KEMCO ALARM COMPANY INC

Run, don't walk from Kemco alarm company. I should have known that a company with only a few Angie's List reviews that are outdated (from 3 years ago) wasn't the way to go. Now we're with a company with around 100 reviews from as recently as the last month, and we couldn't be happier. Here's the scoop on Kemco's poor customer service outdated, unprofessional and slow response time - We moved into a home with a Kemco alarm already installed. Upon moving in we were NOT having it monitored with Kemco. After a break in to a room attached to our garage at which time thousands of dollars worth of items were stolen and another break in to that same room the following day, our knee jerk reaction was to call Kemco and have them come out and set us up. They said it would take a few days before they could come out but they'd do their best to get there ASAP. We were already feeling on edge following our break ins, but we figured a few days was fine. We also asked for them to install a second keypad in the room attached to our garage, which is where our break in occurred. They said that they absolutely would not be able to do that in a few days but could schedule that appt for a few weeks later. Fine. The employee arrived on time to set up the alarm. He rattled off a ton of codes, which would be impossible to remember and handed us a booklet of commands and codes before he left. The keypad seemed fairly old school, but again, we'd never had a security system before so we figured this was pretty standard. Got the every day ones we'd need down and we were all set. They said they'd be calling about an appointment to install the second keypad. Fast forward to 1 day after we had the alarm set up to be monitored, and we're getting a "communication failure" display on the keypad, meaning it's not talking to the control center, rendering it useless. I called the office, and a woman named Mary (who I later learned is an owner/principal with the company) tried to help via phone. She had me enter certain commands to test it, ran through a laundry list of things to try, but we still couldn't connect. Mary (owner of the company) told me it must something to do with the phones, and I should call Comcast to have them check the phones. I explained that our phones were working just fine and we could make calls in and out, but she continued to insist it was either our phones or something WE had done to break the connection. Since we were not connecting my next question was when a technician could come up to fix it. Mary (one of the company owners) told me she couldn't get someone to us for at least 2 weeks. 2 weeks, for a company who's sole purpose is to monitor your home and dispatch the police if there is a problem. I said that wouldn't work and asked how someone could come more quickly. Her response, "Well ADT would tell you 3 weeks! (laughter)". This woman was literally laughing. I was being fairly patient and explained in a calm manner that we were paying them $24.90 a month specifically for them to monitor our system and if it takes weeks to get out to us to fix the problem than I'm confused about what we are paying for. She then informed me that we could have the system armed locally (alarm would sound but no dispatch made) and that would be enough to deter a criminal. So she basically just told me paying them to monitor is a pointless service. This woman, an owner of the company, literally just told me the service the company provides is useless! Way to market your business. I then said that we weren't comfortable with just monitoring locally, which is why we called them for the service. Otherwise, we could have armed it locally ourselves. I then explained that we'd have two break ins in a matter of two days and we were feeling unsafe, violated and uncomfortable with out having it monitoring. She then asked me, "Well, are these break ins random?" I said, "Excuse me? I don't know what you mean." And she responded with, "Well, did you make someone mad? That seems unusual that you'd have two break ins in two days." Again, an owner of the company basically just began blaming us for having our home broken into! At this point I was fed up. I'd remained calm and patient and said several times, "I understand you guys are covered up, but we're paying you to monitor the system. There aren't any employees who are on call for emergencies?" But when she started accusing us of somehow causing someone to burglarize our home I lost it. It had been a rough few days of home invasions, loss of belongings, police, etc... and for the first time I actually cried. I asked, "Has your home ever been broken into?" She responded no, and I said, "Well, let me tell you how you feel. You're on edge, you don't sleep for days, you feel completely violated and unsettled, and I hope you never have to deal with those emotions and all that comes with these circumstances and we called you and paid you to help ease our minds but you're telling me you can't provide the service we're paying for. I need to talk to someone else right now (not knowing this woman is an owner!) Shouldn't she be the one who is patient, understanding and kind to customers and doing her best to make sure they are happy? She put someone else on the phone, and she continued to tell me there was nothing they could do. Fast forward to 4 days later, and they called and said someone was on the way, literally 10 mins before he arrived! It was a weekday morning before work. Thanks goodness one of us could stay for a bit while he fixed the communication failure. I asked when he arrived if they were going to be calling us about the second keypad install (as it had now been almost two weeks), and he said he'd mention it in the office and make sure it got on the books. In the meantime, we called another security company who responded immediately, set up an appt to take a look and suggest a plan and in a matter of days not only came and replaced the outdated keypad with a new one for free, but also installed the keypad in the garage (which Kemco said involved too much rewiring and work to do so soon), installed a separate keypad in our basement for our tenants, and set us up for ONLINE (hello, welcome to 2013) and mobile phone monitoring and arming/disarming. They also called me today to check in and see how things are going. So I called Kemco on a Thursday to cancel our service. Mary answered and seemed surprised I was asking to cancel. She said we had a three year contract and she'd need someone to call me right back. I waited the rest of the day and Friday, and no call. Shocking since they're so on top of things over there. Called back today, Monday, and was told it would cost $966.40 to cancel. I also asked for a copy of the contract before we pay that amount since the paper work they gave us does not include any contract terms. Mary said she'd send that out to me via email immediately. It's been an hour, and NOTHING. Long story short, this company is apparently extremely short staff, lacking in customer service, outdated and can't be counted on when you have an emergency.

Still waiting to see if they come and solve the issue.

COMPANY IS RESPONSIVE TO POSSIBLE PROBLEMS. COMPANY SERVICES ALARM SYSTEM FOR AN EXTRA COST.