I signed a contract with Firstline security in May - along with a substantial one year's monitoring fee deposit.in December I received a letter stating that monitoring services were going to be transferred to Criticom/IASG, and my billing as well as monitoring started to come from IASG. I never heard from Firstline again after receiving the letter indicating the monitor change to IASG.
In 2007 I started getting bills from Protection one instead of IASG.
In 2008 the analog cell service was discontinued, and I was contacted by Protection one about upgrading my system to go with the new digital phone service. Since they wanted a significant amount for the upgrade ($100) I decided to move my service to another provider. I sent my cancellation notice to Protection one in April they had the information from my contract and had me pay out the remainder in order to cancel.
I didnt receive any other bills or correspondence until February (almost a year!).
I received a bill from a company called Alarm Services/Firstline based in Albany New York in February. I actually initially confused it with my current alarm monitoring service and filed it away. Until March when I receive another bill, significantly larger now, and realize this is not my current monitoring company. I called the company (Alarm Services/Firstline) and left a voicemail. After a couple days of not hearing anything back I called again and spoke with a lady in billing. I told her that there must be a mistake as I cancelled my front point contract almost a year ago. She said that I never cancelled my contract with firstline, and that I still owed them. I asked why I hadnt been billed for a year and she couldnt give a good reason. She said that it was month to month so I could cancel. I said great, cancel it! I then told her I wasnt going to pay for a service that I wasnt receiving, and she said she'd see me in collections and hung up on me.
Turns out, Firstline appears to have sold my contract to IASG in December. IASG was acquired by Protection one in 2007. After speaking with Protection one, they said that they were unaware of any other companies involved, and as far as they knew were the only holders of my contract.
So I send a letter certified and postmarked March 30th (arrived april 2nd, with return receipt. Not sure if intentional or not, but the return receipt was signed as received 4/21/09 - yeah, three weeks in the future). The letter said that I was being billed for a service that was not mine, and requested any contract they had be sent to me. Also indicated that my contract had been fulfilled and cancelled correctly in April.
No correspondance until Saturday, April 18th when they sent me ANOTHER invoice.
More research seems to indicate that the "Alarm Services" that is billing me is in fact a company called "Alarm Traders" that sells alarm contracts. When I try to contact first line, they auto-transfer me to "Alarm traders". When I call the "alarm services" number on the invoice, it also sends me to "Alarm Traders".
I guess my next steps are the attorney general of Utah and New York, as well as the BBB of each state. Any other suggestions? I am so frustrated at all of this.
0 comments