- Report: #337179
Complaint Review: Security Associates International - ARLINGTON HEIGHTS Illinois
-
Author Confirmed
Why?
Security Associates International
2101 SOUTH ARLINGTON HEIGHTS RD ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Illinois, U.S.A.
Web:
N/A
Categories:
Business Rating:
(0)
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good?
Security Associates International SAI continues its poor customer service Arlington HEIGHTS Illinois
Here is a rundown on the hell they have put us throughFeb 2007 I called SAI to get a quote to install one window alarm. The Technician I talked to said it would be parts plus labor. I believe that the amount was $150.00 to $175.00 so I agreed. So they came out to install it which took maybe 30 minutes.
March 2007 I got a bill for the installation of the window monitor in the amount of $211.74 which was more than what was quoted to me. The technician failed to tell me that there would be a trip charge on top of the labor and parts. If I was informed about it up front, I would never have scheduled the service. For one window $211.74 was ridiculous.
March 2007 I called the SAI technicians to find out why it was more then what was told to me. They informed that that they always charge a trip fee and they could do nothing about our bill. So I requested a manager to call me back.
In the meantime I made a $50.00 payment towards the bill.April 2007 I noticed that we were not charged to the monitoring service. I thought it might be a fluke so I waited to see if we were going to be charged in May. May 2007 We still did not get charged so I called a few times and left messages for someone to call me back about our account. I left my home and cell number but no one would ever call me back.
June 2007 We were still not getting charged for our service so I called a few more times and was on wait for over 30 minutes and gave up or left messages for someone to call me back again leaving my home and cell number.We did get a statement in the mail for 2 months worth of services which we did pay at the end of June. Sometime in June we did get one returned call on my home number and they left a message on the machine but I tried yet again to call and still could never get anyone.
At this point I was fed up by spending many hours on the phone and figured that if they wanted my money they might eventually call me. Monday 10/29/07 I tried to call SAI yet again because I still did not hear from anyone. I did talk to a lady with SAI about our bill. She informed me that we were 5 months past due $224.95 (there was no mention of the Feb 2007 bill) I believe was the total. I informed her that we would pay the current month and one late month until we were caught up because I had tried to get this resolved back in June but no one at the company cared about returning any one of my calls.
Tuesday 10/30/08 I got a call from the billing department asking where the payments were. I indicated that I talked to SAI and I had set up payments and a statement was being mailed out. I was then informed that there were no notes in my account and the request for a statement was never sent out. She then informed me that she would send the request for a statement out that day.
Wednesday 10/31/08 I called SAI and requested to speak to a manager to verify that a statement had in fact been sent out but I was stuck on hold for over 30 minutes and gave up. I then emailed our corporate office to have someone to call me because I wanted to get my account fixed.
A couple of days later, I did get a call back from a manager indicating that the statement was yet again never requested and that she would personally send the request out. I also informed her of the situation I had had with SAI and told her that we would be doing payments and we wanted to paper bill until our account was cleaned up. She did inform me that there was going to be a $2.00 charge for mailing out the bill but the $2.00 charge would be waived.We did finally receive the statement in November showing the past due monitoring fees which we did start to make payments on.
November 2007 We got the December bill and it had a $2.00 charge on it. I again tried to call SAI to get it fixed but still had the same problem. I either was on hold forever or I left a message but still did not get any help.I then proceeded to email your corporate office to see if anyone could help.
December 7th A billing manager emailed me back stating that she did get my email regarding my billing problems and she would take care of it which she did.January 11th I emailed the billing manager to let her know that the final payment of $134.97 went out and I would contact her once it has cleared so we can get back on automatic payments again.
January 29th I called the billing manager to set up automatic withdraws but she did not answer so I left her a message.January 30th I emailed the billing manager to let her know that I had sent an email but would like to talk to her about setting up automatic withdraws.She then called me back a couple of hours later and she pulled up my account to make sure it was clear before we set up automatic withdraws. Lo and behold there was a balance of $161.74 that was over 190 days past due. I asked her what that was from. She did not know so she told me that she would look it up and get back with me.Once the billing manager called back, I found out it was the Feb 2007 bill which was from almost a year ago. I then remembered about the bill and I told her briefly what happened. She told me she would contact a manager in the technician department and have him call me.
Between and half hour to an hour later, I emailed the billing manager to fax over the invoice so I could have it in from of me when the manager from the technician department called me. She did fax over the invoice and then emailed me back stating that she did talk to the Technical Support Department but they would not call me because it was a request for service.I then emailed the manager back telling her that I was at the end of my rope with the company and I want to talk to a manager about or account. She gave me another manager's name, number, and email address.(What I want to know is over the past 3-4 months that I had been working to clean up SAI mess, no one ever mentioned the Feb 2007 invoice and we had never gotten anything in the mail stating it was still open)
1/31/08 My husband emailed the new manager 2/1/08 I called and left a message for the new manager and told her to call me ASAP because I want to get our account fixed. I left her my work and cell phone numberI then proceeded to email the new manager to make sure she did get my voice mail and I gave her my work number, cell phone number, and my home number and left the days and times she could reach me. 2/7/08 I emailed the billing manager to let her know that I still have not heard from the new manager and asked if there was anyone else I can talk to. (I have not heard back yet)2/12/08 I emailed the billing manager again stating I am getting tired of being ignored and I want to talk to someone other than the new manager.2/12/08 The billing manager emailed me back stating that she would forward my email to her supervisor but she is on vacation and will not be returning for a couple of days. The billing manager said she would ask her to call me as soon as she can.2/20/08
I still have not heard from anyone so I emailed the billing manager back again and asked that she take us off the paper billing because I do not trust SAI at all. We will mail a check in once a month but I will not pay an extra $2.00 a month for a bill to be mailed to me because this issue is a about a year old and no one bother to call back. I am just fed up because no one will ever call me back.I got an email back from the billing manager informing me that she would forward my email to her supervisor and said she would try to have someone get back to me ASAP
2/26/08 I still have not heard from anyone so I emailed the corporate office. So we will see.March: We did did find out that the Feb 2007 bill was reduced to 180.00 not from anyone calling us to let us know but by mailing us the invoice. But what makes me want to laught is that they send the invoice with a current date so I thought that it was a new bill.I emailed the billing manager again asking about the bill. She did inform me then that the bill was reduced to 180.00 and we still owed around $130.00. At this point we had paid $175.00. I asked her to look into this.She got pack to me and informed me that some payments were incorrectly applied to our account.She did fix the payment for me. I send in the remaining $5.00 payment in April.
At the end of April I called the billing manager to get back set up on automatic billing. I gave them a credit card I do not use so if they screw up the billing I can cancel the credit card. At this point I do not trust them especially with my back account. I even verified that my account was zero.So it was a big suprise that I got a call from collections at the beginning of June saying we owed 75.00 from the Feb 2007 bill.I explained the the collections guy that I have an email from their company stating that my account was cleaned up and I owed nothing. He then asked me to look back in my back account to prove it. I proceeded the inform him that I am not paying anything until I talked to a manager. He started arguing with me that I had to prove that I had made all of my payments. I then hung up on him.I then emailed the billing manager asking what is going on. Our account should be Zero. She let me know that my monthly payment has not been processed that she did it herself. But that was no where close to the 75.00 that the collections said I owed.
I then called the billing manager and she said that my account was zero and she does not know why or where the collections are getting the $75.00.I would never use them again. We have one year left on our contract and I can not wait to get out. I wish I could cancel them now but all I can do is wait and see what else they can screw up. Any time I deal with them I feel like I am given the run and no one know anything about how to handle accounting.
Lynne
Memphis, Tennessee
U.S.A.
March 2007 I got a bill for the installation of the window monitor in the amount of $211.74 which was more than what was quoted to me. The technician failed to tell me that there would be a trip charge on top of the labor and parts. If I was informed about it up front, I would never have scheduled the service. For one window $211.74 was ridiculous.
March 2007 I called the SAI technicians to find out why it was more then what was told to me. They informed that that they always charge a trip fee and they could do nothing about our bill. So I requested a manager to call me back.
In the meantime I made a $50.00 payment towards the bill.April 2007 I noticed that we were not charged to the monitoring service. I thought it might be a fluke so I waited to see if we were going to be charged in May. May 2007 We still did not get charged so I called a few times and left messages for someone to call me back about our account. I left my home and cell number but no one would ever call me back.
June 2007 We were still not getting charged for our service so I called a few more times and was on wait for over 30 minutes and gave up or left messages for someone to call me back again leaving my home and cell number.We did get a statement in the mail for 2 months worth of services which we did pay at the end of June. Sometime in June we did get one returned call on my home number and they left a message on the machine but I tried yet again to call and still could never get anyone.
At this point I was fed up by spending many hours on the phone and figured that if they wanted my money they might eventually call me. Monday 10/29/07 I tried to call SAI yet again because I still did not hear from anyone. I did talk to a lady with SAI about our bill. She informed me that we were 5 months past due $224.95 (there was no mention of the Feb 2007 bill) I believe was the total. I informed her that we would pay the current month and one late month until we were caught up because I had tried to get this resolved back in June but no one at the company cared about returning any one of my calls.
Tuesday 10/30/08 I got a call from the billing department asking where the payments were. I indicated that I talked to SAI and I had set up payments and a statement was being mailed out. I was then informed that there were no notes in my account and the request for a statement was never sent out. She then informed me that she would send the request for a statement out that day.
Wednesday 10/31/08 I called SAI and requested to speak to a manager to verify that a statement had in fact been sent out but I was stuck on hold for over 30 minutes and gave up. I then emailed our corporate office to have someone to call me because I wanted to get my account fixed.
A couple of days later, I did get a call back from a manager indicating that the statement was yet again never requested and that she would personally send the request out. I also informed her of the situation I had had with SAI and told her that we would be doing payments and we wanted to paper bill until our account was cleaned up. She did inform me that there was going to be a $2.00 charge for mailing out the bill but the $2.00 charge would be waived.We did finally receive the statement in November showing the past due monitoring fees which we did start to make payments on.
November 2007 We got the December bill and it had a $2.00 charge on it. I again tried to call SAI to get it fixed but still had the same problem. I either was on hold forever or I left a message but still did not get any help.I then proceeded to email your corporate office to see if anyone could help.
December 7th A billing manager emailed me back stating that she did get my email regarding my billing problems and she would take care of it which she did.January 11th I emailed the billing manager to let her know that the final payment of $134.97 went out and I would contact her once it has cleared so we can get back on automatic payments again.
January 29th I called the billing manager to set up automatic withdraws but she did not answer so I left her a message.January 30th I emailed the billing manager to let her know that I had sent an email but would like to talk to her about setting up automatic withdraws.She then called me back a couple of hours later and she pulled up my account to make sure it was clear before we set up automatic withdraws. Lo and behold there was a balance of $161.74 that was over 190 days past due. I asked her what that was from. She did not know so she told me that she would look it up and get back with me.Once the billing manager called back, I found out it was the Feb 2007 bill which was from almost a year ago. I then remembered about the bill and I told her briefly what happened. She told me she would contact a manager in the technician department and have him call me.
Between and half hour to an hour later, I emailed the billing manager to fax over the invoice so I could have it in from of me when the manager from the technician department called me. She did fax over the invoice and then emailed me back stating that she did talk to the Technical Support Department but they would not call me because it was a request for service.I then emailed the manager back telling her that I was at the end of my rope with the company and I want to talk to a manager about or account. She gave me another manager's name, number, and email address.(What I want to know is over the past 3-4 months that I had been working to clean up SAI mess, no one ever mentioned the Feb 2007 invoice and we had never gotten anything in the mail stating it was still open)
1/31/08 My husband emailed the new manager 2/1/08 I called and left a message for the new manager and told her to call me ASAP because I want to get our account fixed. I left her my work and cell phone numberI then proceeded to email the new manager to make sure she did get my voice mail and I gave her my work number, cell phone number, and my home number and left the days and times she could reach me. 2/7/08 I emailed the billing manager to let her know that I still have not heard from the new manager and asked if there was anyone else I can talk to. (I have not heard back yet)2/12/08 I emailed the billing manager again stating I am getting tired of being ignored and I want to talk to someone other than the new manager.2/12/08 The billing manager emailed me back stating that she would forward my email to her supervisor but she is on vacation and will not be returning for a couple of days. The billing manager said she would ask her to call me as soon as she can.2/20/08
I still have not heard from anyone so I emailed the billing manager back again and asked that she take us off the paper billing because I do not trust SAI at all. We will mail a check in once a month but I will not pay an extra $2.00 a month for a bill to be mailed to me because this issue is a about a year old and no one bother to call back. I am just fed up because no one will ever call me back.I got an email back from the billing manager informing me that she would forward my email to her supervisor and said she would try to have someone get back to me ASAP
2/26/08 I still have not heard from anyone so I emailed the corporate office. So we will see.March: We did did find out that the Feb 2007 bill was reduced to 180.00 not from anyone calling us to let us know but by mailing us the invoice. But what makes me want to laught is that they send the invoice with a current date so I thought that it was a new bill.I emailed the billing manager again asking about the bill. She did inform me then that the bill was reduced to 180.00 and we still owed around $130.00. At this point we had paid $175.00. I asked her to look into this.She got pack to me and informed me that some payments were incorrectly applied to our account.She did fix the payment for me. I send in the remaining $5.00 payment in April.
At the end of April I called the billing manager to get back set up on automatic billing. I gave them a credit card I do not use so if they screw up the billing I can cancel the credit card. At this point I do not trust them especially with my back account. I even verified that my account was zero.So it was a big suprise that I got a call from collections at the beginning of June saying we owed 75.00 from the Feb 2007 bill.I explained the the collections guy that I have an email from their company stating that my account was cleaned up and I owed nothing. He then asked me to look back in my back account to prove it. I proceeded the inform him that I am not paying anything until I talked to a manager. He started arguing with me that I had to prove that I had made all of my payments. I then hung up on him.I then emailed the billing manager asking what is going on. Our account should be Zero. She let me know that my monthly payment has not been processed that she did it herself. But that was no where close to the 75.00 that the collections said I owed.
I then called the billing manager and she said that my account was zero and she does not know why or where the collections are getting the $75.00.I would never use them again. We have one year left on our contract and I can not wait to get out. I wish I could cancel them now but all I can do is wait and see what else they can screw up. Any time I deal with them I feel like I am given the run and no one know anything about how to handle accounting.
Lynne
Memphis, Tennessee
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Monica
Cordova,Tennessee,
U.S.A.
Security Associates International SAI - Always record your conversations
#2Author of original report
Mon, July 21, 2008
Let me warn you.. If you deal with SAI, always record your conversations. We were having trouble with the smoke detector and tried replacing the batteries sut to no avail, it still kept setting our system off. We called SAI and they walked us through the steps several times until they finally told me that it sounds like a faulty smoke detector and it is under warrenty so there will be no charge. I even asked they again if there would be a charge and was informed that there would not be a charge. The technician came out and replaced the smoke detector and again, I was informed by the technician that the smoke detector was faulty and there would be no charge. I just got a bill for the trip fee so I called to ask why am I getting a trip fee if it was under warrenty. I was informed that the smoke detector was not under warrenty (the warrenty only last for 4 months) and I was credited the labor but had to pay the trip charge. They also told me they have no record where I was told that it was under warrenty and was asked if I would rather pay the labor and not the trip fee. How rediculus is that?? I have never dealt with a company as bad as this company.
Mason
Arlington Heights,Illinois,
U.S.A.
do NOT do business from SAI- words from an ex-employee
#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, June 20, 2008
I was an employee of SAI Billing/collections for a year and a half and i have to say, this has to be one of the most dishonest and unorganized companies ive ever worked for. I really had no formal training their billing systems in my first week, and by the third day i was practically guessing, as i was navigating thru their billing and account systems. I pretty much figured out by the second month of being employed there the type of business that they had running. SAI buys contracts from other companies, such as firstline (now bankrupt), Pinnacle, Icon, and their largest base of customers: Apex. These 'salesman' go door to door in several instances, and will pretty much do or say anything to get you to sign that contract. Remember this: if you sign that contract,you are obligated to a 3 year agreement. it doesnt matter at all what comes out that 'salesmans' mouth. You have to keep in mind that the vast majority of these sales people are college students, only employed for the summer, and are making 200 PER SIGNED CONTRACT. so if they sign in one week say ...4 people ?? thats 1200 in ONE WEEK, and this is a college student! can you imagine the things or scams they might tell people to get them to sign this contract?? The best part is once the contract is signed and the sale is complete, the contract rights and service are sold over to SAI. They will not tell you this as it is COVERED IN THE CONTRACT- you must read every part of the contract because it is written in such a way as most angles of SAI's shady business paractices are well covered in this. During my time in collections and billing, i took inbound calls, did outbound calls, billing issues, credit refunds, investigated billing problems, did dealer support and a facet of other duties. The first (and biggest) problem with SAI is their billing issues. During my time there, I must of seen thousands upon thousands of accounts that were triple billed, billed 4x sometimes even more in ONE MONTH! Sometimes it was because the person that signed the contract did not pay in the beginning, most of the time it was the fault of SAI. their billing department and customer service are filled with people who are fired on a daily basis, right off the street, playing with YOUR money. I personally sat back and watched new groups of people taking the customer service calls every WEEK, because the group from the week before was FIRED! The management at SAI is a complete joke. There are 5 owners, all of whom are overpaid but seem to do little as far the the billing problems with the company are concerned. In a year and half. i saw nothing change but 'management' and 'supervisors'. During my time there, i saw 3 COUNT them 3 different chief financial officers come and go. The second one was there for less than a month. why you ask? the companies finances are off the charts, completely goofed up. I would hate to see how many different lawsuits this compnay is going thru. I also also cannot tell you how many times i saw people call in that were owed money (charged 5x in one month, bank overdraft fees exceeded 100's of dollars) and did NOT get their refund on a timely basis. I watched people call in everyday for MONTHS that were owed money, and were never paid (at all?) The supervisors at SAI never last. None of them know the real problems at SAI, and are either fired or quit on a voluntary basis because of the unorganization of the company. There is no standard operating procedure for how to do things for the company, for the most part the person you're talking to about your credit card being charged 6 times last month, is probaby was guessing at what theyre doing. The professionalism at this place is horrendous. my own boss was fired only to be replaced by some 'professional' who was in charge of finance. All this guy did was talk on his cell phone and fire people. He implemented no effective changes to our billing system, and in the end, went to another location of the company. The IT department, (the people ultimately responsible for your billing ethics) is very questionable. I saw more consultants get fired, and come and go in 6 months than i did in my entire life, anywhere else. These are only some of the issues with this organization, i could sit here forever, and address them fully, however I really dont have the time today. This is only a warning to anyone out there who may be considering an ALARM with SAI, or ICON APEX PINNACLE ..do NOT sign with any of these companies as most likely, it will end up with SAI where there will be a great probability you will GET RIPPED OFF, and if you call someone at SAI for help, that will only worsen your already growing (and expensive) problem. If any of you have questions, id be glad to offer my opinion on your situaton with any of the above companies. My biggest advice: DONT SIGN THE CONTRACT OR IF YOU DO, HAVE SOMEONE OF LEGAL AUTHORITY REVIEW IT WITH YOU, IF YOU SIGN, THEY HAVE YOU FOR 3 YEARS! YOU HAVE A 72 HOUR CANCELLATION PERIOD AFTER YOU SIGN IT, IF YOU ARE OUT OF THAT 72 HOURS, YOU HAVE ENTERED INTO A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT!!!!
