Complaint Review: Monitronics Internatinal & Platinum Protection

I moved to A suburb of St. Louis in September 2007. We were renting a house while we were looking for one to buy. The house were renting had a ADT alarm system that was installed but not currently being monitored. I set it up to be turned at a rate of about 30 dollars a month, when the ADT contract lady came out, it turned out that the system need some work before it could be monitored and it would be a week or so before the tech could come out.

During that week a Salesman from Platinum Protection came by. I explained that I wasn't interested but he was a good salesman so I heard his pitch anyway. What I liked most about it was that the service would stay with me when I moved and would be installed for free, regardless of whether the new house had a security system or not. Since we were just renting now and were going to buy some time in the next year, this sounded fantastic. I canceled the service call with ADT and signed a 3 year contract with PP. Then the fun began.

First off, we were renting and I wasn't real clear on what I could install on a house that wasn't mine. The sales man and the tech, who was there within a few hours of my contract signing said, there would be no evidence of a new alarm system that when I moved all the new pieces of equipment would be taken down and the old ones replaced. ( Fast forward 6 months, they came and uninstalled most everything except for leaving a box on the wall in the basement the size of a junction box, luckily the property management group missed it on the walk out).

During the six months in the rental house, were didn't get robbed so I can't attest to what kind of service they really provide. I do know that because we didn't have a house phone and the only way to establish communication with the monitoring company was with some kind of cell phone transmitter in the basement, the response time was like six minutes to receive the password verification call. I thought that was really too long, but I was still okay with them.

Then we moved. I called to get my service transferred. I was told that I couldn't get my service transferred until I had been with the company for year. Now, I'm sure that was in the contract but it sure wasn't mentioned during my sales pitch, and as moving to a new house without a system and getting it installed for free was my primary reason for going with them, I was a little ticked off that I wasn't made aware of that. My options were to continue to have them automatically draft my account for another six months or pay the remaining of the six months now. I didn't have an extra 250 dollars laying around after buying a new house so I chose to pay my 40 some odd dollars a months for the next few months without any service.

In August I called to get my new service set up, It would be a year in September. They said I would have to signed a new 3 year contract and that they would UPS overnight it to me. I really didn't want to sign a new one but they offered me an upgraded system, so I did. About a week later a received a call from a technician with a new installation date of September 3rd.

September 3rd came and went, nobody showed. I called PP but was on hold for so long that I eventually hung up and thought maybe I had the wrong week. Then on Sep. 10th nobody came either. I called PP and this time got through. I explained the situation, but they wouldn't help me they said that I had to talk to Matt.

Apparently, Matt is the only person in the company who could help me. However, Matt wasn't there today and I should call back in the morning. I was busy with work and didn't get around to calling back for about another week. I tried to call during my work day but was on hold for so long that I couldn't stand it. Eventually, I got ahold of them again, and explained my problem, once again I was told Matt was the only one who could help. He was on the other line and would call me back in 10 minutes.

Well, Minutes turned into a week, and I never got a call. The on the next friday I called back, but Matt wasn't in the office that day and would call me back on Monday. Okay, let me talk to anybody else. Why is Matt the only one. Nobody could give me a straight answer. Monday came and nobody called.

I called again and told them that I was going to stop payment on any transactions coming from PP and I want to cancel my account. All of a sudden, there were other people that could help me.

According to them they have no record of every receiving my new contract and that I need to send in another one. If that is the case then who called to set up the bogus appt. Where is the contract I signed and sent in? Why couldn't you have told me this a month ago, when I began to question what happened?

So here I am now. Sitting with a new contract I haven't filled out yet wondering if I should. I don't really know what my options are, I hate paying them, but I don't want them to send me to collections either. I have two years left on my agreement, roughly 1000 dollars. I think I am going to report them to the BBB and see what happens. I will update this if I get any results.

If anybody reads this whole thing. I would recommend staying away from this company. Poor Costumer Service, Poor Products, and Unclear Sale tactics.

John
St. Peters, Missouri
U.S.A.

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