In November of 1999 I signed up for alarm monitoring for my house through protection one, I was to pay $32.95 a month for the monitoring service.
In January I called to cancel my service. I was told I needed to send a letter to the company at the wichita address, which I did. That letter was mailed on Feb 10, and received on Feb 13th.
I have continued to receive bills with ever increasing amounts since the date of cancellation. I called the customer service to inquire as to why I was still being billed for services, and their reply was "You missed a payment in June". I have money order stubs going back to February of 04, and for each month's bill I have a money order stub that shows I paid the bill.in addition to that, none of the bills either before or after June of 04 show two months of service as being due. I had never heard that I missed a payment in June of 04 until I cancelled in January.
Recently I started getting collection calls from the company, asking me when I am going to pay my bill. I told them I was disputing the bill. They would be nice about it and stop the calls for a couple days, and then they started calling again. Finally in disgust I mailed a letter to the head of the company, Richard Ginsburg, and showed in writing all of the bills, the due date, the amount due, amount paid, and the serial number of the money order. Despite the mountain of evidence proving I paid every single statement, they still insist that I missed a payment in June of 04.
Each time I got a new bill I would call. I've spoken with Tiffany in phoenix on 4/11/05, she advised me to wait because the final bill had not yet been processed. Then I spoke to Jessica in Wichita, and she told me "Usually if you miss a payment, it takes anywhere from 6 months to a year to see it on the bill" (!!)
I spoke to Tiffany again on 4/12/05, and I told her the money order numbers that protection one shows that I used to pay my bill do not match the money order numbers that I used to pay the bills.
I spoke to Marcie in Wichita on 4/13/05, asking for a supervisor in either collections or billing. She told me that the people who can potentially correct the billing problems will not talk to customers on the phone.
I spoke with Gloria in Phoenix on 4/26/05, she said my dispute was still being investigated.
I spoke with Gloria on 5/4/05, she said my balance is still at $85.04, that I missed a payment in June, and that she cannot help me because I mailed my correspondence to Wichita. Never mind that Wichita gave me the phone number for the phoenix office.
I spoke with Wanda in Wichita on 5/4/05, the first thing she wanted to do was transfer me to the phoenix office (!!). I told her that they just said they could not help me not 10 minutes prior, so instead she put me on hold. After about 7 minutes she came on the line and transferred me to David.
I spoke with David on 5/4/05, and he told me the 'executive board' reviewed the letter I mailed to Richard Ginsburg, and their finding is that I missed a payment in June of 04. When asked WHO exactly made that determination, he said there was no name given. He said there were notes on the account and that the name of the executive board is non-specific.
David could not explain to me why it took 6 months to find out that I missed a payment. David could not explain why every bill I received showed the same amount due both before and after June. David could not explain why the serial numbers listed on my AR history did not match the serial numbers on the money order stubs.
To say I am frustrated is an understatement.
Buyer beware, Protection one paid $125,000 to the attorney general in the state of oregon in 2001 to settle billing dispute claims that arose as the result of a class action lawsuit. Apparently nothing has been fixed, they paid the fine and the problems remain. I would highly suggest you shop around prior to signing up for a monitoring agreement, and I would discourage you from considering Protection one at all.
Chris
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