ADT Security Systems...Users? Stories?

[Bo]

Originally Posted by offshore92135

for those unsatisfied with ADT. did you simply stop/continue service or were their competitors any better with rates/service etc??

ADT requires 30 days of notice to discontinue service, which I didn't know until after I had switched. That meant I had to pay them for 30 days of service when my system was no longer tied to their monitoring.

The company I'm using now costs about $7/month less than I would be paying for service with ADT. But as I said above, the hassles the new company caused have made me unwilling to recommend them.

[rayg4]

We just stopped our service with ADT, simply because we were moving out of the house equipped with it. I didn't get any extra fees, at least that I know of.

I'm currently building a new home equipped with a Honeywell alarm system. Anyone have any stories or info on honeywell?

[NurseDana]

ADT is one of the companies I checked when moving to our new home. The agent I spoke to by phone to inquire was not very knowledgable about the company and I was asking very basic questions! THrew a red flag up to me. I had to wonder what kind of training the company provided and what kind of service I would get in time of need! Went with Brinks!

[pobre]

There are other monitoring companies as well, some of which do not have local salespeople, but provide monitoring only. Note that you need an existing system.

Just Google "alarm monitoring", and there are tons out there. You need to be willing to reprogram your system to call them, however. I have read good things about NextAlarm, and I will probably be switching to them soon. They are running about $11.99/month.

[lonegun]

Originally Posted by Coloratura

We experienced service issues with ADT in Virginia and hence will not use them any more. They are over priced and want to service call every little issue. Additionally, our alarm went off and the service center never called the police or the house.

However , this is my favorite ADT story - One of my good friends and co-workers had a premier ADT system with all of the bells and whistles. She had glass breakage sensors on all of her windows. Her house was broken into and the alarm went off. Again, ADT never called the police. Her home was cleaned out within 20-25 minutes per the local police. ADT confirmed they received the signal but again never called to check on the house or called the police. They couldn't understand why she was so upset when she called them either. My company has a discount program with them but due to the two situations above as well as some other experiences people I know have encountered with ADT, we will never have them monitoring our house again. Why pay for a monitoring service that doesn't even respond to alarm calls?

What system do you have? is it wireless like all these new ones aswell?

[Love2begreen]

I had ADT in three of my stores. Last year, I closed the old plant and moved into a building in King William. I tried to transfer ADT from one location to the other, and it has been the worst thing that ever happened to me. They want the full price for a five year contract in the old location, and refuse to install without a new contract for the new location. They harass me regularly, yet I never even had a five year contract in the first place. I've asked them to produce proof, which stops the calls for a few days, then they're back after me again. It makes me afraid to answer my phone, and my employees think they're impossible. Now they have collection agencies tearing into me.
Too late for me, but I recently googled "ADT problems" and discovered they are quite the scam. Also, they didn't call when the alarm went off at my places, either.

[scooter3418]

We've got ADT and so far they have responded very quickly to call us when an alarm was accidentally tripped (you know, us accidentally pressing the wrong button, one time the wind blew the door open while we were gone) .... then again we also have two 140 pound dogs that bark like a dickens when someone walks up to the door and even through the beveled glass you see them almost eye to eye so I think our deterrent factor is up. Still nice to have the system though for peace of mind when we are on vacation and ADT seems decent so far.

[Coloratura]

Originally Posted by lonegun

What system do you have? is it wireless like all these new ones aswell?

Our old house had the hard wired ADT system. In the new house we have a Honeywell system that I believe is a combination of hard wired and wireless. It is monitored by Service Select. I have been very impressed with the service I receive from Service Select. We accidentally tripped the alarm the other day and got a call from the service center immediately. My sales person was also very knowledgable about the system and industry. Additionally, she gave me the same pricing that I would have gotten from my employer on an ADT system. No hard sell, no questions asked. I was impressed that they would lower their rates to match a competitor. I also called customer service at 9:30 the other night with a question about adding security cameras. I was shocked as the customer service team answered the phone and actually provided me some information on my options. I figured I would get a voice mail or be told it would be a $100 charge to have a tech come out to evaluate the property and provide any type of quote etc... ADT would have charged us $80.00 in Norfolk for the service call and wouldn't have gone over any information over the phone with me, especially at that hour.