ADT

The rep who came out was very nice as well. We didn't do a whole lot of going through stuff but he was here a while because I was trying to explain what I didn't want and I didn't want much of anything. I got bare-bones but the prices were outrageous. I've got two glass-breaking things, the stuff on the doors for opening and closing, to arm and disarm it, and the two doors going into the garage. Then the desktop thing but I haven't used it. I don't know if they got notified but it's never been turned on.

The guy that put the system was very nice, too. I thought of a lot of things after he left and there was nothing about that situation, other than the fact that I've never had a security system before. But I'm in an area where there are a lot of sirens going off, which I'm not used to. Then at some point when we get done with the house, I'm gonna be taking trips and I don't wanna have to worry about my house being robbed. I also love the ADT signs and the stickers.

Initially, I had a $2500 system here and I didn't like it. It needed a landline and AT&T screwed me over. They were gonna do voice over internet and it wouldn't work with the system. So, I fired AT&T because they're idiots. I called them four different times and told them that I needed a landline. Then, the guy showed up a month later and said he was putting in a voice over internet. But I told him that he wasn't and that I gave them four times to do it. I also told him that they hire people that have really low IQ or are not listening. It also seems like so many companies don't want to ever be contacted by the customers. We pay them money, but they never wanna speak with us in person. So, they make it really difficult. I spent oodles and oodles of time on hold trying to get through to anybody.

Other than that, I am concerned that if I leave and the dogs are here, then I arm the system and something goes wrong, it's gonna kill my dogs. It's gonna drive their ears nuts, so I won't do that with them here. If I go on vacation, that'd be the only time that I use the system. I go down to Oakland because we're selling a house down there. I stay sometimes for four days and I'll arm the system then. But there won't be any animals in the house. Aside from that, there are no motion sensors, so I don't have to worry about that.

I also have a manual fire thing, the panic button, and the two little key fobs. I was told by their rep that for my benefit, it's just the walk-in doors in the garage and not the garage doors that will set that off. Then, I contacted the city and I paid for a permit. They sent me a code that has to be used for the police if they show up and I've got so many times that I can use it before they start charging me for bad calls. But I still don't know what will happen if I'm away and the alarm goes off.

Because on the phone, there was a special going on with the free equipment. I knew there might be a bit out of pocket if we chose to upgrade anything. When I was on the phone with ADT, it was like, “Oh, you get all of these things included for whatever value” or whatever the deal was and it’s $27 a month. Next thing I knew, that was not the conversation, like “Your bill is $6,000. You get a $1,500 credit and your monthly bill is $50 something.” I've been meaning to call. I’m sure it makes sense but I haven’t had a chance to look at it. I thought I would get a receipt or something and I was going to wait for that but I didn’t get that. And I’ve seen a bunch of charges from our card and I’m not clear on what those are for either. It has been messy.

And then we got the doorbell. The guy that installed it said we needed a new transformer and that’s why it didn’t work. So I went out, spent money on a transformer, got it installed, and the doorbell still doesn’t work. Here we are how many weeks later and I still am paying for a doorbell that does not work. Consumers should know upfront what things cost. That’s fine if there’s going to be a discrepancy of I’m expecting to pay whatever that I was told on the phone. All of a sudden, I'm getting a $6,000 number. How the hell did we get there? So being able to be a little more upfront about how much worth of products we could use any way we want and saying how that is going to be charged, and then when they come in for the install, walking us through what costs what and how it all went from very little to a lot.

It’s not the best time to have large expenses so that set us back quite a bit. We had to keep asking the rep what we were paying for and what we could take off until we got it down to a number that we finally were like we’re not doing this anymore. We just decided to pay it because we didn’t have three hours to talk about where money was going. We clearly can see the discrepancy and I got no answers. ADT should know who is representing them out in the field. It’s obviously not their fault and any conversation I’ve had with ADT has been fantastic, so I’m sure when I get around to calling customer service, they would either walk me through it or they would make it right. I’m not even worried about it.

Yesterday, I was cooking my supper and when I lay down, I went to sleep. That’s something I don’t usually do, but I have not been sleeping too good until Steve came out here because they had to put my new alarm system in a week ago. I stayed so sleepy because I didn't sleep good at night and when I woke up, I realized I forgot my food. It shocked me because I was smelling all at the same time and ADT was there on point before I could get to the kitchen. I have never had anybody respond that quick. At the time I could get in the kitchen, the signal went off. My phone rung immediately and everything shipwrecked down. I was putting the fire out all at the same time and they wanted to know if I was okay. I told them yes and that my pot caught on fire, but it was out when I answered.

The lady wanted to know if I wanted the fire department to come out and I told her, no, that I just needed to open up the doors. I was doing that while we were on the phone and I turned my ceiling fans on. When the smoke went out, the system went off. All in all, my alarm system is good, but I’m waiting for them to come in. They said from 8:00 this morning till 11:00 because it takes four hours, but nobody has come. They were supposed to come today to hook up my internet and my Wi-Fi, and they were going to put a satellite outside the house so that I will have all of that.

With the system that I’m getting, I can get cameras too. I want that because I live by myself, and I’m 72 years old. They said that my cable company was supposed to come, but the cable company called me on Sunday evening. They said they got everything set and I’m good to go, but I don’t have a code number so I don’t see how everything is good to go. They cancelled the appointment and when I got my letter from AT&T, Saturday, I was thinking that they were going to do everything. Still, I will recommend the system to anybody and I already started doing that. A lot of my godchildren live alone and they are with the same company that I was with and they would keep going up every month with them as well.

I’ve been telling my godchildren about what I got and I told them that they don’t have to get all that I got. I was telling them that when I first got in a place of my own, I could leave my front door open and my window raised all night and sleep and nobody would try to come in. I told them that now, you can’t leave your doors unlocked or your car unlocked. Somebody always tries to come in on you. I feel unsafe. Nowadays, you just don’t feel safe anymore like you used to. I’m not a scary person, but I want to be conscious of what's around me. I feel safer now than I have in a long time and I’m satisfied with the system as long as I know I’m going to be safe.

Switching over, I pretty much had to change it all because it was a very old system. When the wireless one was done, I told the guy I had a problem with that. But I already said that and he did not tell me the cost of doing it wirelessly. I already had it set up here with wires and I didn't need to go wireless. There wasn't any reason to do that other than the fact that the guy made a lot more commission on it. I then had a bigger charge every month after it started running. I had the guy take it and go back to the wired system which is fine. It’s through the phone lines because we still have them. That's how the system is still working. I figured most thieves today don't even what the phone lines are. It may have been a problem in the past. But wireless is more of a problem like getting interference and getting blocked.

Thieves understand to go to your router. It's easier than they understand, “I gotta cut the wires.” Today, young thieves don't know anything about old phones. I didn't worry too much about it and we weren't doing it because we had any break-ins. We were doing it initially to make sure we could tell when my grandson would leave the house and go into the backyard. We were trying to keep track of it.

We go to Florida once in a while but I haven’t gotten our watcher, John, to turn the system on even when we’re down there. We’re gone a lot and we have a lot of neighbors close by. They're here all winter and they keep an eye on things. Also, John comes in here and brings our mail in. The system is something he has to turn off. He would have to change the code once in a while but he didn’t do it. He didn’t wanna mess with it although I think he should. We can do it but I’ve got too many things on my mind to be able to keep track of this right now. I keep telling John that he really needs to keep remembering how to do it. He has to look it up to remember how to set it up again, make sure the code’s in there, and make sure he knows the code. I said, “We need to change the codes when we go to Florida and have the guy that comes in, so he knows what the code is.” I didn’t get him to do it last year.

Other than that, our system should work just fine. We haven't had any issues. If we have some break-ins in the neighborhood, my husband would start using it because he can do it. He didn't set it up but it’s there. We will set it up if we have to and make sure it’s working well. We set it up the other night when we went to a funeral. My husband said it was the time we really needed to put the system on. The system is a little more than I wanna figure out to do right now. But I don't think it's that complicated. It just is for me right at the moment.

The lady was very helpful and she explained a lot. She told me about the flyer promotion that I got and if the system was still a valid system in the home, we can have all these additional credits and things for additional pieces of equipment. They were very thorough. At the time it was all happening during COVID and we had been exposed so I wasn’t letting anybody in the house. She gave me a reference number to call back when things were ready, which I did. But before I could call back, I kept getting these phone calls saying they were calling to install our system. I hadn’t agreed to anything just yet and the guy was supposed to come out, show me the equipment, check my system, tell me what my pricing would be, and then I’d go forward. I was a little confused by that.

I called and gave my reference number. The lady that answered was very helpful. She said she doesn’t know why they said they were installing but they were just gonna come out and tell us everything. So we scheduled the time and the gentleman came out. He came out with the impression that he was installing that day, so certain information was not relayed down to him. But he walked through everything and ultimately we went with the system and he put it in that day. A lot more than what he intended because we pretty much put the window sensors in every window in our house plus all doors. It was a lengthy installation, to say the least, because the system was outdated.

He was counting everything and I specifically asked if he got all the doors, to which he said yes. But my front porch has two front doors, one in the front and one kinda on the side of the porch like a side entry, and I touched it and asked if he got that door. He said yes but when he got everything installed and was asking to walk us through everything, I looked up and I said I didn't see a door sensor on that one. He had it on my garage door. And he said he didn’t think I wanted one on that one since we keep that one locked. We put sensors on all the other doors that were external doors, why would I not want it on that one? But he couldn’t just add one because it had already been processed and paid. I said if he could take off the one on the garage door because I have the garage and then the door into the house, so if I got to choose between the two, let’s put it in the most external door. So he took it off, he changed it.

I didn’t think too much about it and he said he would just add another one to the garage door later. Over the last week or so that I’ve had it, we set the alarm, we leave, and we come back in. And it’s a new thing for us, so sometimes I forget that it is on. But I come in and do all kinds of stuff. Then, I realize I didn't turn the alarm off and I go back in there and it’s still armed. It bothered me that I was all the way to where the recliner and the couch is and there’s a motion sensor right there and nothing happened. We're gonna call the tech back and tell him something’s not right. For me to get that far into the house and nothing goes off is a little scary to me.

The ultimate point was we protected everything so that people wouldn’t get in if they tried a window or a door. We even got the little vibration thing on the window and we’ve got glass breaks. If they got in, the motion sensor would catch it. But I don’t know if it’s working or not and I didn’t really want to open the front door and make it alarm, because we set it to where it would dispatch police before the contact me. I’m a little leery to open the door and make it go off. Other than that, it’s fine. I had it before and I know it works.

Now they're saying they do it wireless. I asked when I called about redoing the contract and they said that I got a lot more benefits than the ad. But when I was looking at the ad, it said it has fire protection and home security. It only has seven windows and doors. But I have more than that. There's wireless remote and I have that. There's an outdoor camera but I don't have that. But I'm with them for the next three years come hell or high water.

In 2018 we called ADT and explained there was nothing left to protect. The empty house would stand there waiting for Habitat for Humanity to “Deconstruct” it (volunteers strip and salvage every useful thing) then demolish. I told ADT we were hurricane victims and should not have to pay money for nothing any more – they didn’t care, you have a 3 year contract– keep paying. So we did. Late in 2018 I called again and asked if they could cut the monthly rate at least. They said sure we can cut it to $19.99+ tax for 6 months. They didn’t tell me it would start another 3 year contract and I never agreed to it..

So after 6 month discount the rate went back up - then August 2019 I called to say my 3 years from 2016 were up – stop billing me. They said “no way I agreed to a new 3 year contract when I called in 2018 so “keep on paying until 2021”. They claimed I made a “verbal contract”. I didn’t, but that didn’t matter – they threatened my credit if I didn’t keep paying. We are still paying them money for nothing. New house is almost finished finally. Who’s going to provide our security? Not ADT for sure. They shouldn’t provide yours either.. This story is absolutely true - My name is Charles **, I live in Cypress in Harris County Texas – I would not be hard to find – please cut & paste this story in every social media platform you can. Thanks.

He called his boss because I was upset about it and he ended up giving it to me for $27 because they said they were going to go back to listen to the recording, but evidently, whoever gave me the service didn't know what she was talking about. Everybody needs to be on the same page. Also, I don't think the installer gave me everything that I was supposed to get. I know he put a motion detector in and something on my son's front door and his back door, but wasn’t I supposed to get anything for the windows? Still, I like him.