The Firstline Security / SAI alarm company is a fucking RIPOFF

I am currently on the phone (ON HOLD) with SAI (Security Associates International) trying to get them to answer the phone.

These sleazy bastards came around my neighborhood back in August of 2007 and sold us an Alarm System which I blogged about in full detail here and here.  Their crappy equipment stopped working in late November or early December of 2007 and I have not had a single moment's rest since then.

The alarm control panel in our home beeps 5 times incessantly every few minutes notifying us that one of our smoke detectors is malfunctioning.  Mind you, this is a smoke detector that started malfunctioning on December 14, 2007.  I detailed what happened here. 

in the 140 days since 12/14/07, I have placed multiple calls to SAI customer service, waited over an hour on hold on the phone each time and have been repeatedly LIED TO BY SAI.  On every occasion that I have managed to get through, they have promised me service, or a visit by a technician or something of that nature and nothing ever happens.  I have come to the conclusion that SAI and or FrontLine are operating some kind of a front, bogus scam company that has no intention of honoring the terms of service of the contract we signed with them.

Unfortunately for us, we agreed to let these fuckers do a direct debit for the monthly service fee from our checking account.  I think the only way I can get their attention is to STOP PAYING THEM.  For this I have to go to my bank and tell them that I want to cancel the direct debit access they have to our account. 

I foresee a fight to do this, because late last year or earlier this year I stopped by the branch of our bank and tried to get them to stop the direct debit payments to Firstline/SAI but the bank employee stated to me that in order to do that, they would have to receive an order from FirstLine/SAI.

I guess my only recourse then would be to CLOSE my account at this bank in order to stop paying FirstLine / SAI for a monthly service that I have NOT BEEN RECEIVING SINCE NOVEMBER of 2007.

Right now, as I type this, I have been on hold for the last 38 minutes, listening to crappy hold music that is interrupted by a recording asking telling me "We appreciate your business, we are working as fast as we can, someone will be with you shortly, all agents are busy, etc".

Well.  A "Mike" from "Technical Services" at SAI has finally picked up the phone and is starting to fed me the same line of BULLSHIT about the fact that "he's going to send a technician to fix the problem, blah, blah".

I told Mike that I just wanted to cancel the service and he stated to me that I would need to talk to someone in Customer Service to process the request to cancel the service.  Eventually I was connected to a "Makesha" who stated to me that I need to fax a letter to them stating my intent to cancel the service and the reason WHY I want to cancel the service.

What she told me also is that since we signed a 36 month contract, the monies owed, a total of $1,259.72 is still due to them.  I am, regardless of the fact that my alarm service has been out of service for the last 5 months, supposed to pay the balance on the contract or I can expect them to come after me via a collection agency and or dings to my credit report.

"Makesha" game me the following information to send the letter to:

Attention "Makesha" (she wouldn't give me her last name) in Customer Service
Address: 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road
Arlington Heights, IL 60005
Fax #: (877) 724-7719

So to sum it up, I will FAX and mail them a certified letter, stating that i want to cancel my service with FirstLine/SAI because they didn't honor their service commitment.  That does not in any way free me from the obligation of having to pay them the balance on the contract.

It seems like the only way I will be able to avoid paying the $1,259.72 is to sue them for breech of contract and that is likely to cost much, much more than the money I owe them to begin with.

What a lesson learned.  I will never, ever again buy ANYTHING from anyone who knocks on my door offering me any kind of service.

Stay far, far away from Firstline/SAI/Alarm.com.  It is a scam, a swindle, a cheat and a ripoff. 

You have been warned.

Comments

This is the largest part of the report and it contains a detailed listing of...

[Susan Hazelrigg]

Has anyone had any positive results to report? We are hving the same experience-contract renewed due to failure to give 30 day notification of cancellation. We have filed a complaint with Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General. I am reading of lots of posts, but I'm not finding the success stories I am hoping to find:)
SUsan

[Michelle Ash]

Good news folks,

My story is simple I was told i could cancel my service by July 1st. When I called on June 9 to tell them I was sending a letter they said I had to have sent a letter by June 1st, and that I was renewed for another year. Well that is not going to happen. I am suing for Deceptive Business Practices.

I found a women in New Mexico ELSA ANCHONDO, ON BEHALF OF HERSELF AND ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED, PLAINTIFF,
v.
ANDERSON, CRENSHAW & ASSOCIATES, L.L.C., DEFENDANT.

She won the case against them....

contact me at mak_36@hotmail.com

Michelle A.

[Michelle Ash]

TO ALL COMPLAINTS:

If you did business with Apex, SAI or Castle Rock or any of their business names. Yes folks this is the same company they just keep changing their names. If you feel you were treated unfairly or have a complaint please contact me at the email listed below.

E mail me at mak_36@hotmail.com. I am hiring an attorney to do a class action law suit for deceptive trade practices. contact me at the email address listed above.

Michelle

P.S. I will have a blog site soon dedicated to this company regardless what it calls itself.

[fPauline]

I hate them since I signed up with them I fully understand waiting and hour on the phone and than getting no satisfaction. Since they are now gone and CastleRock has the account, is there any way that we can end those forever contracts? My calendar is marked for the day I send the letter terminating my account with them

[RichmindGuy]

I agree with you on this, once my three year contract was up they told me I could not cancel because it automatically renews and I didnt make the 30 day cut off for cancellation. Well it would be nice if they sent something in the mail letting me know. So now I have to suffer with a broken alarm system for another year, really do not think it worked to begin with. Just burns me up that companies like this get away with screwing their clients.

[Terri Trotti]

I know the above posts are a year old, but I have had the same billing problems. It was First Line who came knocking 2-3 years ago. SAI was the company monitoring the alarm. First they charged us a $99 hook up fee which we didn't owe. I finally managed to get that taken care of. Then several months later the payments stopped coming out of our account. After 5 months or so we received a letter telling us that SAI had sold our contract to them. I can't tell you the name of the company off the top of my head. They told us that we wouldn't be charged the missed months and that the debit would start the 15th of the next month as we had paid before. Well on the 1st they took out their $44.00. I called them becaused they caused an over draft by charging us at the wrong time. I had to fax all of the proof and we were lucky that they deducted the overdraft cost by deducting it from our payments.

I am also a person who usually investigates everything before paying. They were here talking to my husband when I got home. They said all of the right things of course. We had come home a week or so earlier to find our garage man door kicked in and the light on. They couldn't get in because there was furniture against the door so they were only able to reach the light switch. I now wonder if they did it to set us up to be ready for an alarm. My sister had an alarm and had good service from her company. I knew how much it cost her to put it in and with them offering everything free for just the monitoring price I went for it.

I later found out that the company lured college kids with the promise of a lot of money and telling them it was a reality show where they could win big money. They then take them across the country where it was had for them to leave and charged them room and board to work for them. By then end of the summer most of them owed the company money, they got nothing.

This is what the magazine selling companies do. They hire them, take them across the US to work for them and make them pay more for room and board than they ever bring in. I used to be a 911 dispatcher and every summer we would get complaints about them. They buy their food and room and then again at the end of the summer the kids are in debt to the company.

Terri
Vancouver, WA

[Andy]

Just canceled my account with SAI as well. The fuckers at APEX sold our account to them and we've had nothing but problems.

They don't give a flying shit about you. Period.

We got hooked up with BRINKS, I still think home security is a bit of a scam, but at least with them they seem to be a lot better (with better technology too).

SAI pestered us for a year trying to get us to give them a credit card (we always paid by check).

Lessons- never, ever, give someone access to your bank account to pull funds via EFT. Always require a monthly bill, or at the very least, pay with a credit card.

I hope the owners go bankrupt.

[Jill]

I'm fed up with SAI as well. Just for fun, I Googled SAI customer service and found your blog entry. I too have a similar story like yours and Leah's, and could fill up this page with stories, but won't. :) Sucky customer service and getting screwed by billing are the main issues. I'm very interested to know if you did send a breach of contract letter to them and where things are at now. I'm stuck in the same contract and automatic payment as Leah is, and am trying to figure out what action to take.

So, anything you can share about where either of you are at in resolving things would be awesome to know. THANKS!!!

[Leah]

SAI is a rip off!! We purchased a home security system from APEX alarm company which turned around and sold our account to SAI.
We first had the alarm fee taken out of our bank account. when we changed banks we sent in our voided check (like we are supposed to) to SAI alarm company to have them draft out the alarm fee from our new banking institution. We soon received paper bills with double and tripple the amount of our regular month to month fee. The whole time they were already taking the amount out of our new checking account. We called to clear the problem up and "Annita" said they have no record of us paying our bill. She told us we would have to send in our bank statements proving we have been paying our bill. Once we did this someone would be in contact with us. So we got our proof and sent it to them. Nobody called and they were still taking out the alarm fee and we stopped receiving more bills. We thought they had finally gotten their heads out of their ass and got it right. Nope! We just received a call from a collections agency(BIG asshole)informing us that SAI alarm company has sent our account to collections and that we had better pay up or they were going to send this to our credit report (highly illegal for this agency to say something like that). I have been in touch with my lawyer because there is no way I am taking responsibility for their incompentent business practices.
I feel that it is my duty to warn everybody about this company. Staying far away is great advice and if you are already involved with them then my advice would be to terminate any future business with them as quickly as you can.