Smart Start Reviews

So I had the Smart start installed, I was quoted $60 every two weeks, I been paying $96, this month alone I had two malfunctions and I ended having to pay $186 for their equipment malfunction. I would not be telling people to go to smart start for the ignition interlock, find another company to sign up with and the customer service is another big issue.

The whole company is scam. The garage where got installed are on drugs or drunk. They take money and schedule me for service twice a month and have 90 day payment schedule from 90 days ago and refuse to send any of my documents. So I would give them no stars. Don't even want to leave this but have to and they are closed when I'm scheduled so now they will charge more money.

The handset I got 2 months was faulty. It would constantly tell me I wasn't humming hard enough, or it would just randomly go into Initializing mode and reset itself when I was trying to give a sample. I got stuck multiple times after work because I couldn't start my car and had to call a $40 Uber to get home then have my wife drive me back to work the next morning. It frequently took 10-15 minutes and 10-15 tries to get the thing to accept an initial startup test.

I am not a customer but I am so upset as if I was. My husband is going thru a lot with this company and their customer service. MVA say 1 thing and they say another. It's never a supervisor available. They installed this device in August 2025 and to this day May 7th they have not sent the form to MVA that this device has been installed. But yet monthly take our money for this installation. This is the worst company ever. DO NOT use them ever. They need to be out of business.

I have to honestly say that Smart Start has been one of the most difficult companies I’ve ever dealt with. Trying to reach the correct person for assistance feels nearly impossible, and unfortunately the customer service experience across multiple departments has been consistently unhelpful and rude. I understand these situations can be stressful for customers already, which is why professionalism and communication matter so much. Instead, I’ve repeatedly felt dismissed and bounced around without real resolution.

I had an extremely frustrating experience with Smart Start. This company charges multiple fees that feel completely unjustified, especially for customers who are fully compliant and following all requirements. The biggest issue is the excessive delay in processing compliance paperwork. I’ve been waiting over two weeks just to get a compliance form completed so I can have the device removed. In that time, I’ve had to go to the DMV twice, only to be turned away because Smart Start failed to provide the proper documentation. Other companies in this industry do not take nearly this long, which raises serious concerns about their processes.

My experience with this company has been horrible. I would never recommend this company to anyone. I had the NC DMV operator in my vehicle with me and she saw how they ruined my car because it would not start even after passing the test. She agreed that that had indeed ruined my car and also stated she definitely would never recommend this company to anyone in the future. They blew a fuse on my headlight while installing the machine. I've had to replace my battery and alternator because of improper wiring. Unfortunately I didn't see the BBB reviews and Consumer Affairs until it was too late. It clearly states that Smart Start is known for battery drainage and it's so true. I had been driving around for over two hours blowing in this machine every 45 minutes and then suddenly I get a violation but exactly 32 seconds later it beeped again and I passed.

I would never recommend Smart Start to anyone. They totally messed up my Volvo. It won't start and it's killed my battery repeatedly I had to replace my alternator and they blew a headlight out when installing it incorrectly. The NCDMV licensed operator was sitting in my car with me and she agreed that they screwed my car up and also said she would not be recommending this company to anyone in the future. It is the worse service I have ever experienced in my 54 years of life. You cannot get anyone on the phone and they also falsely bill you for charges that are not true and then don't won't to remove the equipment until you pay a fortune. It is awful that this company remains in business. They should be shut down!

This has got to be the absolute most horrible company. Customer service is nonexistent. Surprise fees for everything. They fail to provide a breakdown of random lockout fees. They double-charge for these lockout fees. Would not recommend to my worst enemy.

This company is a perfect example of why our system is broken. They prey on people who have no choice but to use their product, as they falsify test results in order to charge you lockout and service fees every 2 weeks. They steal your money, they never pick up the phone, they overcharge and lie about free installation and a free month of your equipment lease. They have no oversight committee and no one to answer to, so they rob and steal every chance they get, and I have absolute proof of their bullshit.

Horrible customer service and have had nothing but issues with the ignition interlock itself.

Worst company, gives false violations all the time and not accurate at all. Big scam and illegal money grabs from customers/victims. Someone needs to sue this company and get them shut down.

This was my worst experience ever! I wish I had read the reviews before I went with this company. I had a coupon for a free installation. The Smart Start South Mississippi Area Manager, David **, said to pay the installer the $214. and then call smart start and they will give me a credit. Have been on the phone for over 4 hours yesterday and today and find it is impossible to get anyone on the phone that can help me. I finally got a person and he could not help me and transferred me to the recording that is the start of all of the 5 numbers I have to call. It is a maze that goes nowhere. This is going to cost me way more than they quoted me. It is a big scam. Stay away and go with one of the other three companies. They have to be better.

I still have this in my car. I haven’t drank in 5 years. I have gotten so many violations and I am terrified to get in my car. They have taken any joy out of my life. I have had this for 4 years now. I have 1 more to go. I have had probably 15-20 violations and one for sure is my fault I missed a blow. Other than that it’s not on me. But they have only given me 1 credit towards my future balance not my money back. And when they sent me the email they acted like they were doing me a favor. I hate them. They are class action waiting to happen. I can’t be alone in this. We need to make a change for the next round. I paid my pied piper. I don’t need this company to decide the tolls I need to pay for my sins.

DO NOT GO THRU THIS COMPANY!! I'm not joking when I say that. EVERY time I have called them they have given me wrong info...whether it be pricing or information it has been wrong... The latest thing was the day of calibration my starter went out in the parking lot of the calibration place & they wouldn't calibrate it so got it towed then finally get it fixed at a repair shop but it's locked out now so have to pay $500 for the tow to get it calibrated to unlock it but was told I just needed a code... In Washington state they won't give you an unlock code.

Use anyone else. Anyone. Device locked my wife (who doesn't even drink) out of the car, which of course is impossible according to the snots they use for their "customer service." Rude, arrogant, and not very intelligent.

Smart Start is absolutely the worst experience I've ever had with any service IN MY LIFE!!! I HIGHLY recommend you run as fast as you can away from the thought of doing any kind of business with these clowns. Rude, ignorant, conniving and most of all they boldly lie about SO much. Look, don't listen to me. Find out for yourself and you'll be writing the same review. I guarantee it.

Absolutely horrendous customer service. Can't ever get a person to talk to in person it will not work with any kind of circumstances you have. All they care about is the money. They have zero respect for people.

Customer service is nonexistent at Smart Start. The representatives are very rude and do not care to provide the customers with answers. They will hang up on you if you disagree with their policies. Moreover, their billing process is incredibly confusing and predatory. They will stack on charges without explanation. Avoid this company at all costs.

I do not recommend anyone get this installed. Customer service is a joke. Talking to a live person takes forever. It's a big $$ grab. I paid my fees every month like I was suppose to. Auto pay never worked, so I always had to go into the app and pay myself. It's set up a month ahead. Every time I would go in to get a calibration done they would say I was behind on my payment. I knew I wasn't. I had my bank statements for every month I paid. When it was time to get it removed the shop said I was behind 2 months. I had to pay so I could get it removed.

Like another review I read, I have never written a review about anyone or any company but Smart Start is truly the worst experience I have ever had. I don't even know where to start. They keep your credit card on file so they can charge you at will. They set dates for your service and if you miss one they will still charge you and will also charge you a penalty.

Smart Start interlock is a scam. I do not drink alcohol any more, my DUI was 7 years ago. I already have had 4 violations (all false) but they refuse to admit it and charge me 90$ plus service center fee every time. I had it calibrated in Jan 29 and said I needed another Feb 24 (only 25 days later) but we had 18 inches of snow so appt was cancelled and decide locked out/now charging me 175$ plus service center fee to “unlock” it. It’s a scam and PennDot, DOJ, the commonwealth should all be investigating and charging this company with rampant fraud. All should be ashamed of themselves. I assume all these companies feel they can take advantage of hard working people doing the right thing by stealing money out of their pockets.

Avoid Smart Start. My experience has been disorganized, misleading, and financially unacceptable. The pricing I was quoted did not match what I was actually charged for the equipment and services. During my last two calibrations, my account was charged double without my authorization. I was told by the technician that the charge “had to be pushed through” just to schedule the next calibration — regardless of my consent. That is not how billing should work.

One star is too much for this company. They are ripping me off! I checked billing and my lease states $61.61 biweekly. They are charging me double and you cannot talk to a live person to resolve. I also found out I have outdated equipment. Stay away from this company.

First of all I absolutely love the people who installed and then uninstalled this Interlock system. I like the look of Smart Start and I like the name of Smart Start so I figured I was going to like Smart Start. What a disappointment. I can't get on the phone with them and most of the time. When I did get customer service it was someone I couldn't understand very well. Now I'm all for talking to anybody and I'm pretty good at understanding most accents. The people were kind but I didn't understand much and once I got the Smart Start out of my vehicle, because I never did get it to work right once I got it home and I tried for 3 weeks, I got this call for a bill that I owe them. I tried to get somebody on the phone to talk to from billing and there is no such thing apparently. At least I certainly can't find it.

This company is a complete scam! The state of MN has Smart Start MN. If you know about MN you know they have a lot of fraud going on to rob us of our money. Smart Start is definitely one of them! I get emails stating my unit is not transmitting and I need to drive so the bars are higher on my hand unit. Well how is my vehicle starting in the same place if can't transmit? So they Smart Start sends MN DMV information a bunch of violations that never happened so the state keeps extending my time to have this in my vehicle! It has been proved Mn Gov. is a big group of fraudulent ** and they all should be put behind bars for it!

This is the most awful company I’ve ever dealt with. I had an appointment and arrived and their vendor went out of business. They didn’t call to reschedule or notify me. I had to go to a different location. The nearest location was an hour and 15 minutes away one way. Was told if that one couldn’t get me in the other one is 2 hours away. Called customer service and they lied and said their vendor called and I didn’t have a voicemail which I do because I have a company phone. If I didn’t get calibration on my vehicle I would be locked out for their mishaps. Do not use this company, they will rip you off because they know you have no choice because you need your vehicle and charge you all kinds of fees. Look for another company before going with these scammers. They don’t have many vendors to do the work and I see why.

This is the biggest scam ever. Don't try to get work done on your car while having this device no matter what it is. There's no quick unlock code for the shops to enter. It's a huge scam.

Horrible customer service. Machine works sometimes and then when blowing sometimes doesn't register breath. Blowing is long and requires a hum which is very difficult to do. This then gives you a violation for a supposed missed test... costing you hundreds of dollars. All of it is just a huge money pit. Device sucks and customer service NEVER helps or gives you a break. Can hardly understand them and no 1 person does 2 things just keep transferring you to someone else that you have to go over everything again with including all the bs to verify it's you. Would NOT recommend!!! Wish I had shopped around. These violations are false and corrupt.

Awful company. You can't speak to a real person. I've been charged a couple times for a new curly cord because 'I damaged it' I suppose by bringing it to my face while driving instead of bending down to it. The technician even said 'they just wear out over time' and I still didn't get a refund. Over $100 each time. Then during the 'ice storm' in TN I made it to the store twice one week while the technician was unable to apparently and they weren't open and I ended up getting locked out. I'm unable to find out if or when they will be open and from what I read on Google, because no one can seem to give me an answer, I get ONE lockout code out code for about 6 hours and then after that I have to get towed. Which I'm sure they won't refund me for. Money grab or incompetence. Both sound right to me. I only need my device for 6 months. Pay extra. Use ANYBODY ELSE.

When you want to file a dispute, Smart Start makes you check the following: …I confirm that failure to service my device before submitting an incident report may result in a rejection of my request, ….So my son’s took his car to the interlock place to be serviced the scheduled date and we he arrived he found out they were closed,(we have a picture to prove it). They didn’t notify us and next time I could talk to them on the phone they said they did notify to Smart Start they didn’t have oxygen and that is why they didn’t open.

They don’t care about you or your safety. The roads are bad here in Texas. Icy roads yet because they are open they expect us to risk our cars and our lives to go get their-calibration done. So if you miss your appointment, they don’t care… You will be charged the missed appointment fee… No exceptions to road conditions. Make that make sense.

I do not have this device on my car. My fiancée does. And I have known several people who do. This company is absolutely trash. The device is absolute trash and the people who install them are absolute trash. Every single person I've known to have one of these devices on their car has nothing but trouble with it. And there is literally no one to turn to. You wait forever to talk to someone only for them to tell you to blow longer or some stupid thing like that. My fiancée's car has stopped twice on her while driving because of this device. That in itself is a huge safety hazard. She is constantly having issues with it automatically restarting while driving her car and it saying that she misses blows when she wasn't even prompted. This is literally a money making scheme and they know it. It's meant to fail.

Dec 20 the straw broke the camel's back!!! You should shut them down for customer service and unwarranted fees for their equipment failure. I"m afraid to drive anywhere in case it won't take my blow and lock me out of the ignition!! Today they are changing out the unit after my complaints of the past 6 months of unit saying mouth closer!! Or too hard. Took me 20 minutes for it to take a sample on Christmas day to go home. I"ve been paying all these fees to have my freedom taken from me for something I did 13 years ago.

Unconscionable contract given the client has no negotiating power. Fees are arbitrarily raised. Change device rules and settings without notifications causing violations and fees that are NEVER ONCE recorded in my payment history in 7 years of contract duration, clearly had a HUGE data breach resulting in clients not getting scam collections calls likely from a call center overseas and Smart Start has not even notified clients nor done anything to mitigate our data exposure.

Smart Start is an absolute horrible and disgraceful outfit just there to extort money from us. Their equipment keeps failing causing violations that I have to pay for if I want to continue driving. They say they will reimburse money but never do. Now my child missed out on Christmas because they took everything I had saved up and now continue to do so in the new year. The device has given me 4 violations already this month and it is only the 8th of January. They won't fix anything or help to resolve any issues but rather tell me

Stay away from them. The customer service is horrible. This is simply money making business. They have charged me for the malfunctioning device a couple of times without any investigations. I filed incident reports and never heard back from them. This is nerve wracking experience!

A pure scam. It has only been a month and I already paid 2 violation fees, one for the technician triggering the missed test over 30 times during installation, the second for device malfunction. I went to my service technician today, and they installed a new handheld device to replace the defective equipment and same day, the new equipment is not receiving my breath tests and is reporting missed tests and labeling it as a violation. This is a poor way to generate revenue for the city, and especially for people who have been cleared of all major charges but still have to commit to a small probationary term.

First of all, terrible customer service. Random fees added out of nowhere. The device would stop turning on out of nowhere and I had to call to get instructions how to turn it on, but then I was in violation. I believe that is their way to get more money out of you. I wish I did my research prior to installation and would have gone with a different company. I’ve heard good things about other IID companies.

Do use Smart. I couldn't blow in to for 5 seconds. They had get judged to sign a paper. It's been 2 weeks. Can't drive my car. It's crazy. Give me a run around. Wouldn't recommend to nobody. Go somewhere else.