Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:12/13/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  RENEWED IN MARCH 2022 AFTER SE****L YEARS OF DOING BUISNESS, MAY 5 2022 THEY INFORMED US THEY WERE HAVING ISSUES WITH THEIR SYSTEM THAT WE NEEDED TO RENEW AGAIN AND SIGN A NEW CONTRACT FOR AN UPGRADE AND IT WOULD COST EXTRA. I DO NOT WANT TO PAY EXTRA AND AS A RESULT HAVE HAD SE****L FALSE ALARMS THROUGHOUT THIS YEAR RESULTING IN A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY RUNNING TO AND FROM MY SHOP AT ALL HOURS TO RESET THE ALARM. I HAVE BEEN A FAITHFUL GOOD CUSTOMER TO THIS COMPANY I WOULD LIKE TO RETURN THEIR FAULTY EQUIPMENT (DUE TO NOT WANTING TO PAY FOR THEIR UPGRADED SYSTEM) AND STOP SERVICES COMPLETLY. AS IT STANDS WE HAVE BEEN PAYING $108.00 PER MONTH FOR THE PAST 8 MONTHS HERE IN DEC. FOR FAULTY EQUIPMENT AND OUR CONTRACT WILL NOT END UNITL MARCH OF 2023. NO! WE ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH THE EQUIPMENT THE SERVICES OR CUSTOMER CARE.

  Business Response

  Date: 01/09/2023

  To Whom This May Concern;

  We are writing in response to **** ****'s complaint submitted 12/13/2022. Unfortunately, he is correct that his system is having issues, but it is completely out of our hands and on the customer to decide on how to move forward. Cell carriers across the nation and the world have alleviated and are alleviating their 3G cell signals resulting in anyone using that communication pathway eventually going dead and no longer communicating to us or to emergency dispatch. These older systems require an upgrade in their communication to 4G/LTE communicator. This is an experience that multiple security system companies, cell carriers, etc. are facing even the big boxes such as ADT, Vivent, etc. Since we are a small, local company we were willing to meet in the middle with all of our customers that needed this upgrade by providing the required device depending on their system, at either our cost or less than our cost and charging nothing for the labor. 

  Below is the timeline of our communication to ****. We have attached some screenshots to give you a step by step of our conversations. The actual emails are attached in order and numbered per correspondence behind this letter. 

  We reached out to **** ****s (1) May 4, (2) May 6th, and (3) May 19th about this sunset and what was going to happen. He responded (4) June 1st after our 3rd email, that he was very busy, but he was interested in setting the appointment. He asked us to patient with him and he'll let us know when he's ready.

  On Friday, July 1st, **** ****s called in very heated and spoke to our service coordinator. *** ****'s notes in regards to the call go as: 

  [...]

  (5) On July 7th, *** followed up and sent him another email explaining his contract. He did sign a 24 month contract in March of 2018, however, his contract renews yearly as does everyone's. It's contradictory to state that he "signed" a new contract in March with technically according to his notes and phone calls, he elected to stay with us because "we didn't have him on a contract." It renews automatically and explicitly states that in the paperwork. That being said, on this day *** sent him a copy of his contract and explained that the higher monthly cost would be because of the faster speed. There was no response via email after this. 

  On August 22nd, **** called into the office VERY upset. Cussing at our receptionist and within 30 minutes of them hanging up, our service coordinator, *** ****, called him back. The conversations that he spoke to our office staff was so rude and elevated, that she was going to escalate his account thereafter to management because if left her shaking and hear tears. The note goes follows (first picture is our Google Space hangout that allows the office to communicate amongst each other and second image is from our customer database.)

  [...]

   

  (25) Not 15th: Our last response to **** advising that he has options and we respect that. We cannot cancel his system without written notice with a passcode. He has yet to send that back in. 

  **** ****s  has been a difficult transition to say the least as we have been emailing and talking to him since May of 2022 to November 2022. He seemed interested at first, but he has called on se****l occasions with his voice raised, using profanity, and speaking very rudely to office staff. We have given him the information over and over again that he has requested, but to no avail. The contract was to cover the warranty period of the new cell communicator which he was technically under anyway... unless he wanted to cancel... which we gave him a couple of times the option to do. We've explained this to him. 

  We haven't received any further communication since November 15th, 2022, whether it's calls or emails. We've decided that customers that have not decided to upgrade or unresponsive to our proposals that they would need to be for forcibly cancelled by Jan 2 2023. That's the date that Verizon has turned them all off. If they're not communicating there is not much we can do. Once cancellation requests from upgrade customers that are declining have been handed to the accounting team, they're usually allowed to forgo the remainder of the contract as this decision is only based on the cell communication speed only. We're not obligated to do so, but we understand that many people do not want to make the purchase. There is an email example attached for another customer that declined the upgrade.  (26) **** simply did not fill out his cancellation request email.

  We'd MUCH rather have systems that protect the life and security of all of our customers and we'd much rather have working and operable systems that never have an issue. As you can see from another set of attached documents (27 & 28), his cellular communicator costs us $233.42 (plus tax.) We were selling it to him at $199 (plus tax) with NO labor costs. We were only trying to recuperate some sort of financial loss  that we were taking with the 3G sunset with losing profit on the equipment, existing customers declining the upgrades and cancelling service, and the labor we spent not only on the upgrades but admin time that is spent on emailing and conversing with these customers like **** ****s. As a small business owner himself, it's appalling to see how he treats other service providers and instead of just cancelling his service he submits a complaint to BBB. 

  Also, to note further in his complaint: his recurring is $36/mo and he is billed quarterly at $108. He is not billed monthly at $108. And if his system did not work, we did not hear from him since 6/28/2018 for service or unhappiness with the system collectively. He paid on time every 3 months. Also, the equipment is not faulty... it needed an upgrade "phone" line if you will so that it can talk on the appropriate cell towers.

  Thank you,

  ********* *****

  Executive Secretary