I was a former employee of Firstline Security which is based in Orem, Utah. This goes out to anyone who would consider being a customer or employee for Firstline. Unfortunately, customers really don't have time to research the company because the salesman, called an "Advertising Director", really pushes you to sign up right then and there. So here are a few things you should know about the company.
Firstline is first and foremost a marketing company, a sales company. They are a sales company that sells a security service. The fact that they are knocking on your door says it all. They send out young college kids who know little about security. The "advertising director" title was something that always bothered me because it seemed misleading. Their approach is that the salesman comes to your door and tells you he wants to put up a sign in your yard to advertise for Firstline. It's not about the sign at all. They want you to subscribe to a monitoring service. The whole bit about "advertising" is just to get their foot in the door before you slam it. The monitoring service is usually $40-45 a month. They say you get the alarm for free because you are an "advertising home." I guess the concept is pretty similar to cell phone companies giving you a free phone for signing a two year contract. Think of it that way, and not that you're getting some special discount because you're letting them put a sign on your front lawn. Your "free system" will be bare bones simple. You get the key pad/panel, and maybe 3-4 sensors. If they salesman doesn't try to sell you on buying additional sensors and equipment then the technician who comes to install it probably will. It's true that their markup on the equipment is enormous. They tell you you're getting a $1600 system for free because you're an advertising home. That is far from the truth. You could buy the EXACT same system online for around $200. And the additional sensors they try to sell, they'll charge 2-4 times as much as what you could buy them yourself for. At the end of this review I'll discuss installation and monitoring.
The Advertising Directors, or reps as I will refer to them, are young college kids recruited for a summer sales job. They are lured in with the promise, or rather the hope, of making tens of thousands of dollars in one summer. Some experienced reps even make six figures. That is also largely true of the "professional security technicians" that install the system. Some may have experience in construction or electrical work, but many really don't know anything at all. So, again, Firstline is primarily concerned with generating sales, and not so much on being a company that provides quality home security. Many of their employees work just one summer and then don't return. The customer support that you call over the phone is the same thing. It is a company of college kids and the first month or two of the summer is chaos for the company because few people know what they're doing. Call wait time if you call customer support is going to be 20-30 minutes. Then once you actually get someone on the phone, remember that it's a 99% chance that they really don't know very much anyways. As an installation technician I had to call them for every installation I did to process stuff and believe me, most of them don't have a clue what's going on. It was ridiculously frustrating.
The real mission and driving force of the company is to make a lot of money. They aren't concerned with providing the best product or service as much as they are about making lots and lots of money. It's the culture of the company. It's a sales company, not a security company. Remember that if you are going to be either a customer or an employee of Firstline. For the customer, I would say JUST DON'T DO IT. If you are concerned about protecting your home then do an ounce of research and go with a good company that has a good system. DON'T buy one from a kid that knocks on your door with a lame story about "advertising signs." Firstline is very new, and they're all college kids. You'll pay more than you should, you'll get a system that very likely could be poorly installed, and you'll commit yourself to a contract with a company that you don't want to be tied to. Firstline buys their equipment from GE, which is usually a trusted brand. But there were many times when the equipment I installed just wasn't very good. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you walk by a motion sensor and the alarm will go off, some times it doesn't. (Just FYI, the motion sensors were really fickle). Sometimes you open a door and the alarm goes off, sometimes it doesn't.
If you're considering a summer job with Firstline, you should be DRIVEN by money, otherwise you're not going to like it. Daily, I struggled with the feeling of ripping people off. As a technician you're pressured into helping the sales rep keep his sale, which many times forces you to be 'not entirely honest' with customers, or just flat out lie. And many of the salesmen are very shady. If you already have a security system in your home, the sales reps will try to get you to cancel with your existing company and sign with Firstline. I found that sometimes that was just a very bad and morally wrong thing for me to do. Some of these sales reps were so good at what they do that the customer not only pays more for monitoring service, but in ripping out their old system, they get an inferior one, one with a lot less protection. There was a time when I flat out told a customer that they had a very nice existing security system with ADT, they were paying a lot less in monthly monitoring costs, and for me to put in Firstline's system and provide the same amount of coverage/protection, it would end up costing them several hundred dollars up front (since Firstline only gives you 3-4 sensors in their
"free system") and hundreds more in the long run. I told the customer to stick with ADT. I ended up leaving Firstline the next week. I just couldn't handle ripping people off. Not every single customer is being ripped off. But there are plenty of times when they are really being cheated out of their money. If you can get through the summer, doing exactly what they tell you and not thinking for yourself, keeping your eyes closed to all the shady stuff, then you can come home with a lot more money than other jobs will pay you. A lot of guys go through a process where they have to convince themselves that it is a good company. They make justifications and what not. The truth is that it's just not a good company to be involved with, as an employee, if you're concerned about anything except money. And as for the customers, if you want protection for your home, go with a trusted and respected company. You'll often times pay less up front and in the long run. When I own a home I will definitely have a security system on it. I think it's a great idea. But I would never go with Firstline and I would never buy a system from some kid going door to door. I empathize with how tough a job it is to go door to door, but don't trust the security of your home and family to a couple of college kids looking to make a lot of money over the summer. There are some good people in the company, some nice sales reps and good technicians. But as a whole, just avoid the company.
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