Two young, neatly dressed salesmen wearing APX ID tags appeared as my husband and I were leaving our house. As in other reports, they promised a lot of free equipment if we would only allow them to place their sign in our yard for 3 days. At first they implied there would be no fee, ever. When pressed, they said the cost for direct hook-up to the police would be $9/week. When I asked the length of the contract, they said 5 years and when we expressed doubt, they said since we were elderly, it would only be 3 years. When my husband asked what would happen if we wanted it removed earlier, they said there would be no problem, it would be done promptly. When we asked if there would be a financial penalty, they told us to tell the company we were moving to a nursing home and there would be no problem since private alarm systems weren't allowed in nursing homes! They also asked that we lie to any neighbors who asked the cost since we were special and part of the advertising budget. Tempted despite these warning signs, we invited one of the young men inside to explain further while the other went to another house nearby. Once in, he wanted us to sign a contract and have the equipment installed immediately, "within the next hour" then we would have 3 days to "play around with the system before deciding whether to keep it". I refused to sign and said since we were on our way out when they arrived and were very busy for the next 2 weeks we would think about it for 2 weeks and he could come back. At that point he suggested we check his badge number online to see if he was legitimate. The badge number checked at APX.com but on the way to that website, I also saw a warning on the site for a company with a similar name saying that there was an fraudulent company doing business under names and addresses similar to their own. From there, I went to the consumer complaints and, thanks to all of you who have written in, my husband and I were saved from what could have been a very expensive mistake.
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