After doing extensive investigation on pricing and competency of various home security companies, we decided on Slomin's. Their price was about $4-5/month less expensive than the competitors and the service was comparable. They also offered a 'free' system and installation with a five-year contract. We had just moved into our new home and did not anticipate moving again.
The salesman was cooperative and helpful, and we have no problem with him. The trouble began with the installer who came out a few WEEKS later to do the install.in the course of conversation, he told me that the last batch of motion detectors had been defective and that they had to replace them all. This is where the first of my red flags went up. (What made them think these were going to be okay?)
Sure enough, the following month, while I am on my way to the hospital for testing on a rapidly deteriorating respiratory problem and my then eleven-year-old daughter is sick and home alone, the alarm goes off. Slomin's doesn't notify me for twenty-five minutes! I called my wife to come home from her work and manage the problem as best she could. We couldn't even contact our daughter because, of course, the alarm system cut off the phone! Being new construction, we didn't even have neighbors we could contact.
The police and fire departments didn't arrive until an hour after the alarm had sounded. I wondered what would have happened if there had been an actual emergency. My wife didn't arrive until emergency services were already on-scene (having been alerted half-an-hour after the initial alarm). Now we had a false alarm charged against us.
I contacted 'Customer Service, ' but they were unable to explain to me why they were unable to explain to the emergency responders where our home was located. Apparently they didn't feel that this was their job. I was first connected to the department that actually gets in touch with the responders, but I got nowhere. Then I spoke with a Customer Service supervisor who was not only unhelpful, but coarse and rude.
When Slomin's sent the same technician who did the installation to fix the problem — guess what? It was a bad motion detector! The same problem that he said they had had with the last batch. Now we had another motion detector installed in our basement, but that was left untouched; in fact it wasn't even checked.
The next problem arose when we were setting up my wife's desktop computer. Each time we connected the modem, it tripped the alarm. Now I'm not an electronics genius, but I know that something's wrong with that picture. I run my laptop from any jack in the house (except the one in my wife's office) with no problem. We actually haven't had the wherewithal to mess with the internet on that computer since those problems because of Slomin's! The problem never was resolved.
Having had such a hard time on the phone with Slomin's, I told the Customer Service representative this time that if there were any more problems, they could come and take out the system.
But sure enough, on my way to present a major report at a college class one morning only a couple of months later, I get another call from Slomin's saying that the alarm went off. I headed home, taking more than half-an-hour to arrive, and still getting there well before the police (this time the fire dept. Wasn't even called). Again it took an hour for a response, and the officer told me that there would be a fine for another false alarm.
And I called Slomin's to tell them to come get their alarm system. They sent a technician, again a couple of DAYS later, to fix the problem — guess what? ANOTHER bad motion detector, this time it was the one in the basement. But I told him that this time I wanted the system out. He refused to remove it, and Slomin's is billing me $1,600 for the unfinished balance of the contract. Their attorney wants to know where IN PRINT it says that the system would work. NICE! He says that they plan to take me to court. I can't be the only one they're treating like this. Can anyone say class action suit?
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