On August 1st I emailed the following letter to Monitronics "Executive Response Team" at [email protected]. As of this posting I have not yet recieved acknowledgement of the letter or any other respose.
Attention: Executive Response Team
Subject: Immediate cancellation of Monitronics contract for the customer below.
Date: Monday, August 1st 2005
Reasons for cancellation: Extremely poor performance on the part of Monitronics customer service. Substandard equipment installation contributing to failure of the equipment.
I am an extremely unhappy, dissatisfied customer who wishes to immediately become an ex-customer. I want Monitronics to immediately cancel my remaining contract with no further obligation on my part. My frustration and disappointment with Monitronics began almost immediately after installation, and has not yet ended.
I have kept a log of my issues with Monitronics:
May 22nd 2004 Equipment is installed after a sales pitch from a door-to-door salesman (I should have suspected trouble then). Payment is made for installation and first months monitoring.
June 15th While a Houston Police Department officer was conducting an insurance reduction inspection of my home, he informed me that a city permit was required if I have a monitored alarm. No mention in writing or verbally was ever made by Monitronics or by Apex Alarm. Upon calling Monitronics to ask abut this I was told 1) Monitronics isn't responsible for informing customers of this little detail and 2) Monitronics will not call police or fire until a permit is in place. So, Monitronics is happily taking my money, but has no intention of informing me of the permit requirement, or of the fact that I'm basically paying for nothing. But Monitronics continued to get their money, and after all that's all that's what's important to you.
May 29th During a lightning storm in the night, a power surge literally fries the alarm keypad. Attempts to call Monitronics by land line are impossible because the fried keypad has shut down my phone. Only after unplugging the main power to the alarm am I able to cease the alarm siren and regain use of my phone. No other electrical equipment in my house was affected, only the alarm. Upon close inspection of the main power source plug-in I discovered that the system did not even have the simplest of electrical grounding.in fact, the electrical outlet faceplate was blackened from the arc against the power supply. Imagine if that had caused a fire. I would have no phone and no monitored alarm.
June 1st 2005 I contacted Monitronics to report my outage. The service department took my contact information, which included two phone numbers, day time work and evening home. The service scheduler who is with WCS (not Monitronics, not even Apex, but a third company) called my evening phone during the day, didn't try contacting me at work. She left a return number to call. After calling back three times over two days and leaving messages with no response from her, I call Monitronics customer service. After a period of time they were able to finally connect me a live person. At this point it is three full days with no service. The scheduler could not get a guy to my house until June 9th, which is now 11 days with no service. The serviceman from WCS confirmed the panel was blown out (his words). He also informed that he is one of only two servicemen in the entire Houston area. This is not the thing a customer wants to hear.
He informed me that to repair the unit would cost me approximately $226.00. I asked about the warranty, and the fact that this thing failed through no fault of my own, or through any misuse or mishandling on my part. It had in fact been damaged due to a lack of proper grounding or surge protection by the installers. He shrugged and said that's what it would cost, and that I should contact Monitronics to negotiate. I sent him away without repairing the system. The following day, I did contact Monitronics, and was informed that 1) Monitronics does not cover this type of replacement and that I would have to pay, but that 2) I will need to contact Apex Alarm as they are the installers and owner of the equipment. So now I'm up to four or five calls and 12 days with no service.
I did call Apex, and they would not help on the costs. Their only offer was to try and let me have the equipment at cost. It would cost me another $85.00 service visit, plus the $226.00 (approx.) equipment charge. They did say they would pass this along to a customer resolution person who would call me back. They never did. If you read the way the so called warranty is written, it actually covers nothing. It conveniently uses Act of God as a way out of living up to any sort of service quality commitment.
June 16th I called Monitronics to cancel my contract and end any further association with Monitronics. The person I talked to became very surly and informed me in curt tones that I needed to fax a letter with my intention and reasons. I did that on the same day I spoke with her.
June 18th I called to follow up on the fax and what action was taking place. After being transferred 3 times (the usual, every time I call) I was told that a 30 day management review of my request had to take place.
During this time I had an alarm expert (not affiliated with Monitronics or Apex) survey my alarm installation. He informed that the installation did not meet Houston city code. The two major factors were: 1) An alarm keypad with a fire panic button (like mine) must be wired with fire wire. It is a heat insulated wire coating so that in the event of fire, the alarm can still be sounded and 2) the smoke detector was mounted 12 inches too close to a return air grill. City code specifies no less than 36 inches, and your detector was mounted at 24 inches. This means that if there is smoke and the A/C or heater is running, the smoke will go into the return air grill, rather than be detected by the smoke detector.
July 28th More than 30 days have passed and I called to follow up on this management review. After being transferred the first time, that person said that there was no notes in my file pertaining to any management review. She told me that she's not showing where anyone has reviewed this cancellation request.in other words, the management review was a lie. She transferred me to someone else in the cancellation department (Stephanie was her name). Stephanie told me that you have no intention of releasing my contract. I asked her if you were ever going to contact me with that fact, she said no. I explained to her again all the reasons and told her in detail about the equipment shortcomings and poor installation but it was all ignored.
She told me that an offer had been made to cover $300.00 of the repair costs. This came only after I had made my desire to cancel known. And this was a verbal offer. Nothing in writing, and so far Monitronics has not demonstrated anything that makes me trust you to hold up verbal offer.
Later the same day I called back to the cancellation department and suggested that, if Monitronics was willing to cover $300.00, would they instead put that $300.00 toward buying out my contract. The guy on the phone said absolutely not. They would not negotiate, nor even if I paid the remaining amount on the contract would they close the contract. It would remain open for the amount of time remaining. Which means any sort of rate increase (like the $0.90 increase I got in the mail) would mean I still owed money to Monitronics. So again, it's obvious that getting your money is all that matters.
Other issues:
1) Any email to your website results in the same response. Call.
2) Making an online payment requires the user to register, but there is no place on the website to register, forcing the customer to call, be put on hold, transferred and then make a payment using a credit card.
3) Phone messages are never returned.
In conclusion, Monitronics has been a disappointment on every level. I do not trust Monitronics, because I have been told things that simply were not true. I do not trust Monitronics installations or equipment, because it is obvious that the fastest, cheapest installation is the standard, putting me and my home in jeopardy in the event that I would actually need to call for help. Therefore, I do not want Monitronics or any company affiliated with Monitronics in my home and I wish to immediately terminate this disappointing, frustrating relationship with Monitronics. Any monies you have received from me to date I will write off as paying for my lesson in bad judgment.
Les
Houston, Texas
U.S.A.
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