ADT

Overall, I like ADT. We've had the service for 25 years. The batteries are fairly easy. The hardest thing is that the system that I have in my house is an older system. I've got kind of the older and newer motion detectors. The older one is a little more finicky, trying to take it apart. But the newer ones are a lot easier. The batteries last a long time. I'm the happiest when I know that when I leave the house and if something happens, somebody is coming. I had accidentally set my alarm off and the police came. I forgot to get a hammer and then I went downstairs and raised the garage door. Then there was a high-pitch sound and I realized the alarm was on. Before I knew it, the police were here.

The reps at ADT are very professional. They listen to my needs. The last technician that came to take care of the glass breakers in my mom's house, I asked him a couple of scenarios there. He said, “Well, that's a good point.” He said, “Let's do this. Let's put one thing there, like a glass breaker, we'll put a motion sensor here. And that way, it's got your mom covered on that back-end of the house.” I told him I liked that. I've recommended ADT over the years to several people. There's a lot of outfits out there, but we’ve been happy with ADT. They're nice and neat. I like how they matched the color. Like we got white trim and they got white, and they also got brown if you got wood. That's a nice thing to have. They're not noticeable, so I like that. All is good as long as it works. So being concealable is great.

I was really committed to getting a system. The reps were okay but I was pretty disappointed at the clarity of everything. They kept making it this huge deal where I would be getting $1,300 in equipment. The prices online were not fairly represented and the sales rep didn't represent the cost on installment day. He said, “We're gonna charge your card $100 right now. And if you like it, that's it. If you don't like it, you can send the guy away. We’ll leave as friends. We'll refund your card $100.” He didn't mention that it was gonna be another $3,000 to install the equipment. There were a lot of pre-work that the sales rep should have done. There should have been some prices provided beforehand.

When our installer came out, he tried giving us $4,000 worth of equipment. $1,300 credit really isn't worth much when it's $4,000. We still got to pull $3,000 out of pocket. It wasn't communicated that there was gonna be such an upfront fee especially when they made such a big deal out of having so much money off. We were very surprised. It was funny too. I had already been looking at the sensors because I was curious about what they look like. I did my research. The prices were not disclosed. XFINITY would say, “It’d be $600.” Ring’s security system said, “The upfront cost is $200.” ADT just said, “Zero upfront costs.” So hearing it was going to be $4,000, I was like “Yo, hold on a minute.” But ADT was very transparent about being in a contract for 36 months, which I was fine with.

There were also a lot of things in there that we didn’t need. I didn't need fire or three more carbon monoxide and smoke detectors because I already had those in the house. I didn’t need all the indoor cameras. We cut some of the things out. I do not need a front and back door sign. The system itself is loud enough. In the end, the price eventually came down.

This situation was 1,000% the sales rep’s fault for not clearly communicating and also ADT’s fault for not actually putting on the website what the actual cost of the items were going to be. What I went with cost me $600 to $1,700 even after that so-called $1300 equipment cost. We pulled $17,000 out of our savings account for settlement day two weeks ago. $1,700 is kind of a lot of money. Other people would have been more pissed off for the company not being upfront. Some people who maybe didn't have the resources would have definitely sent some away, not having known the upfront cost of the system. The company seriously needs to be transparent with upfront costs.

We're also having a problem with the cameras for whatever reason. The installer had been back three times and was not able to get them hooked up. I was a little surprised. There are also some feedback to the operations team. I'm an operations manager for hotels. I understand problems happen. But if they have an appointment, they need to be very transparent about that. They said it was between 2:00 and 4:00. The sales rep did not tell me that it was going to take eight hours to install. My appointment was between 2:00 and 4:00 PM.

The installer did not show up until 4:30 and he left a little after 11:00. We weren't even moving into the house yet. There was no Wi-Fi and there was no bed. I was not sleeping there. I had work the next day at 6:00 AM. It was 11 PM and the installer hadn't even activated the outdoor cameras. That was crazy. He was going to install another indoor camera. But I said, “Eighty-six the indoor camera. I actually don't want it after all. Come back and hook up the outdoor cameras when we get Wi-Fi.” I'm overall satisfied with the equipment. It's good and our installer was awesome. I'm still very happy with the end goal but it was was the most transparent experience. And I was exhausted. It was a long day.

In talking to the person on the phone about the system, I was told that someone would come out and tell me specifically what happened. But a person showed up in my house with things to install the system in my house. He was assuming that the system was sold to us already. We were assuming that the person was coming to tell us about the system. You don't show up at someone's house with your equipment to install in their house. That needs to be perfectly clear upfront with the person before you have met. Fortunately, we were able to talk and we decided to install the system. If it had not been for the technician, we would have told him to leave. But he was a good person and he did a good job.

Upon installing the system, the camera that we have on the garage and the volume for the sound for it, we can barely hear it when we do that. Then the additional thing that we found that since we wanted two cameras, it would cause our internet to go up. So I’m now waiting for the phone company to bring me a new router and increase my upload speed tremendously. Then when we turn the panel that's in the kitchen on, we don't quite understand what the red light and green lights are. We haven't been able to find an answer in the literature we've gone through. So I assume it takes us a few days to determine whether or not this system is going to be something that will wow us.

The initial contact needs to be seamless. You need to really say that this is what you're getting here and not have those questions later. ADT should also evaluate people that are buying cameras. They should evaluate the internet experience and say that upfront before you get to the point where you put it down on paper. It's a considerable expense to update the internet you’re having. When we had it, it was going to end up adding about $30 to my internet cost per month. By the time I put that into the formula, the 60 I'd be paying for the security system and add another 32 would far exceed what I was paying before.

One of the things that need to be included in the presentations especially if people start to talk about cameras and they have internet service. My service has an upload one and a download one. The upload on my service is 4.7, where you should buy a camera that's going to require two-point something of upload capacity even to operate. But we were gonna buy two cameras and to do that, it would take all the capacity for my internet. With what I do at home with my internet, I can't have it down because of cameras. So I called the telephone company to find out what it would cost and their rep started to quote numbers to me and I was blown away. But the person put most of the system in the house already when I found out that it was going to be an additional cost. So I was not gonna have him take the equipment out and leave. But it was not something that made me feel really good about it. I come close to feel like I have been taken advantage of there.

When I first initiated the call with ADT to have a couple of cameras ordered and put on my account, they said that they didn't sell the merchandise. So I asked who did and they said that it was my security company. They said that they were just doing the monitoring and my security company was another company. They gave me the name of the company and I called them. But they said that they sold the contract with ADT two years ago. So I was back to square one again with ADT.

When I initiated the second call with ADT, I told them that all I wanted was to add some cameras on here. I got quoted three different prices from three different people with three different programs, and none of which I was interested in because they were five and six-year contracts. That was just ludicrous. I felt like I got shuffled around. Some of the times, I got hung up on. I'd call back and get hung up on again. That was bad customer service as far as I was concerned. ADT really needs to be persistent in the fact that they know who they're talking to and what kind of deal are they getting thrown at them. I just gave up on ADT.

I was pretty much sold on this other company and I had already lined up an installation date with them. But again, they had a five-year contract. So, I went back to ADT and told them that I wanted to stay with them but told them what my problem was. So the young lady I talked to gave me the best deal possible. She was very nice and set me up with everything. We went through the whole program, told me exactly what it was, how many years I was on the hook for, and everything was nice and done with.

We lined up the installation and then the guy came out, did an excellent job of putting everything in. But there's one camera that is not in the right angle. I can see people coming up to my door and their backs, but I can't see who it is. So, we have to move that and they're coming out on the 11th of March, which I can't understand why it's being so long in between there that we're gonna have to have that done. But I'm willing to wait if I have to. I would have liked to get it done sooner, but I don't know if that's possible.

When I spoke with the rep over the phone, I told him what I was looking for. Then, his manager got on the phone and he said that he was giving me a credit on top of what I already gave them of 1,100 and he said that it would take care of the outside cameras. But that was not the case. It wasn't gonna take care of the outside cameras. So, I ended up buying Ring cameras for me to be able to see outside and just doing an ADT for the perimeter part of everything.

Even when the tech was there, I was told that I have an additional 1,100 to spend. So I assumed that was what I had to spend. Then when he finished totaling up everything I wanted, it was 1,500 and something. So I asked about the 1,100 and he said that we would have to do several things to utilize 1,100. So I told him to give me the bare minimum and I ended up spending $100 and I was okay with that.

I like the system. But when I set everything up, I was under the assumption that my door, which the Z-Wave was going to be connected to the ADT system. That was partly why I did the smart plan. The manager said that they couldn't add it to the Smart Hub. The tech wasn't equipped to do it, so I would have to call over the phone and they'd have to walk me through it over the phone. But I've called twice and nobody has figured that part out yet. The one person that apparently could was not there for the week and they told me to call back. So, I'm still just working on that part.

We didn't get the sign. So I called in and the rep said that it was gonna take two weeks to get the sign. They should make it smooth where the customer wouldn't have to follow up on the things that they didn't get. But otherwise, the system has done everything that it’s supposed to do. The tech did what he was supposed to do. Also, the part of peace and security has been good. It's just that we have six basement windows and I wanted to know how much the glass breaker for the window downstairs would cost me.

So far, I feel comfortable knowing that my security system is in place and that all the elements of it seem to work to the best of the ability of them to work. Everything seems to be satisfactory and we haven't had any difficulties with our ADT system. But right after the install, the camera wasn't working at the rear of the house. They scheduled to come out and they came out fairly promptly. There was something wrong with the wiring but a guy came out and got it right. He was excellent. We'd never had a system before, so for us, there seemed to be an ease of understanding what was going on and utilizing the system. I also really like the panel inside the house versus the phone app which has worked very well. If I pull out of the driveway and I forgot to arm the system, the phone app allows me to stop at the corner and "Arm Away" after I've left.

Aside from that, I appreciate the customer service of all three people that we've dealt with at the home, the salesperson, the installer, and the guy that came to fix the wiring. As a consumer of anything, I appreciate when the provider listens to what the customer’s saying and works with that. When people tell you, “Well, this is this and da, da, da,” and they don't listen to what you're asking questions about or telling them, I find that very off-putting. But ADT's reps were very cordial and everybody listened.

Also, they can take a little bit more time to make sure that everything is hooked up. When they come up to a client's house, they could make sure that everything is working right and complete. They had to come back out for the installation because the guy didn't set up for the motion so if anybody were to walk up to the house any way around the cameras, I wouldn't even see them. But other than that, it went fine. Although the system only records you for five seconds. What happens after that, it cuts off and I can't see anything more than that. Why can't they make it long so I can see it too?