MONI

Monitronics Security did not hold up their end of a 3 Year Service Agreement We purchased a security system for our rental properties. When they're vacant we set the alarm and trust the monitoring company to notify us if any issues arise. We purchased a 3 year service agreement on 5-10-17 for $1,241.10. On July 15th 2017 I called the service contractor who moves the systems B & D Security as well as Monitronics Security (the ones who monitor the system to give them the new address. They moved the system as of that day. We had the 1st break In happen on 8-24-17.They called us to let us know police were being dispatched to 3442 W Aster Drive in Phoenix. When they called back they said "no disturbance has happened at 6210 S 4th Ave in Phoenix. I told them they had the wrong address (that was the previous address before Aster Drive) They then stated they would resend police to the correct address. The next morning I went to Aster drive and the back door was wide open. We had a junkie sleeping on the floor in one of the bedrooms, needles laying around in the kitchen, bathroom & bed room. I removed the druggie from the home & called Phoenix PD they informed me that they were never called to the Aster address. I then called Monitronics and asked why I was ignored & told them about the damage to the home as well as the harmful situation I was placed in since the intruder was still in the home when I arrived. NOTHING WAS EVER DONE ABOUT THIS. On 10-11-17 the same thing happened except now I had a broken window & furniture missing. They also hit up the home again on 10-23-17. At this point I receive a bill from Phoenix PD with charges for dispatching 3 times to the 6210 S 4th Ave. I called endlessly stating that they're still NOT monitoring the correct address. My voice has fallen on deaf ears. I escalated the issue & never got called back. I finally reached a supervisor Dan who stated that because their contractor B & D security never sent signals clearly to the Aster drive address they never changed the address on Montironics side. I asked them to review ALL OF THE CALLS I HAD MADE SINCE JULY 15th. AGAIN- he said he would call me back and NEVER DID. I got ahold of him again & he asked me to call B & D security myself to handle the issue. I called and spoke to Maria. She stated that the contractor they hired was Marcus Polland and gave me his contact info stating he was a third party and since it was somehow his screw up I could go after him. I told her she's the one who hired him so she would be the one dealing with Marcus. Maria told me if I wanted to pursue the issue I could but I needed to hire a lawyer. Then she hung up on me. I called back and asked to speak to the highest manager in the company above this Maria lady. They said "If you have a lawyer you better call them" She then hung up on me. I hired Monitronics for 3 Years to provide security and I am not receiving any security for any of my homes. If I would have known they were this bad at their jobs I would have cancelled their service a lot sooner. I am now out over $2000 because of this issue and my losses. I am requesting a full refund of the service fee from Monitronics that I paid on 5-10-17 in the amount of $1241.00. I realize this is over the normal timeframe for a refund but Visa policy states that if I am being provided an ongoing service and am not receiving the service I should be refunded.

Monitoring was fine, cancelling service was a nightmare. We canceled service before moving, made it clear that we were canceling our service and are continuing to be billed for service on our old home. On July 18th I called and canceled our security service. At that time the representative (Destiny - I believe) tried to sell a discount package which I declined but would contact them if we decided to get a system at our new residence. Shortly after moving on August 11th we received a $0.00 balance bill thinking this matter was closed. However, we subsequently received a bill for mid August to mid September on our house we no longer live in. Since that bill I have personally called to resolve this matter three times and my wife once. I was told we needed to fill out a form which was never offered to me. When receiving the form the fine print stated we agreed to pay outstanding balances which we will not do so I drafted my own cancellation letter (which I was told would suffice). After doing what we were told would resolve the issue we never heard back from MONI and then received another bill for services on our old home. We were also told there is no way they can back cancel our service and resolve our account balance issue. They have also indicated that their interpretation of possibly wanting to move service meant that we wanted to keep it even when we have, on multiple occasions now, directly stated we want it canceled.

They agreed to refund me only half of the fees from the year that they charged my account.

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I think their price is a little high for this area. In talking with some other people, I think I should have gotten a better price. I had an instance where I accidently set off the alarm system, and they did not call me like they are supposed too. The sheriff showed up, and they said that they tried to call me which, they didn't. I have a call log and it wasn't there. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say this is the first time. I will use them for the length of the contract.

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The original contract was for 36 months.   Now it is on a month to month basis.   I have no problem with my system and if I have any questions I can always call them and speak to a representative.

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The saga with Monitronics goes to when we moved in over a year ago.
- First they demanded we install a land line
- Then we "didn't need a land line"
- Then they could not change the secret passphrase from what the previous house owner had unless we called a different company 
- Then we had to go through all of that again to change our keypad code
- Then they had us pay a few hundred dollars just to not need a landline
In the date of 'service' mentioned above, a motion sensor triggered while we were out of the country on vacation. We didn't see the voice mail from them for an hour and when we called we get a technician who claimed our password was incorrect. After much arguing (she was barely not rude to us) she admits that there are 2 accounts associated with the same home address. a year and 3 months after we go through a roller coaster of a contract transfer and Monitronics had either failed to properly disable the previous owner account or their employee is badly trained and can't read a screen (we never figured out which in subsequent calls)
Monitronics, your only job was to provide me with comfort that my house is protected while I am away and you failed at that. Your technician showed no empathy and eventually proved her incompetence, You are by far the vendor we avoid having to talk to the most in our house.

Alarm system installed in Jan 2014 and we were required to commit to 36 month contract. Our alarm tripped in late Nov 2015 and my husband woke up but couldn't provide the password when the monitoring person asked for it. He was groggy and they told him they were satisfied with his response (I assume because they didn't want to alert a criminal if they were in the house). They dispatched a security guard who simply left a card in the door. We were charged $35 for the security guard visit but they did nothing other than leaving a business card in the door.

The alarm tripped again in Dec 2015 and they called my husband's cell but he didn't hear it so they sent out a security guard and again, only a card was left but there were no signs they had assessed the house. This is the crazy part....my cell number is on the contact list as well and I did receive a call this time but it was 3 hours after the alarm went off and well after the security guard was dispatched. Unbelievable as I was nearby and could have be home in 5 minutes. We were charged $35 once again.

I called to complain about them calling me 3 hours later and they verified our contact numbers and then I held for a supervisor for 15 minutes and then hung up because I had to go and the operator said the Supervisor told her he couldn't call me back that I had to hold or could call him back???? We paid the $35 charge but didn't agree with it and are concerned with the level of service provided, both on the call and with the security guards they dispatch. We have 12 months left on our contract and then will consider other providers.

I was hopeful our alarm monitoring would make us feel safe, but that is not the case. I am however glad to see others have had a more positive experience based on the reviews posted.

I received a call this am from a Monotronics representative who was very nice. She is going to refund me the $35 charge for Dec and explained the process for dispatching a security guard. She also shared that the process is regulated by local police so they have limited ability to modify the process.

I appreciate the call and follow up.

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Charged me half the amount of ADP.  They call me frequently to make sure it is working.  Very knowledgeable, courteous, friendly and intelligent.

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We were long time satisfied customers until we moved. Constant delays with installing the system in our new home. Started with a long lead time for install, then death in the installers family, then we added two cameras to the order and they pushed the install date back almost three weeks (it's still not installed).it's still not installed after three weeks. They want to charge a ridiculous fee to cancel the service even though we have had the equipment for years. Be warned and look someplace else.

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I got a warning chime that the main battery on the alarm system was dying so called on October 12, 2015 to schedule a technician to come replace it. The person I spoke with kept insisting that it was really easy to replace it myself since it would cost about $125 for a technician to come out--just buy a battery and crawl up a ladder into my attic access and replace it, which may have been true if I didn't have a disability due to a back injury and no close family to scurry up a ladder for me. I explained this and expressed my displeasure at being charged so much when I am physically unable to do it myself. The representative was very apologetic and arranged to have the technician come out for free. He was scheduled to come on the last Friday of October so I took off work since he was scheduled between 12 and 4. 

The company called late on that Friday morning to say the technician couldn't make it. So I lost a day's work. They rescheduled to come out on November 13.  On November 6, they called to say that the technician can't make it again. Apparently there is only one technician in the entire city (possibly the state) who can possibly come out to replace this battery. I reschedule again, this time for Saturday November 14 since I pointed out that I had already had to request two days off from work and a third was just getting ridiculous, even if I would now be able to work on the 13th.

On November 10, when I came home from work, my system had stopped working. The key pad was non-responsive and the alarm was blasting and would not turn off, even with the remote. I called the company so they wouldn't send out the police and was transferred to tech support. The guy I spoke with was very nice but also advised that I would just have to scurry up the ladder I don't own to unplug the battery from the system and then unplug the whole system to make the alarm stop going off. I explained that it was impossible and that I needed a technician. He explained that was impossible because they don't have anyone in this large city who can respond to emergencies after hours. I had to go door-to-door in my neighborhood to find someone to crawl into my attic. Luckily, I have extremely nice neighbors, even if this isn't exactly the way I want to go about meeting them.

After an hour, my whole system is disabled and the teeth rattling noise finally stops (though I'm not sure when my ears will stop ringing).  I thank my neighbor and ask the technician on the phone: now what.  He advises that I already have an appointment for the 14th and there is nothing they can do so...have a nice evening!  I miss the next day of work because the reason I have the system in the first place is that I was broken into.  Twice.  It's an experience I'm not inclined to repeat.

The company called again tonight because they had a communication failure and wanted to know if everything is alright. Apparently they can't see that nothing is right. I explain the whole thing to the representative, who is very apologetic and says she'll note on my account why they're getting the error messages. Great. She also advises me to call back and speak with customer service. I ask her to transfer me, because that seems like more of a customer service oriented thing to do.

I spoke with customer service who can see that I've tried for a month to schedule someone to fix this issue so she comps me a month's service fee, which is great but my system still doesn't work and I'm out two day's pay. She tries to call the service company to see if the technician can come out sooner, but they don't have evening hours. She says she's left a message for them and advises me to call them myself if I don't hear back from them in the morning. So...another day of lost work while I defend my home and wait to see if someone can be bothered to come fix my system, which I'm guessing not since there seems to be a real shortage of technicians and this one poor guy is having to crisscross the city in an effort to keep all the appointments--no wonder there are no evening hours. He's probably exhausted.

Here's the thing. Their response when the alarm has gone off has always been timely. The few times when I've had to call someone out to make a repair in the past, they've responded pretty fast.  They have always been unfailingly polite on the phone. This is why I've stayed with them, even though I have felt like a numbered account (instead of a valued customer) to them--you don't write, you don't call, except to take your monthly fee from my account. I can live without a "hey! Thanks for being our customer" postcard if the service provided is great so I've overlooked that. This time, though, I'm really angry with how I've been treated. Canceling a service call once is understandable when it's truly unavoidable. Doing it twice when you know the problem is a battery dying (so...it's going to actually die at some point) is inexcusable to me. Not having someone in this very large metropolitan city who can make an emergency call when there's an actual total failure of the system?  Not having more technicians to rely upon to fix systems when they go bad?

I'll stay with this company until I can research others. If I find one whose can actually send out a technician quicker than a month after my initial call for help, then I'm jumping ship.

Update on 11/12/15: Someone from their corporate office called me this morning in response to this review. She wanted to clear up one point in my review that I think is fair to update about: my area has at least three technicians who will not come to your house if your system has a complete failure that leaves you unprotected. She said that these technicians were very busy and couldn't just come when I wanted them to, which is why they schedule appointments--though let's not forget that they canceled my previous two appointments. Also, though last night I was encouraged by the representative to call the technician myself this morning to see if he could come for an earlier appointment (or at least confirm that he will be here for sure on Saturday), he has yet to return my call. The corporate representative called me at 12:15 and said she would call him and call me back within an hour.  It's been four at this writing. At noon, I knew he wasn't going to come early so I simply asked that they confirm that he would be here Saturday. [She never did call back to confirm that appointment.]  I guess we'll see. 

Update on 11/15/15: Good news: The technician came as scheduled on Saturday and fixed the system (replaced the battery and upgraded the system). Bad news: The technician flipped the switch in my attic that is clearly labeled "DO NOT TOUCH" and turned off my heat, resulting in a $125 bill from a heating company who had to come out on a Sunday only to turn it back. (I know it's clearly labeled, btw, because my neighbor read the sign and said something about it when he was in my attic disabling the alarm.) Feels a little like he did it on purpose in retaliation for a bad review and a complaint to corporate. Definitely not a technician that I would ever welcome back into my house. Review changed from a "D" to an "F" in response since the company caused me further damage.