HOME SAFETY RESEARCH

They installed a complete alarm system for my home. The followed up with a re-instruction visit. They completely tested the alarm system and answered all questions. All service technicians were very professional and polite. I highly recommend this company to anyone considering installing an alarm system.

When I was purchasing my home, we asked about the existing alarm panel and were assured that it was no longer functioning. After the purchase, I was inundated by junk mail advertising alarm monitoring services. Eventually, about 3 months after I moved in, I found a handwritten "work order" with my name and phone number on it from the company who had formerly provided the service at my address. I was pretty upset that the seller of my house had given them my name and phone number, but that wasn't HSR's fault. The "work order" said "Call us to discuss your home security needs." Since I had no desire to have alarm service, I didn't call. A few weeks later, there was another "work order" left on my door again, this time saying "Call us." At that point, I was able to find a website for the company and an email address. I emailed the company and asked that they no longer leave these work orders on my property as I was not interested in any alarm monitoring service. At that point, they responded and said that they needed to deprogram the panel. I have several issues with that. There was absolutely NO indication that was what had been needed on either of the two "work orders." In fact, if they needed access to my house, and they obviously had my name, phone number and address, why had they not contacted me before just showing up on my property more than once??? I found out when a day later, I received a phone call from the seller of my house saying that they were still getting monthly bills for the alarm service and could I please have the panel deprogrammed. I had now been left with having to wrangle my schedule to be home for a service technician while dealing with two dogs who don't like strangers in their space - hence the inherited issue. After I found that out, I emailed the office manager who had responded to my original email and asked what their scheduling options were. To this day I have never received a response to that email. I finally called their office and had to set up a time. The office girl who answered was friendly, but did not have a clue as to what needed to be done and there was some serious confusion around scheduling times. I was offered a 1-3pm window, and then 3-5pm window, and then back to 1-3pm. The day came, and I spent the hours of 1-3pm watching for someone to come so that I could put my dogs away. I never received a confirmation phone call, and no one showed. I thought maybe the confusion in the office had spilled over to the appointment time so I waited from 3-5pm in case that is what was given to the technician. Again, no one showed. I called the office at 5:15pm to ask why no one had come and it was an answering service. Apparently this alarm monitoring company is closed at 5pm. Everything else aside, I don't even have office hours that end at 5pm - there is no way I would sign up to have an alarm monitoring service that is closed at 5pm and the answering service didn't have a hot clue what to talk to me about. I called the office back the next morning and they were very apologetic about the miss. They even said the technician had left a note. Now, I had received no note, and he would have had to walk around my car to leave a note on my door so I was very upset. After making another appointment for an issue that should have been taken care of before the house was sold to me, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call saying that he was on his way to my house even earlier than my appointment time. Then, he couldn't find my house. I had to stay on the phone with the technician and direct him through the neighborhood until he pulled into my driveway. To make a long story short, the actual deprogamming of the panel was relatively painless - except that he had to power up the main electrical panel to deprogram the keypad. He powered it up by PLUGGING IT INTO THE WALL. If you can just unplug the alarm service, what is the point???? As it turns out, this was the same technician that did not come to my house the first appointment day. As it was, he did leave a note - on someone else's house because he had not been given my correct address by their office. That's why he couldn't find my house for the second appointment. Which begs the question - they were at my house TWICE before, and who knows how many times when they service existed under the previous owners, but couldn't manage to find it once I actually wanted the service disconnected and they would no longer be able to bill the previous owners. All in all, the technician was very polite and friendly, and while the gal who scheduled my two appointments was friendly, I can't help but think of all the myriad of red flags that would keep me from ever using this company as a service provider. As a side note: this company's website is not very robust. I was able to find out hardly any information about them, barely found an email address, and frankly in this day and age if you don't have a good website, you are going to have issues.