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They do not want anyoihne who has bad credit and risk that the contract will not be honored. The contract locks you in for three years o rate but read the contract which is always needed.You need to also check on the quality of the monitorig as some are better than others.
They actually have 5 (FIVE) year contracts that you cannot cancel. Their salespeople may promise different terms but do not include them in the paperwork so you are on the hook for the entire 5 year period.
Bottom line? STAY AWAY!
How did they get my cell phone no? first, second after some basic q and a
they wanted my credit card No!!!! I guess im old fasion but anybody that
call an unsolicited and pushes a sale where at the end of a 5 mins convesation
they are asking about billing,I think is a scam,mabee the caller did not even
work for adt,(funy a securty company getting used to scam peeple)..
I would never give out any personal information to an unsolicited caller. If you are interested, get their number and call them back. Then double check the number they gave you. BTW, ADT hires independent contractors, who sell the equipment. Check around and negotiate. There is wiggle room. See if you can meet with more than one sales company rep. providing the equipment. Look for flyers, ads and ask your neighbors. Good luck.
my current home came with an ADT alarm. In previous homes I had alarms, but never paid to have them monitored. I called ADT, and they won't help me make the alarm functional unless I sign a contract. So, we have an unused alarm system.
The equipment is YOURS! You can have ANY alarm company come out and set it up and you will have a working alarm system. ADT just happened to be the one who installed it. Nothing more. Even IF the previous owners had a contract w/ ADT to monitor it the contract does not pass onto you. You are a new owner and you can use whoever you want to monitor it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nacnud
Local alarm companies are garbage. Most of them are owned by technicians that profit mostly from their installation. It is not the equipment you're buying; it's the monitoring or else what's the sense of having an alarm system. ADT charges $33.99/mth for monitoring and $149 to install a basic kit that includes a keypad, 2 door contacts, a motion sensor, and a smoke detector. If their monitoring contract was less than 3 years, it wouldn't be worth it for ADT. With signing in ADT's 3 year contract, you're getting the quality service plan which is a liftetime warranty, and the battery maintenance package. You are also getting automatic timer tests that can detect any of the alarm's devices that are in need of repair and then a message gets sent out to the monitoring center. Rather than you calling ADT, they call you to ask when they can send a technician out to service your alarm at no charge. So you are getting an alarm system that does everything for you which is why you pay more than $25/month. Sure, ADT is a profitable company but they have to be to stay in business.
If you want something cheaper, go with Counterforce, DNS, M3, or VOX.COM. None of them can afford to offer the same kind of service as ADT and Brinks can. VOX.COM is the worst since they charge $29.99/mth for a 3 year term that offers the same kind of service as Counterforce, DNS, and M3 for $20/mth. Some companies are snakey enough to promise customers warranties for their systems without including automatic timer tests which would make it not worth it for them.
Sorry, ADT is the one that is "garbage". We had them for several years for our house and business locations. NUMEROUS times the alarm would go off and ADT never even called. They were even on the news here about their sorry service and not answering calls. So, we purposely set the alarms off and on at our different locations and the house and sure enough.. they never called. Someone could have broken in, stole everything and ADT would not have called in the alarm going off. So we canceled our contracts with them. Wrote them in writting with exactly what happened and why and told them to kiss our butts but we were not paying them one dime as they had not lived up to their end of the contract. They tried to send a bill but our lawyer sent them a letter and they realized they were in the wrong and did not have a leg to stand on.
We are now with a local company and they have been AWESOME! They are MUCH better than ADT could ever dream of being. I'm not in that business and don't have a horse in the race but I would NOT recommend ADT to ANYONE! I want an alarm company that is going to do what they are paid to do. They monitor our alarms at all of our business locations and houses and if one goes off they are calling within seconds. I'll take my local company any day.
Oh, and ADT NEVER called us for any tech work or anything. Like I said, they did not even call when alarms went off. Like the one time the sheriff happened upon one of our business locations and saw the front window busted out and heard the alarm going off. The SHERIFF is the one that called us. We called ADT and asked and they were hemming along and did say the alarm had indeed gone off, the glass breakage alarm, several motion alarms and then a door alarm ALL had gone off and they NEVER called us. Yep, that is who I want monitoring my alarm system, NOT!
The free installation contracts are a huge moeny maker for the companies. You can buy your own system for a fraction of what they charge you through those monitoring contracts. You cna find companies that provide monitoring much cheaper, but they do not provide a free system.
Although you own the system at the end of the contract, you will not get much of a discount when you renew with ADT. They will also tell you that your system is out of date or incomplete and needs upgrading. Usually they tell you that the main control panel has been upgraded and if you want ot change any part of your system, you need to change out the whole thing and get a new three year contract.
Police told us that alarm systems provide protection in the following order of effectiveness:
1. Yard signs (these work regardless of wehther you actually have an alarm system)
2. Loud (deafening) siren that sounds upon entry.
3. Visible alarm components (whether working or not).
39. Monitoring. Monitoring really does nto do much. The service calls you and then they call the police. The police get so many false alarms that they usually do not go rushing to your house, but they send a squad car by eventually. That can mean anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour for them to arrive. If they see something that is obviously wrong, then they investigate, but they usually will not enter your house. Often, they will knock on the door or ring your doorbell. Of course, if an alarm sounds, the theives are long gone by the itme the police arrive because the alarm tells them to hurry up and grab what they can becasue the police are coming (the alarm tells them this regardless of whether you pay for monitoring or not). Finally, in many communities after two false alarms, they start charging you $150 or more each time it goes off. After getting fined once and discussing the value of monitoring withthe police, we discontinued the monitoring service but kept the alarm system. (we had over fifteen false alarms in one year so the finally fined us). We also eneded up disconnecting the outside siren because it woudl sometimes go off and if we were away, it woudl continue to sound for hours and drive the neighbors nuts. The one advantage of monitoring is that the service can shut off the alarm IF they can get ahold of you. I heard that there are systems that you cna buy where the system calls your cell phone when it goes off, thus you cna monitor it yourself.
I always have to laugh at their advertisements. Usually it is a young woman with a child suggesting vulnerability. Their window or door is kicked in and some phoney baloney alarm goes off. One second later the phone rings and of course the victims have the presence of mind to answer the phone when they are in danger of being attacked????? Please.
They need to go for a .45 and not the phone. Cost of the .45 $500 Cost of the ammo: $50.00 Cost of the training: $75.00 Cost of stickers for your door that says your home is protected by a .45 Glock: $5.00. No monitors, no muss, no fuss. Someone breaks into your home, they run the risk of being shot dead.
Who would take the chance of breaking into a home where the signs say the home is protected by a .45? Skip that one and go to the house that has the alarm and cut the phone wires, the TV wires, and proceed to your booty.
While you are away, automatic lights on timers do well and house sitters for extended periods are well advised. It doesn't hurt to have a trained German Shepard either.
All of this is less expensive than some trumped up alarm company that pretends to be right on top of the situation by charging yearly fees and 3 year contracts, and a lot more reliable.
Short of this, if you live in that dangerous of a neighborhood, you would be well advised to move where you don't require "burgular alarms".
I always have to laugh at their advertisements. Usually it is a young woman with a child suggesting vulnerability. Their window or door is kicked in and some phoney baloney alarm goes off. One second later the phone rings and of course the victims have the presence of mind to answer the phone when they are in danger of being attacked????? Please.
They need to go for a .45 and not the phone. Cost of the .45 $500 Cost of the ammo: $50.00 Cost of the training: $75.00 Cost of stickers for your door that says your home is protected by a .45 Glock: $5.00. No monitors, no muss, no fuss. Someone breaks into your home, they run the risk of being shot dead.
Who would take the chance of breaking into a home where the signs say the home is protected by a .45? Skip that one and go to the house that has the alarm and cut the phone wires, the TV wires, and proceed to your booty.
While you are away, automatic lights on timers do well and house sitters for extended periods are well advised. It doesn't hurt to have a trained German Shepard either.
All of this is less expensive than some trumped up alarm company that pretends to be right on top of the situation by charging yearly fees and 3 year contracts, and a lot more reliable.
Short of this, if you live in that dangerous of a neighborhood, you would be well advised to move where you don't require "burgular alarms".
It's your choice to use the Glock method over a good alarm system, but before you go off on a tangent railing against alarm systems, you might want to educate yourself on how the systems work.
First of all, the Glock only works if there is a finger present to pull the trigger. When you are at work, or on vacation, the crook breaks in and steals your Glock, or worse yet, you're home and said bandito blows you away with the Glock you are so fond of..!
Your "Protected by Glock" decal give the crook something to smile about as he cleans out your house.
Can the bad guy cut my phone lines and render the system useless..?? Nope, that was in the old days. Today's systems have a cell phone in the alarm box, so cutting the phone line won't help his cause. Modern alarm systems have thought of everything you can come up with to defeat the system.
...as far as answering the phone when you are in danger of being attacked, that is exactly when you want to answer the phone, because you know it's the alarm company.. I have had my alarm go off in the middle of the night. Rather than shut it off and go see why it went off, I let it scream while I waited for the call, before looking around to see if someone was in the house. Nice, secure feeling to know you have help on the phone in case someone is in the house. In my case, both time it was my fault for not securely shutting a door and the wind came up and opened it. Even if a bad guy was in the house, he isn't sticking around with that alarm screaming..!
I have automatic lights on timers on in different rooms every night of the year, even when I'm home, and I hope the guy that breaks into you home feeds the German Shepard, or the poor dog will starve to death before you return from vacation...!
All alarm companies do not charge expensive monitoring rates, and don't require a three year contract. Don't judge all companies by the big guys who spend a fortune on TV ads..!
We had our first system installed when we had a 12 year old girl at home. We considered buying her a Glock, but her aim was so poor, we opted for a monitored alarm system instead. The alarm gives one such a feeling of security we retained it even after the skinny kid grew up and left home.
When we moved into our present home, the first thing we did was have an alarm installed, even though we live in a gated community, in a good area, with no history of crime. Our entry gates are video monitored, but you can't do too much to feel safe and be protected. It all depends on how much you value your family. Only you can answer that..!
We like it our way, you like it your way. That's what makes the world go round...
Company has been with ADT for 15 years and not happy about it...
They simply no longer have qualified techs to service a $70,000 cost system.
However... they are more than happy to rip everything out and start over
I don't know what company charged your company $70,000 for an alarm system, but I have worked for large companies with alarm systems, and in my experience, you could alarm a small city of compaines for the figure you mention. Alarm systems are not expensive..
For $70 K, you could build a police sub-station in your company, complete with a coffee machine, and a donut counter........
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ADT is a rare scam!
Sorry, ADT is the one that is "garbage". We had them for several years for our house and business locations. NUMEROUS times the alarm would go off and ADT never even called. They were even on the news here about their sorry service and not answering calls. So, we purposely set the alarms off and on at our different locations and the house and sure enough.. they never called. Someone could have broken in, stole everything and ADT would not have called in the alarm going off. So we canceled our contracts with them. Wrote them in writting with exactly what happened and why and told them to kiss our butts but we were not paying them one dime as they had not lived up to their end of the contract. They tried to send a bill but our lawyer sent them a letter and they realized they were in the wrong and did not have a leg to stand on. 
I'll take my local company any day. 
