ADT Essential Wireless Package

As a consumer I was exposed to a frustrating time consuming double talking experience talking w/ independents, brinks, slomin's(sp), etc. If consumers report had evaluated alarm companies I would've picked their top choice and been done w/ it. I've got real empathy for you guys staying in business in a cut throat environment. OTOH, how much effort is a person supposed to put into this before picking up the phone and calling a company like ADT. . . . . I would have much preferred to deal w/ an independent but it's not in the cards right now. I've got other things I need to spend my time on.

Reply to
Mike
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How does the consumer find out aboput these hidden companies?

Reply to
Mike

Also saw signs for Crimpco and Safeway. Thanks for the advice. I thinkI'm done for now except for final configuration of the system.. Got to move on. Will revisit it when the contract is up

Reply to
Mike

Three days here too. I'll ask again about the 6 months.

Reply to
Mike

Sounds like their training program needs a tune up. Seems awful shortsighted to me to not have a top notch training program.

Reply to
Mike

What can'r be aborted the alarm being tripped?

Reply to
Mike

From tips from this group I'm making up a list of items to discuss w/ the sales guy.

Reply to
Mike

As much or as little as they like, when they feel comfortable that they have made the right choice be it a local or a national company, then they should stop looking, sign the contract and move on.

Doug

Reply to
Doug L

There's nothing "hidden" about them.You just have to shop a bit more diligently than you have so far. Try walking around your neighbourhood and look at who's decals are on the doors. Little guys don't need to advertise, since word of mouth gets them all the business they can handle. And if they are no good, they don't last long anyway. If you find one, ask him how many accounts he has; over 100 and he's in business for the long term (or at least the longer term). Choose carefully (that is the key) and you'll do far better, and get far more for your money than dealing with any of the large nationals.

In my experience, there are two companies to stay away from....Alarmforce (run don't walk)...and ADT (their monitoring station procedures suck big time, and stations tied together for redundancy is no big deal today)

If you're really lucky, and shop hard, you might even find a company that only locks you into as little as a year contract, or better, even month to month. But if you do, don't expect any big time reductions on the front end system cost.

Mike wrote:

Reply to
tourman

They started 42.00 a month whcih I believe included CO2, Fire, flood, cellular back up, break-in and who knows what else. My place is all ectric except for water heater & stove, so I'm not sure I need to buy that, however flood might be good because my place doesn't have a drain in the basement. I'm getting killed by monthly bills so I want to keep this one as low as possible. Migth pick up a couple CO2 alarms from COSTCO.

Reply to
Mike

Grewat advice. Maintenance & service killed the local guys w/ me.

Reply to
Mike

Because another poster raised the issue re: ADT

Reply to
Mike

It appears I',m going w/ ADT because so far they seem to be the most up front. I don't feel like I'm being hustled. Their contract seems the most favorable to me, a consumer. I believe the sales guy and trainee are from corp, which I'll verify.

Reply to
Mike

What's wrong with their monitoring procedures? Do they call the police if the alarm goes off? Which brings up another question - I wonder where I can finf out about frequency of false alarms, including locals.

Reply to
Mike

Says the inexperienced brainwashed salesman working for the big company who's got the worst reputation in the trade.

Uhhh huh. 36 years would seem to live up to your previously stated criteria of finding out how long someone is in busness in order to determine if they qualify to do an installation. Now all of a sudden that doesn't matter ...... huh? You can't even remember what you've said from post to post.

What's obvious though is that you're not even smart enough to know, that the majority of people in this Newsgroup are long time business owners of small installation companys and that you're pissing into the wind if you think that anything you say in favor of ADT is going to convince anyone of anything other than that you are too inexperienced to have a credible opinion about anything in this business. Why don't you tell us how long YOU'VE been in this industry? Tell us how many different companys you've worked for. How many actual hands-on installations you've done. How many different manufacturers panels you've worked with. How many systems you've sold.

Nah ... don't bother. It's obvious.

Look, you've been put in your place. No one here (except one misguided end user who's only ever used and tried one installation company and is trying to justify his poor judgement in choosing ADT.) agrees with you. Nothing more needs be said about the subject. You will continue to be oblivious to your employers short commings until you finally get fed up and leave them. Then, a few years later after gaining some experience actually working in the trenches with some of the majority smaller businesses in this trade ....... looking back, you'll be one of the people who comes to a Newsgroup like this and agrees with most of the opinions you see here.

If I knew you were coming, I could have written you a script of what you would say.

You just can't imagine how many times this has occured over the past 10 years here.

BORRRRRRRRRRRRE...... ing.

Enough said .....on my part. Say what you will. You can't change the truth. Especially since you don't have the experience to make your opinions credible.

Tooodles.

Reply to
Jim

$42 A MONTH ..??? That's highway robbery ! My friend, you HAVE to shop around more !

The national average across North Anerica is $25 a month; most small companies come in around $20 give or take a buck. A lot of them will monitor your alarm for $15 to $20 a month for everything. And if you don't need dealer service or warranty you can get it for $10 a month. And don't let anyone tell you that their monitoring is superior to the $10 a month stations because it AIN'T !!

This horseshit of raising the rate for every little thing is nothing but thievery ! ADT are notorious for this kind of opportunistic bullshit !!. Dealers pay from $3 to $5 a month for monitoring services and mark it up for what the market will bear. If I buy services for $3 a month, the station makes maybe $2 profit for their services to me. If they sell it directly to you for $10, they make $8 a month

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ADT's monitoring sucks big time because they don't do a thorough job of going through your calling list before dispatching. In our area, they are losing their accounts big time because they won't (or can't) dial in to re-program for 10 digit dialing (thousands of accounts they have bought during their endless rounds of buying up other dealers). I'm taking over ADT accounts at the rate of almost one a day right now because of it !!

H> > The ADT QSP (warranty) is extra. He showed you the bottom line for

Reply to
tourman

You raise good points which I'll check out

Reply to
Mike

ADT charges $32.99 per month for burg monitoring with the QSP included. Add $5.00 more per month for flood, low temp, or carbon, $4.00 per month for fire, and $12.00 per month for cell backup. $53.99 per month is no bargain for ADT monitoring.

Mike wrote:

Reply to
Everywhere Man

Sheesh! I gotta review our monitoring rates. We charge $15.00/mo for everything (and that's CDN dollars)

Reply to
Frank Olson

That is essentially the same thing that the majority of independent installers do. Most companies (including many of the independents who post here) lock customers (and competitors out of programming. The standard excuse is that they're afraid of liability should the customer change something but that's a red herring and everyone here knows it.

It is unfortunate that ADT allowed many (most?) of their "authorized dealers" to use deceptive advertising and to lie about the quality and efficacy of the systems they offer in order to boost sales. The entire industry knows about this. However, it is patently unfair for the lowlifes here to continuously attack ADT itself as though they themselves offered anything better or as though they treated their customers any better.

It is noteworthy that several of the worst mud-throwers hide behind phony email addresses and silly names like "Nomen", "Alarminex" and "Badenov". It reminds one of the cowards who run around wearing pointed, white hoods over their heads. Pull off the sheet and you'll find a trembling coward every time.

Reply to
Robert L Bass

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