Whitetail Electronics Security Systems Fraudulent Billing One Year After Failing to Close Account ripoff Erie Pennsylvania
When building my home, I contracted a company to install a security system and monitor to provide monitoring for that security system. That company went out of busines and turned their accounts over to the company in this complaint, Whitetail Electronics. I received a letter stating the turnover, but I never received any form of contract from Whitetail, other than an invoice for monitoring services, which I began paying.
I noticed that the front door on my system was no longer triggering the chime, or the alarm, so I called to report this. Upon calling I found that my call was being directed to Mr. Greg Butala, who was always unavailable, but would get back to me. I realized that smaller companies are not always better and in this case, I was not having my needs met.
In February of 2005, decided to contract ADT Home security because I knew the company had enough manpower to handle my account. During the transaction, I asked the ADT agent how a change over in systems was usually handled. I was instructed to call Whitetail and have the account cancelled, which I did immediately after ADT installed their system.
In november of 2005, I received an invoice from Whitetail Electronics for monitoring for the coming year. I immediately called and told them that I had already cancelled this account. I was told that I had to speak with Greg Butala who was unavailable. When I finally reached Mr. Butala, I explained that I was dissatisfied with the service and that I had already cancelled this account. He asked me to put something in writing, which I did, in the form of the invoice notated with the date and time of my cancellation call.
In June of 2006, I received a certified letter from Mr. Butala, stating that my account was long overdue in the amount of $222.00. He went on to say that I had seven days to respond or that my account would be referred to collections. The letter did not contain a telephone number at all, yet I was to respond within seven days. When I attempted to get a company listing based on the letter's address in McKean, Pennsyvlania, there was none. But I managed to find Mr. Butala at a company listing in Erie, Pennsylvania.
When I called, of course Mr. Butala was unavailable, but I did manage to speak with him with some persistence. He explained that the letter was sent automatically and that he did not recall my call to cancel. He also advised me that they did not have the notated invoice, and as a result they continued to allow a third-party bill them for monitoring a system that I no longer had.
Mr. Butala called a day or two later and left a voice message to restate that the invoice was not in my record, but that the phone records did show that I had called to cancel the account. He went on to say that he would like to recoup the monitoring fees.
I sent Mr. Butala a certified letter asking for a copy of whatever contract there was and also the invoice in question as I intended to dispute his claim.
Carl
Scotrun, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Gregg
Erie,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Mr. Carl *** is Negligent with his facts!!!
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Mon, February 26, 2007
To Whom It May Concern:
In regard to Mr. *** claim. The contract that Mr. *** had with his previous Alarm co. as well as the one we use for our clients, clearly states that the contract automatically renews itself, unless we receive a written notice before his current year expires.
We sent Mr. *** an invoice more then 30 days before the end of his current year. His year expires on December 31; we sent our invoice on November 11, 2005. We did not receive any letter that he wanted to terminate the service.
If he wanted to make sure that we received it, he should have sent it certified. This is what our company has to do before we can cancel an account. We have to have records of an attempt to notify an account, for the obvious liability reasons.
As Mr. *** stated in his own letter to you, he replaced the security system with another company, he only informed us after we sent him his yearly invoice. He never informed us the prior 10 months. I do not know what the date was when he called. If it was after Dec. 31st; then he already was past his due date and is liable for another year and as stated, we never received a letter in the first place.
What Mr. *** and other delinquent accounts don't understand is that once the monitoring passes their due date, my company pays for the monitoring of the account for the upcoming year. It is in my interest to cancel the account before the new year starts, because my company then has to try to collect the money from that client. (Trying to be nice doesn't work all the time) most of my clients do eventually pay.
I do understand that most people are just having a hard time with bills. Unfortunately, there are other people who simply move and never notify us or just don't want to pay for monitoring services anymore and don't send a letter, they simply ignore the invoices.
The other claims that Mr. *** made about not scheduling a service call to check his system can not be verified. I do not have any records of him requesting a service a call. We did have some problems with the answering co. that were using, which has been resolved, but I never had complaints about them not giving us messages.
I did speak to Mr. *** this past summer when he received a letter from us informing him that we were canceling his monitoring service unless we heard from him in 7 days and that we would turn it over to a collection agency if we did not receive payment. We had the option to send his account to a collection agency, but I decided not too. The reason being he wasn't an existing account of ours and it wasn't worth the trouble.
I personally have never been accused of trying to get over on anybody and I was nice enough not to send Mr. *** to a collection agency. Instead of being grateful he writes a letter to the BBB and this Internet site accusing us of negligence, when he himself can not even prove that he wrote a letter and that we received it.
My company takes great pride in our work and customer service. I have been in business for 14 years now, won several awards and never had a complaint of this nature!
Sincerely,
Gregg Butala
President
ERIE DIVISION-Corp. Office 8331 Edinboro Road Erie, PA 16509 (814) 476-7711 800-294-5594 Fax (814) 476-0722
POCONO DIVISION (570) 455-5594
whitetailelectronics.com