Your experience sounds very familiar to me. Now that I've searched the Internet, it seems to be a very common practice by all alarm companies. My alarm company was ProAlert and they required a notice 30 days before the contract expired (oh, and they have automatic renewals also). Even though I sold the house days after the renewal period started, they refuse to cancel the service. And they are continuing to do so.The moral of the story is to avoid all alarm monitoring companies.
Gus M | Email | Homepage | 03.10.04 - 3:18 pm | #

All contracts are 3 to 5 year periods with automatic renewals to protect the alarm company
and customer from break-ins/fraud. Cancellations are done in writing to match signatures and so not just onyone can call and cancel someones service and rob their home. All contrats can be cancelled 30 days prior to renewal after your intial contract period 3 to 5 years or any year later. If you want to cry about something how about the cable companies!!!!!!
D Hauschel | Email | Homepage | 06.18.04 - 11:06 pm | #

Everything you have written shouldn't be directed solely to Protection One, considering EVERY alarm company operates the same way. You should consider yourself lucky your monthly payment didn't increase 10% every year for those 6 years, like ADT and other alarm companies do, but I do understand that $30 is a lot of money. Actually, the $30 is usually only charged to those homes who has a new system added, to cover the expense of the alarm itself. Most companies today give their alarms away for free (or around 100-200 dollars). The actualy price of the whole system you are getting can be upwards of $1000, so it takes a good 2 years of monthly monitoring to make that money back. Your case is different i understand, but I feel that you are doing a disservice to Protection One for singling them out among hundreds of alarm companies who do the same or worse business day to day. And like the other guy said, how about cable companies, what a joke! $90 a month to watch TV and use the internet. =)
M Sturgis | Email | Homepage | 03.31.05 - 2:13 pm | #

I'm horrified to hear about the problems with cancelling, but my experience is summarized in the following e-mail I sent to the Manager of "Executive Customer Relations" at Protection One. The problem is still ongoing. The e-mail is lengthy but you may appreciate it:

Ms. Roll,

I have subscribed to your service for over 13 years. I am currently paying for monthly alarm monitoring and thought I had been paying for alarm verification services. If my situation is not resolved to my satisfaction on Monday, January 23, I intend to close my account and broadcast the following experience with your company (and particularly your abysmal Customer Service Department) all over the internet, to the president of your company, to the California State Department of Consumer Affairs, to the Better Business Bureau and to consumer advocate reporters on local television and with local newspapers. The emphasis will be not only on the incompetence of your company, but the manner in which you have dealt with a long-standing customer who has faithfully paid her bills.

I live alone. I had been away from home in the late afternoon on January 19th. When I came home, I noticed from the key pad in my garage that the alarm had apparently been tripped. I went inside and checked to find absolutely nothing amiss. I opened my front door from the inside and found nothing amiss; there had been nothing amiss when I had entered through the garage from the back. Everything inside my home was exactly as I had left it. In short, had a patrol unit been sent out to check my unit from the outside -- a service for which you bill me every month and which I pay -- the monitoring center would have been alerted to the fact that there was no need to call the Los Angeles Police Department. Unfortunately I was appalled to find a False Alarm Notification, filled out by two officers from the LAPD, outside my front door. I should not need to remind you that the LAPD no longer gives warnings for false alarms. They fine from the first incident on.

I immediately called your 1-800-GET HELP number to speak to someone. Since I had no idea what kind of a road block I was going to run into, I unfortunately did not get this gentleman's name. When he told me I would have to pay the police fine up front and then get reimbursed from Protection One after I sent in some paperwork, I informed him that I a single woman on permanent disability and had no intention of paying for the incompetence of your employees. He told me I would have to bring it up with the local Van Nuys office and that he would leave them a message asking them to call me.

When I got up the next day at 2 pm. there was no message from you local office. Since it was apparently beyond their capacity to follow up on a request to place a phone call to an irate customer about a false alarm that was the fault of your own ineptitude, I decided to call the LAPD. I was eventually referred to a gentleman named "X", a Management Analyst for the LAPD Board of Police Commissioners who deals, I believe exclusively, with alarm monitoring issues. During the course of our conversation he placed a three-way call to your monitoring center, where we both spoke with a woman named Sarah. After I explained the situation to her she admitted that Protection One was in the wrong, noting "it's right there on your account" that upon an alarm activation a patrol is supposed to be called out prior to anyone calling the LAPD. May I reiterate that Mr. "X" will attest to the accuracy of my assertion.

I then decided to call the local Van Nuys office. I cannot remember the order in which I spoke with these women, but I believe there were three; one was named Lisa, another Sherie and the third woman's name I neglected to take down as I was having to contend with an incipient asthma attack brought on by the stress of the situation. In each case I reiterated my story and explained that I should not have to pay the fine up front, nor did I have the financial means to do so. I also requested that Protection One credit my account for the $29.85 I was charged on my most recent bill for "Alarm Verification Services" which I obviously did not receive.

These women were all contentious. When I asked the first one to connect me with her supervisor, Yvonne Robles, she said she wasn't in and wouldn't be back until Monday. (As I found out later, this was a lie. She was in a meeting.) She said she would connect me to Yvonne's voice mail and before waiting for me to say yes, no, or could you please wait a minute, she put me on hold. After several minutes I simply hung up and called back. (I may not be a rocket scientist but I believe it's possible to transfer a call to someone's voice mail box in less than 30 seconds. This woman effectively hung up on me.) One of the other women told me that it was in my contract that Protection One does not pay police fines. I asked her if that was the case even if the false alarm was Protection One's fault. She repeated that Protection One does not pay police fines. Again, I asked her if that was the case even if the false alarm was Protection One's fault. Again she avoided my question and responded that Protection One does not pay police fines. Since I didn't feel like going on with this inane conversation forever I dropped the question. The first woman seemed amenable to the idea of giving me a credit on my account for the aforementioned $29.85, but since she left me dangling on hold I had no idea whether or not it would be processed. Another woman told me that only the supervisor could process the credit. Another woman scolded me because I had the temerity in my utter exasperation to say that I would "sue your ass off". Speaking to me as if I were a bad little girl who had just gone number two in her pants, she explained that you have a policy that allows the customer service person to hang up if the customer uses foul language. Come on. For the word "ass"? I finally got someone to connect me to Yvonne's voice mail box in a timely fashion. I left a message explaining my situation and asked her to return my call as soon as possible. I sent the message priority delivery. I can only gather that she was so concerned that she went home without contacting me.

Is this your idea of customer service? Is this an appropriate manner in which to treat a long-standing, faithful customer? These women were ill-informed and rude. A good customer service employee knows how to diffuse a customer's justifiable anger, not exacerbate it. A good customer service employee does not evade answering a question by repeating the same non-answer over and over again like a parrot. A good customer service employee does not equate my use of the word "ass" with cussing a blue streak, particularly when I had every reason to be irate and frustrated. A good customer service employee doesn't lie. A god customer service employee returns phone calls. These women don't belong in customer service, they belong in collections, where they can all be as belligerent and boorish as they want.

I want Protection One to credit my account immediately for the $29.85 for "Alarm Verification Services" which were not provided to me. I want Protection One to pay for the police fine as soon as I receive it and before I cut my check so that I'm not out of pocket a single dime. I should not have to send you a barrage of paperwork and wait to get my money back while you "research" the issue. There is nothing to research. The alarm was somehow tripped, you failed to send out a patrol (something I pay you for), you called the police instead, I will be assessed a fine for your ineptitude, you severely rattled my 82-year-old father by calling him unnecessarily, and you brought on an asthma attack for me because of the stress of dealing with the harpies in your Customer Service department. You already breached the contract between us by failing to provide the service I contracted with you to provide, so claiming that my contract states that you don't pay police fines is irrelevant. And I don't care about the "procedure" your employees claim I'm required to follow in order to get my money back. I worked in private industry as a CPA for years. The rules can always be bent.

I expect an immediate reply.
C Weissberg | Email | Homepage | 01.22.06 - 5:45 am | #

Many homeowners insurance companies allow for discounts on your policy if you have a central station monitored burglar/fire alarm system, this normally more than covers the cost of monitoring.

I work with an alarm company that has no problem letting people out their contracts. All we require is that they send some thing in writting by fax, mail or even email, including enough information to verify they are indeed authorized to cancel the service. Any one can call and say 'cancle service', even a burglar. It is a liabilty issue, I need something in writing for the file. We only charge $25 per month and this has only gone up this month, all existing clients will remain at $20 per month as their contracts state. The contracts also state that it will automatically renew. If one of my clients sell their home, fine I understand, just send it in writing.
My company prides itself on providing the best customer relations available. We want are clinets say, "call these guys, they will take of whatever you need." And they, time and again.

We care about our clients and want to keep them coming back.

By the way crime rates are NOT down. In fact many private gated communities still experince home burglaries and auto theft. Not mention the fact if you are not home and there is a fire the fire department will be dispatched to your home and you will be notified.

Many homeowners insurance companies allow for discounts on your policy if you have central station monitored system, this normally more than covers the cost of monitoring.
Tina | Email | Homepage | 05.17.06 - 5:43 pm | #