My wife (when she was my girlfriend) signed up to a 3 year deal when she had a new system installed at her house. When we bought a new house together 6 months later her house purchasers did not want to take on the £26pm contract so we were asked to either pay £600+ to terminate, or take an install at the new house. We opted to take an install, we were charged £99 and ADT started us on a _new_ 3-year contract! How can they do this?
I have also complained at the shoddy install and shockingly bad customer service*, on top of which they invoiced me without warning for a callout recently. I'm going to terminate as soon as I legally can, which should be after 30 (not 36) months of this contract, surely?
*I've written 4 letters including one to the MD and had no reply to any of them. Alan
I ordered a monitored ADT alarm system around three years ago (from ADT in Livingston, Scotland) for my previous house, but cancelled the install when I found out that the salesman had lied about the compatability with my BT broadband connection, and had omitted to tell me that ADT would not do the connection to my phone system but I would have to pay another £70 or so myself, directly to BT, for the installation of a "block connection". In addition to the second phone line they suddenly decided I would have to put in...!
After the order had been cancelled the following happens:
- After a month a BT engineer turns up on my door, not having ordered anything to be installed that I could remember I send him away, and call BT. Turns out there's already £70 charged to my BT account but BT's extremely reasonable and agrees to reverse the charge as the installation was not done and was ordered not by me but - ADT!
- After a couple of months I receive notifications from the Lothian and Borders police, asking for verification of contact etc. details regarding my alarm system. And a small cheque thank you very much.
- After a year I receive an invoice from ADT for next year maintenance of my ADT system (that never was installed, remember?). I send it back to ADT Livingston, reminding them that the system never was installed.
- I also start receiving regular notifications that I should contact ADT to have the non-existing alarm system serviced. Pity I never called to have one come around to do so because...:
- The next months I receive more and more demands from ADT for payment of support of the non-existing alarm system, which I return to ADT by mail and fax), not just to ADT Livingston but also to their head office down in England, with replies written increasingly in CAPITAL LETTERS in case they have reading difficulties.
- After I receive a final demand and am threatened with court action I send at least two recorded letters, to their legal department, and addressed to the "Director of Customer Services".
F> My wife (when she was my girlfriend) signed up to a 3 year deal when
One of our customers had a quote from ADT for a system as well as from us. They chose to go with us and we fitted the system.
About a Month later Our customer received a N.A.C.O.S.S certificate (Certificate of Compliance showing that system was fitted, tested and Meets all requirements.) from ADT for a system had never been ordered nor fitted.
Don't know, but it's not RedCARE. Don't know what the others are, but when it went off due to my stupidity (left back door open) the police arrived.
I'm not an expert, you are asking techie questions I can't answer.
Don't know what you mean. When my box recognised the phone line was not present I called an engineer who blamed either my internal extension cable or BT, never fixed it and they charged me £82.50 without a covering letter, that made me angry.
I believe that they DO use a back-up battery on the internal sounder which is how they manage to work around the BS 4737 requirement for a battery back-up on the sounder.
The fact that almost everyone else, including the inspectorates expect that to mean (on the EXTERNAL sounder) as it was originally intended, but then of course this is ADT/NACOSS, (I keep forgetting which is the inspectorate and which is the installer)(The difference seems to be very blurred).
He did not, I wrote to him last year, at his business address. I did not get a reply (despite cataloguing the misery his company has caused me).
Update - It took another 2 faxes and 4 phone calls to get them to downgrade my account to bells only, in the meantime they took two direct debits they were not entitled to. They are so poor it is unbelievable. Alan
Finally got them to change my DD and refund the overcharging! It took 3 faxes and 6 phone calls in the end. So now I can pay just £16pcm and give them notice to quit in December, then next March get a local firm in. They might actually give a rats a*se about me. Alan
Finally got them to change my DD and refund the overcharging! It took 3 faxes and 6 phone calls in the end. So now I can pay just £16pcm and give them notice to quit in December, then next March get a local firm in. They might actually give a rats a*se about me. Alan
WELL DONE (At Last)
The point is it should never have taken all of this trouble in the first place (Start looking now for a local company, ask around for recommendations from your friends then you will be prepared when the time comes)
Yep, I have a local man lined up. It was my wife (before she was so) who signed up with ADT in the first place, I would not have been persuaded.
It's the fact that the salesman said stuff like "We're subsidising the install out of our own pockets because we need a few reference sites in this area" and then the company held me to the contract early termination fee on the grounds that we had taken a subsidised install that really galled me, and I said so in a letter they failed to answer.
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