ADT Security Services, Inc

I bought an extended service Plan for 2 years that decreased the cost of my security cameras to offset the cost of the service agreement. It seemed like a great deal at the time. Except after 2 years I tried to call to cancel the service contract that was for 2 years. The representative said that they couldn’t cancel it over the phone. I would need to fax the command to their office. I sent the fax but I still saw the charge on my next bill. I repeated this process two more times with the same result. I had to cancel my entire account with them and go with a different security company. I do not recommend them.

Our experience was an absolute nightmare. I do not understand how they stay in business.
One of their CEOs did go to jail.
They have consistently terrible reviews at Unilocal and a 90% negative rating (!) at a different review site Hellopeter.

I am so fed up with ADT customer service and my agent (who told me to explicitly contact him with any questions or concerns), I have been trying to reach Albert from the Northern NJ area for a month and a half. He doesn’t answer texts, phone calls or voicemails. I called ADT customer service and they said that there’s nothing they can do for me as far as providing 2 motion detectors free of charge (something Albert told me would be no issue), they want to charge me over $ 350 for the equipment. I called ADT customer service and they told me the only way to get the equipment for free was to go through Albert who I cannot get ahold of. I called and left messages for him with Customer Service as well as his local branch. I am meeting with other alarm companies this coming week to have my ADT system ripped out, cancel the contract and go elsewhere. Terrible customer service on all fronts.

I agree with the other poor reviews on this page! ADT needs to hire people who know what they are doing. I called to disconnect my service. After being place on hold for 45 minutes and transferring me to 5 different reps. Was truly disturbing! On their recorded audio message you listen to a message stating they are concerned about their customers. NOT TRUE! This was an easy task ! Just shut off my service pay my balance in full that’s it! Why does that take 5 reps to do this!!! I was going to transfer the system to my son but NOT after this experience! I asked to speak to upper management! When the rep connected me it was the wrong dept! I gave up! Never will have ADT again! Go to a different reputable company, because if for any reason you need to contact them, you will be sorry!

Another bait and switch. 22 months ago, we installed an ADT Security system at the insistence of our home insurance company. At the time I was told the minimum contract was 2 years. I signed the 2 year contract and have had nothing but trouble since. Since the first week there are weekly false alarms with the smoke detector and the ADT wiring has caused havoc with our internet connection. Today I called to find out how to cancel the service in 2 months and was told that my contract was for 3 years! In fact, they don’t even have a 2 year contract! I should have made the sales rep wait while I read every single line of every piece of paper they gave me. Lesson learned!!!

ABSOLUTE WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD. Nothing but problems right from the get-​go. I usually research companies before buying services but somehow this got past me. The service is horrible. The phone app is useless. Any time you need to call them (a security company mind you) it takes a MINIMUM of 30 – 40 min to get someone on the phone. One time we had a false alarm. It took 7 minutes for them to even call the police. Then another hour for the police to show up (which I guess technically isn’t their fault, but still noteworthy). I just had a sensor fall off and needed service for one of my other sensors. First available service call appointment was 3 weeks away. They don’t show up. Call them back, schedule another one in two weeks. Call them today (the appointment day) to confirm. They say they have no idea what I’m talking about and that I’m not on the schedule. This is after waiting on hold for 45 min. When’s the next available appointment? One month from now. This place isn’t cheap either, I’m paying almost $ 60/​month when I know other companies are half that and provide much better service. And there’s absolutely no way to get out of their contract, I’ve looked into every possible loophole and they make it impossible. STAY AWAY STAY AWAY STAY AWAY this company is a huge scam DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID!!!

WORST COMPANY EVER, before you think about getting any product from any of these ADT locations note this.
your hold time for customer service will be as much as 40 minutes!!! They cancel appointments and their customer service people no nothing about the products. That’s why every review for these idiots is 1 star
WORST COMPANY EVER!
Andrew, I appreciate your response on my review on Unilocal.This is not fixable, your company is out of control terrible. Your customer service is nonexistent it takes 40 minutes or more to get to talk to somebody and they have no idea what you’re talking about, they don’t know the products, they don’t know anything about what I’ve purchased from you. They installed a new camera and that one doesn’t work. It’s not the camera I think it’s the cameras crossing site lines or maybe a wiring problem. I don’t know I’m not a pro. The problem is nobody at ADT is a pro either. I want no one to fix nothing. I want everything removed I want the DVR removed and I want the cameras removed. I have never been so stressed in my entire life. I’ve had to take off three days of work to deal with this bullshit. Just get everything out.
Sent from my iPhone

I have had the worst experience of my life with ADT. Purchased a several thousand dollar system for my home. Never worked properly, got locked out of my house due to a system malfunction, had to break in through a window, technicians couldn’t fix it, never call back, cancel appointments, just don’t show up when reschedule, this has been going on for months and still not fixed. Days of wasted time and aggravation; the total opposite of security and peace of mind. I would never, ever recommend or use ADT again. I even wrote to the CEO but got no reply, they just don’t care after they sell you the system.
P. S. Had to give one star because it’s the only way to post, or it would be negative stars.

ADT might be the worst company I have ever dealt with. I called ADT to have a wireless alarm using cell phone technology. When I called ADT sales they asked if I had another wireless alarm system. I told ADT I did and I have 11 wireless door/​window sensors from another alarm company. They told me that was great because the installer could use those sensors to add to the six free that ADT would install. I gave them a check for over $ 107.00 dollars and they gave me a date to have the system installed.
When the installer showed up he said he could not use the sensors I have because they came from another company. He told me he would have to charge over $ 100.00 for every sensor over the six we get for free. I offered to pay another $ 300.00 installation fee because I just wanted to get this system installed and they said Ok but I would have to give back the 3 wireless remotes that was part of the original deal.
I was lied to, even with that I bent over backwards trying to have this system installed and the installer was told to leave. This is worse then bait and switch. I would have signed a three year contact at over $ 50.00 per month but after they lied to me they walked out even though my credit score is over 800.

This review is for Brooklyn which the company doesn’t appear to have a Brooklyn profile.
I have 2 ADT units for the building I purchased. I’ve had a very bad experience.
Firstly I was not told that the length of the contract has a percentage cost of cancellation.
I opted for the biggest one for both units. I would not have done this is I understood how the cancellation policy worked. That in itself is never ok.
Within the first week the fire alarm kept going off. Then it kept beeping to the point that my dog fell down the stairs and broke his leg. That ran us several thousand dollars. Since the ceiling heights are high and I couldn’t remove the fire alarm my partner that’s a doctor had to leave the hospital to rip it out.
The equipment was brand new and defective! How do you not test these things?
Next then the window break piece of equipment was also faulty and kept beeping. We could not get it to stop. We had to rip it out of the wall ourselves to find a way for it to stop beeping.
This was all in the matter of 2 weeks!
It took a good week to get a tech in that I had to prove that the fire alarms were in fact faulty equipment. He did not believe me off the bat which is terribly irritating. He gave me the you’re a woman and you don’t know what you are talking about look. Incredibly disrespectful.
Then it took 2 weeks to get new equipment and I took another day off work.
My window was from 8am-​12 and the tech went to the basement rental unit and didn’t understand that I own the building so i have to wait another hour for him.
I DO NOT recommend ADT to anyone. If I could sue them to get out of this contract, pay for my dog, my time and patch all the holes in my walls I would but alas I have a several year iron clad contract. Buyer Beware!

ADT is an awful company! At work we used them for many years and EVERY year we’d get the letter telling us how much they appreciated our business, but had to raise our rates. Finally I looked around and found a smaller & reliable local monitoring company on Long Island to compare ADT to. I called both companies in so that the incumbent ADT knew I wasn’t happy and was comparing them.
Adt was ridiculously more expensive and when I told them of my decision and asked that they remove their equipment, they began to yell about how we’ll be sorry going with a small company and our business is in danger etc and «you get what you pay for» etc etc. The managers were jerks!
Now 2 years later, here is what we have with the new company: State of the art equipment, alarms and alarm devices that cover every inch of our premises, no more false alarms or batteries mysteriously going dead that we had to pay for and the new central station staff is ridiculously attentive. The new company is SO MUCH BETTER that I can kick myself for not switching years ago. And… they’re 25 percent less than ADT and our contract guarantees no increases for 10 years!
BTW, ADT’s equipment still remains. They ignored repeated requests to remove it.

If there is any issue at all, the system beeps until you enter your passcode. Then, it continues to do so randomely at all hours of the day and night — i have gotten random warnings about problems I have already acknowleged at 2:00 A.M.
It’s not fun to be woken up by an alarm system that decides 2:00 A.M. to tell you yet again that you haven’t had your alarm serviced yet! After you punch in your code, you go back to bed, only to have the system begin beeping again even though you already responded properly!
Try changing a battery — the website tries to pawn you off on directions to many different models that you are supposed to weed through (the model name/​number isn’t labeled on the unit keycode!) or face a customer «service» wait on their phone line.
After speaking to Sally on their support line — who was very nice and patient and did het best to try to deal with the probelm — we needed a tech sent out. The system was unable to be programmed so that it does not torture you with a periodic beeping, day and night, to tell you about the problem you already know about but didnt have time to fix.
What i really want is the personal phone numbers of whoever designed the system to torture people, so that i can call them at their home in the middle of the night when their system wakes me up with the non-​emergency beeping!

I just had a horrible experience with ADT. First, their keypad failed to send a test signal after multiple attempts. Then I
Set off my system to see if they received it, and they hung up on me. I was not on a land line, I was on my cell phone!!!
Then they told me it was $ 390 to fix the faulty keypad, and blamed my phone service for the problem.
They have no accountability. I do not recommend ADT to anyone. I feel safer without them.

We’ve called our salesman several times. He doesn’t return our phone call. My husband has taken 4 days off from work. They cannot seem to get the job done right the first time.

I’m very happy to hear that I’m not the only one with a bad taste in my mouth about this company. What a pushy business calling my phone asking me if I wanted to install a security system in my new home. When I explained to the lady that we had already had a security system, she right away had the nerve to ask me the name of the company and further info. When I turned her down for the last time (very nice I was to her) she replies with «ok goodbye». She hung up when I said thank you happy holidays. How rude can you be? I rather be robbed before I ever sign up with this company.
Her name is Jessica and if you don’t answer, she leaves you a message not letting you know what company she is from. I feel as if it’s a scam because I thought it was actually someone important.

I wish I had looked here first. These people are the worst. They don’t know what customer service means. Installer was sloppy and actually left my back door unlocked. It took me three weeks and 5 phone calls to get an appointment to fix the installation. On the morning of the appointment, they called to say that the tech had called out sick. Not even an exaggeration, 20 minutes I’ve already been holding to try to reschedule.

DON’T!!! That’s pretty much all I can say. When you call ADT, you get a bunch of recordings, people who don’t know what you’re talking about, wait for service etc. There’s no direct number to talk to anyone and it’s about the WORST company I’ve ever dealt with! Worse than Verizon and Cablevision and Time Warner Cable. AVOID ADT at all costs.

Let the buyer beware. We decided to go with ADT since they provided what appeared to be a seamless wireless system which replaced our old system wih PN who cover Sullivan & Orange County in our area pretty effectively. We never had any problems with our service. Unfortunately we made an error in leaving them… But ADT offered us an upgraded wireless system with greater ease and a wonderful sales pitch. Unfortunately this security company with a national reputation has offered us nothing but disappointment as follows:
1. Multiple false alarms from one window which they could never repair… They bypassed the window… Therefore we had a downstairs unsecured window .
2. You get a three-​year contract which you have to fulfill even if you move. We will have to pay $ 48 a month for the next 24 months since we are moving one year after we purchased… They will not allow the new owners to take over our contract but will only renew it for 3 years if they want to continue with ADT… This really sucks and shows you how a big organization like ADT can screw U…
3. One of our glass door sensors malfunctioned when the glass had to be replaced. You get charged extra for the house call because it was not the original glass. Trapped again by this big bully… ADT
4. They would not give us an appointment to secure this door for 2 weeks… Now we have two sites of insecurity which was supposed to be protected by this security company. OUR old local company, PN. always responded within 24 hours if we had a malfunction …
5. I called their 800 number to complain which ADT provides for customer satisfaction and/​or complaints… I was left hanging for approximately 10 – 15 minutes & then gave up… Once again let the buyer beware… For me ADT has not been a good company… For those PN users out there… Don’t switch to ADT… Learn from our mistakes.
BOTTOM LINE … If you use ADT, expect high costs with major disappointments from this greedy organization. They have a great sales pitch but it ends there… Read the contract very carefully if you decide to use ADT… When we move to our new location I will NOT use ADT.

update 12/​13/​2013: A technician finally came the day after Thanksgiving, so we were a month without an alarm. It would have been nice to have a month free because we didn’t have service, but I know that’s a pipe dream… ha.
The technician who came was great, though. He put in a new and better alarm instead of drilling in a wall and putting in an antennae. He was thorough, professional, and friendly. I was happy with the repair service.
Original review:
So far I’m not impressed. Had the system 9 months and the panel has no communication to the central office. waiting now 3 weeks to see a technician. When I wanted it installed they came in 2 days. Typical crappy company. I have a feeling I’m going to have a crap system now for the next 2 years. Look elsewhere for security services and if you don’t really need an alarm, just get a stronger door and Medco lock.

ADT constantly slams our mailbox with advertisements and specials, and while the barrage is very annoying, we were shopping for a home security system so we decided to give them a look.
Per their ads, I have to say, they definitely have some cool options. I was quite intrigued by the IP cams you can view on your mobile and also the feature where you can enable or disable your system via an app. Neat.
The sales guy came by, promptly and on time, and we had a walk through my place in order to lay out the options. After finishing the tour, he outlined everything in pretty good detail, handwritten, on a sheet of paper.
I asked him for a copy so I could think it over, but he told me he’d just sketch out the bold strokes in an email. I told him I wanted to get all of the details just as he laid out, with all of the options and packages. Clearly, this is the only way to make an informed decision. He said he couldn’t give it to me, because then he’d have no copy. Absurd! What, you cant give me the details of what we just talked about?
Frustrated, I then asked him if I could just take a photo of the sheet with my phone camera. Seemed like a good compromise, however, he said it «would be too ugly» whatever that means. Ultimately I got him to promise to send me a formal proposal like a human being, but he was way too resistant to send it out. Do people actually sign up on the spot with no proposal and no comparison shopping?
He finally sent over the proposal as promised. I took a few days to read through it, during which time I was bombarded by ADT via phone and email wanting to know if I wanted to sign up. During this time I was Googling ADT reviews and I found that people were very unhappy with the fine print in the contract. Crazy cancellation fees, very long minimum contract term, etc.
When I had all my info together, I replied and asked him, amongst other things, for a copy of the contract to read over before starting service. I also asked if the 3 year term is fixed or negotiable. No reply. A few days later, I emailed again with the same questions; no reply yet again. Third time, nothing.
So, in the end, the only thing I can conclude is that A) ADT really wants people to sign up on the spot, without doing their homework. And B) if you are intelligent enough to want to read the contract before signing, they want no part of your potential business, most likely because they know the contract is very unfavorable to the client.
In my opinion, avoid ADT and their shenanigans and go with a local company.