

I own a law office in Orlando, Florida and hired ADT to install equipment and monitor the alarm. The system constantly malfunctions, which results in someone calling the police. I was called at home on a Saturday by ADT and told that my alarm had gone off and the police had been called. Upon arrival, I discovered a false alarm due to faulty equipment. I called for repairs and was told that this service was not available on weekend. I was shocked when the customer service representative suggested he would talk me through deactivating the alarm.

The alarm kept going off, which was aggravating the neighbors who kept calling the police. I finally dismantled the speaker to avoid the constant noise that was disturbing my neighbors and called ADT with specific instruction not to call the police anymore.

I tried to use the ADT system for my business and had a dismal experience. Alarms didn't work. The system was a complete failure and I finally had to install my own cameras and hire security guards. ADT doesn't stand behind their sales data or their contract and still try to collect from those they dupe into signing their contract, sold by their salesmen.

ADT Security Systems is the worst company ever! I had them install a burglar alarm system in my business (medical office) a week ago. Since the technician left, my alarm is going off non-stop. I have called and emailed without any effective response. They have been lying and have been being rude to me. In the meantime, our patients and the whole office is suffering from this endless beeping throughout the office.

I received service for the first time in March 9, 2011.

Beginning in May, I began to have a false alarm go off on a regular basis. The worst time of all is in the middle of the night scaring me, waking me up and compromising my sleep. When I set the alarm, 95% of the time it won't let me set it without bypassing an area which defeats the security purpose. To try to get one night's uninterrupted sleep, I decided to not set the alarm and I get 3 beeps and ADT calling 3 times a day.

The technicians have been sent out with no solutions. I continue with this headache and paying for security for a defective system and ADT says there is nothing more they can do.

This is a horrible system.

We bought a house with an ADT system. Today, one of ADT's excuses for a technician came out to enable ADT monitoring. He left with our home business line disabled. We called ADT and were told it would be a week before they could come out and fix what they broke. Seven days of down time is of course not acceptable for a business line so we asked to be escalated to a manager. We were connected to someone who said his name was David and he was located in Florida. He was absolutely no help and acted like he could not care less about ADT having broken our business line. When we asked for his manager's name, he said he reported directly to John Koch, the president of ADT. Of course, we immediately understood that a night shift manager in charge of lack-of-customer-service reports directly to the president of the company. With liars like "David", dealing with paying customers Mr. Koch may want to start worrying about his company's results.

On 5/18/2011, I had problems with my power company that supplies my home. The lights were frying and blinking on and off. The lights were fixed but a lot of equipments were damaged because of the power surge. ADT equipment did not work after that and they still charged me a monthly charge. I called ADT to get the equipment fixed and the man who came out to fix the Simon XT said that he had to replace it and that it would cost me $850.00, plus the other equipment that I purchased would have to be replaced. I told him that I do not have $850.00 to replace the Simon XT. He stayed at my house for about five minutes and I was charged $104.00 for labor, $25.00 trip fee and tax of $11.61. He wrote down that my problem was caused by lightning and I never did tell him that I told him that it was a power surge. I was not offered a maintenance agreement when I purchased the equipment. I do not mind paying for something that I purchased, but if the equipment stops working because of something like a power surge, I do not think that I should be responsible for it.

We have had Brinks alarm system for over 15 years. We have recently found out that ADT either bought or merged with Brinks. We wanted to make a few minor changes to our system, so we called and had someone come to our home to go over the changes. We made our decision and arranged a technician to come and make the changes. When he arrived, the information he was given was different than what we wanted. So, he did not have the appropriate parts. We had to reschedule.

Now I understand, when you schedule with ADT, you get either a morning schedule, between 8:00 - 12:00 or afternoon schedule, between 12:00 - 5:00. When the second technician came and left, we realized that not all of the alarm was working. We called, set up another appointment. The third technician came, made the changes and left. After he left, we realized that he disconnected some other area of the alarm. We called, set up another appointment. The fourth technician came out and corrected the problem, but now we realize that he, too, disconnected another part of the alarm. This is our 5th appointment. We should have left the system as it was and never attempted to have any changes made. When I called this last time, the customer service person tried to blame it on the system, stating that you never know when an area can go out. This area she is referring to, was one of the new changes we had installed within the last 60 days. We hardly doubt that it would have gone out this quickly, since we have had the system over 15 years and this area she was referring to had never had a problem before ADT's technicians touched it.

ADT advertisement says, "Always there." In our experience, it certainly was.

We moved into a rented home. Our landlord previously had an ADT alarm system in the house. She contacted ADT to have the security system removed but ADT convinced her to leave it and have ADT install a new one in her new home. The ADT alarm beeped every time we entered our home, and then continued beeping every few minutes. Our landlord gave us the code to disarm it but It wouldn't stay disarmed. It turned itself on again with the incessant beeping. It was night after night of disarming the system again and again, and getting no sleep.

We phoned ADT. We explained that ADT had insisted that our landlord leave it behind and that it wouldn't stop beeping despite all efforts to silence it. ADT's customer service representative thought our problem was amusing, even funny! He explained that the unit beeped because it was no longer connected to ADT. ADT knew the equipment would relentlessly pester us until it was removed, reconnected or destroyed and they took no responsibility whatsoever for the aggravating situation they forced us into. Even our landlord was unable to get ADT resolve our situation.

When we suggested destroying the equipment, the service representative encouraged us to do so saying that the unit no longer belonged to our landlord and it no longer belonged to ADT. No one owns it so ADT felt no responsibility to service or remove the equipment. We were told to disconnect the battery to stop the beeping but we explained that the unit required a security code by an ADT technician to get the battery or the mounting screws. Then, he said that if we weren't able to disconnect the battery, we could just let it run down, which could take a long time

We rammed tissue into the speakers, wrapped it with towels and ripped out the speakers. However, everything we did just made things worse. Now, it was literally screaming in deafening decibels. Finally, I pried it off the wall, at which point, it became plain that the battery would never run down because it required cutting wires in the wall. Weeks later, ADT invited us to activate the system left behind, the one that they knew would make life absolute hell until re-activated or destroyed.

In our opinion, ADT doesn't care about anyone but its bottom line. Apparently, their equipment isn't worth the cost of a service call to remove it. Why trust a company that cares nothing about inconvenience it inflicts on the public?

Our ADT system short-circuited and we paid a technician $300 to fix it and replace the keypad. We went away for four days after he allegedly fixed the system only to discover when coming home at 1:00am from LA, that our keypad was not working and there was a small fire in the transformer. Furthermore, their customer service is horrible and waiting times are even worse.

What kind of company is this for security service? First, they give you first available appointments 4 days out which is ridiculous for a security company. You get better service for cable. Second, the technicians charge $120/hour which is unbelievable for a service technician, especially one that instead of fixing your problem, causes an incident that could have burned your house down. It is impossible to get through to someone with authority to credit your account for mistakes made by their company.

Don't go with this company if you actually want your home to be safe. They don't even call you if your battery runs out and your system shuts down. You have to tell them you want that option. The worst company ever.

The system was installed on July 2010 but beeps sounded in the middle of the night even with the system off. I had more than ten service calls over the past year, not including January through May, with no improvement. Woods, the local manager, was impossible to reach and when we did, he was rude and dismissive. He refuses to let us out of the contract and claims that there was no problem. I'm advising everyone to avoid this company.

We spent a lot of money on our home security system that worked for two days. We were told that the motion sensors wouldn't pick up our two small dogs, but they do. The external and internal cameras have never been online and I had to wait on hold for eleven minutes when I called in to report my system was offline. That may be acceptable for electronics but not for a security company.

Today, 8/15/11, I called ADT customer service to report a faulty smoke alarm. My alarm emitted a short burst alarm at 12:58 last evening (all was well). It happened again at 2:58 AM and 4:58 AM. The representative said either the unit is faulty, or it just isn't talking to the system (there was no alert on my panel).

I asked her to send a technician out. She said, "I can get a technician out to you on 8/23/11". I was flabbergasted and told her that was unacceptable. She replied that she could have a scheduling manager call me. I told her that would be great as I'm not planning to be awoken all night long for the next 8 days!

I notified my husband, who is currently away on business on what occurred. He checked with me later in the morning to see if I'd heard from ADT and I told him no. He called and was assured our service call had been placed on an elevated status. My husband called me at 5:32 PM to ask if anyone had called. The answer is no.

My husband called ADT again and this time was told, "No, we can't get a technician there before 8/23/11." Okay, fine, if I could yank the thing out of the ceiling myself I would do it and I would smash it into a million little pieces and mail it back to ADT. But, alas, I can't reach the silly thing. I have a maintenance service plan with ADT for all the good it's doing me.

At this point, I am resigned to no sleep for the next 8 days. As soon as ADT gets out here, they will be coming to remove all equipment as I will be going with a new company as soon as I can. ADT the no service company!

I called on 6/22/11 to find out what I needed to do to cancel my account at the end of the month. I was told I just needed to email my cancellation in writing and they gave me an email address.

On 7/1/11, I called to confirm that my service had been terminated. I was told my email was never received. Found out that I was given the wrong email address.

I promptly emailed the cancellation to the new email address I was given. I was assured that it would go through. When I called about a week later, I was told my email was never received. When I read back the email address I was given the second time, I was told that it was wrong again. By now, ADT had taken another payment.

I emailed my cancellation a third time to a different email address from the first two. I was assured on the phone that my account was canceled and that my email was merely perfunctory. When I called to confirm that my account has finally been canceled, I am told that my email was never received and my account is still active.

At this point, I asked to talk to a supervisor. All he could do was make excuses and frustrate me to no end. When I stated that I want my money refunded immediately, I was told that was not the policy (I had asked for my refund on the previous phone call and was again assured that it was put in the system). When I complained that ADT should be bending backwards to make me feel better after the circus I've been through, I was told that, as a business owner, I should appreciate their policies. Quite rudely I may say!

I answered that if I had screwed up with my customers the way that ADT had been screwing up with me, I would move heaven and earth to make that person happy. The supervisor blew me off like I was not worth his time.

I am horrified at the service I have received from ADT. At every step of the way, I have been misinformed, treated badly, and had money literally stolen from my account.

Today, I received a letter from ADT dated 8/9/11 stating that my monthly rate was going up! I don't know how it is that ADT is able to stay in business with their atrocious customer service and apparent "immovable and unyielding" policies.

I want my money back! I've been trying to cancel my account since 6/22/11 and today is 8/15/11. Can someone please take responsibility and do not only the right thing, but what should have been done months ago cancel my ** account and give me back my money immediately!

Terrible customer service. I will never do business with ADT again and I will be sure to continue to post negative and scathing reviews until I get my refund.

This email is to inform you that the installer for the home security system was at my house today and was conflicting with the estimate your representative gave me for $130.00. I am very unhappy with this service already and I'm very dissatisfied with the way your representative and installer handled my supposed new account. Please cancel everything. Your installer was trying to make more money by using deceptive practices by contradicting price agreements with what your representative and me established on Wednesday. I am hereby making a formal complaint against your company. Because of this, you are destroying my property by installing and removing equipment. I am directing and insisting that your firm place the wires to the boxes the way they were found. We have been taking pictures of what has been going on. A copy of this notification will be sent to the main office in Jacksonville office to upper management very shortly.

Thanks in advance for your acknowledgment to this email in advance.

Linda **

Some background: While our ADT was installed, we were also on another alarm, Lonestar. Today someone from Lonestar came by to take out their motherboard, and took the electrical box because it belonged to their company, leaving all the ADT alarm system wires exposed.

The complaint: The wire are exposed, right? So I called up ADT and asked if it would be possible for them to get a tech to attach a box to cover their wire. They came up with some excuse saying that because it wasn't their tech that took out the box, they can do nothing about it. So I asked if I was supposed to just let the wires hang like that and if they even provide a box covering for families who have a new ADT system installed. The receptionist said that they usually provide one. I asked, "Well why can't you do that for us? Your tech never left us with a box covering" and she just kept making excuses.

Honestly, this is the second major complaint about their customer service. They're supposed to be helpful but really ADT is out to get your money and screw you over.

Because of ADT continually drafting my account after being told not to, the bank closed my account because of overdrafts (from ADT) in the amount of $101.00. After the Bankruptcy was discharged, I now have $101.00 from the bank in collections, and outstanding bills from ADT that I can not get off my credit report because I've already filed bankruptcy. This has all be due to ADT's incompetence and lack of obeying the law.

Two police reports have been filed with the Hermosa Police Department. I feel very violated and unsafe in my place of business. I have a broken safe, and $800 missing. After the 1st police report was filed, ADT did send a technician out, but 2 days later disconnecetd my service. I did not receive a bill for the month of November, and even though ADT knew my system was faulty, they sent me to collections.

I believe that we should not have to pay $80 for a serviceman to show up and do the work that was to be initially done with the $250 intallation.

The consequences is that a collection agency is now hounding me for $75.25 which I refuse to pay since I've cancelled this service repeatedly.

I just received a letter from a collection agency for the money, which I am not going to pay.

I had an alarm istalled in my house. Durning a time where I had construction in my house we needed to disconnect the alarm. ADT was advised of the situation and instructed us how to disconnect and reconnect the alarm. Upon reconnection the alarm's key panal was not working properly. We notified the company and they stated they would send someone to fix it. After taking numorous day off of work and my wife cancelling numerous appointments no one came to fix anything.

At the end of three months of this I got upset and requested the alarm to be taken off. Again I received more appointments for someone to come and take the alarm off -- again no one came. After another month of this I was told they do not come to get the equipment since they cannot use it again. I told them to close the account. Now they keep sending me bills stating I have a contract and they want to charge me $500.

I had ADT install a security system in two of my houses. They were both faulty. Neither house was being monitored. After months and months of calling them with my complaints they finally agreed to remove the systems and release me from my contract and also to refund all monies paid. I even have a letter from the company president that states this and it is dated March 8, 1998.

Even after the system was removed they still kept taking the payments out of my bank account. They did this for many months. Also the police were sent to my house for no reason and I was charged by the police dept. for a false alarm. I am a diabetic and the stress and frustration has aggravated this condition.

I try calling and they tell me they will settle this matter but after I hang up the phone I never hear from them until I call again and get the same response.

Vincent should stop calling and start writing. He can send a certified, return-receipt-requested letter, reminding ADT that it has previously agreed to refund his money and stating that if he does not receive payment within 30 days he will institute legal action. Ideally he should include a copy of the letter he received from ADT. If ADT doesn't pay up, Vincent can sue them in Small Claims Court.