When we bought our home four years ago we signed up with ASG Security for monthly alarm monitoring. Mind you, the alarm system was already in place so ASG didn't provide any free equipment up front that they needed to recoup via inflated monthly monitoring fees. Over the past four years our monthly rate has crept up and several months ago started including a $2 "Administration Fee". That finally caught my eye, as did the fact that my monthly bill was now over $42, which certainly seemed excessive for a service that has only been used a few times due to false alarms.
When I called they explained that the $2 fee was because I was continuing to receive a paper statement and bill in the mail versus paying online. That ticked me off for a couple of reasons. One, you can't change the terms of someone's account and begin charging them more without them agreeing to it, which I never did. Better yet, they had a responsibility to offer me online bill-pay. Secondly, I would actually prefer to pay online so to have been charged $2 a month for a feature I didn't even want in the first place really ticked me off. It ticked me off to the point that I decided to shop around for a better monthly rate. It took about five seconds to find a rate that is about 1/2 what I had been paying ASG.
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