My house alarm system is covered by Protection One. 3 or 4 months ago I told them I would like to cancel my contract since I agreed to have an automatic monthly payment out of my bank account and the bank said I need something from the company saying they are agreeing to the cancellation. I argued with the bank why I would need something from them when this is my money, to no avail. Protection One's employee said they would cancel it, up to now they are still taking money out of my account every month. What should I do to get this unethically operating company out of business?

I was inquiring as to the status of my agreement with their company for monitoring services. I initially signed on with Bellsouth Services which was sold to Protection One. My contract was satisfied in August. I was not notified of its maturity, nor advised that a renewal would commence automatically. Now I am contractually obligated for another 7 months at a rate of 3 times what I can get for the same services. I must notify them in writing of my desire to cancel 60 days prior to term, and they will not accept a verbal or email authorization to do so. If I cancel now they hold me responsible for the remainder of the auto successive term. If they dont receive the cancellation in time or acknowledge that they received it they will renew again and I will be forced to another year. Numerous complaints appear on the web indicating that they use this tactic to force renewals as they deny receiving the notice of request to cancel. The address they provide for the letter is a PO box so how can you confirm receipt if no one is there to sign. This is a baiting tactic.

I’m a small business and our store was broken into on September 6th. Fortunately, nobody was in the store but the burglar managed to break open the safe and steal our cash. I immediately called Protection One to ask why the police weren’t sent out and they told me that they never received the alarm signal. After digging deeper, it turns out that my alarm system has not been functioning since September of last year…a full year ago! Protection One claims that they run monthly tests to determine if the alarm is operational but in my case, there’s a problem with my alarm panel so they were unable to run the monthly tests. To make matters worse, even if they could run the tests, they’re instructed to only leave a message at the store even though the store is not the primary contact number I’m instructed them to use since I’m typically not at the store. Protection One’s response is that my contract states that I’m responsible for testing my alarm every month. They’ve done nothing to confirm why their equipment is defective or accept any responsibility for the fact that they couldn’t run the monthly tests and most importantly respond to the burglary.

Security is the type of service that you never fully appreciate until you need it and Protection One has fallen well short of standing by me during this time.

I signed up for Protection one over 10 months ago. When I talked to the salesperson on the phone, I clearly stated that I would only be in the home for 10 more months. I relocate for my job pretty frequently. However, I was broken into and didn't feel safe not having an alarm system. He told me not a problem.

So, installation person arrives, sets everything up. He was 2 hours late so he didn't arrive to my home until almost 6. He ran into issues when installing the system and wasn't finished until 9. He proceeded to tell me he had been up since 6 and really wanted to get home. He then brought out the 5-6 page contract in 7 point type for me to sign. In all honesty, I didn't read the contract in its entirety. He was telling me had to to get home, he hadn't eaten since noon, and I just was tired myself so I signed it without reading everything through.

I didn't realize until a month ago when I tried to cancel that the contract on paper was completely different than what the salesperson sold me on the phone. I called the customer service and asked them to pull up the recorded conversation. Conveniently, the every call is recorded option didn't work in my case. The phone call was not recorded. If it had been, they would have found that the salesperson very blatantly lied to me.

I cannot renew the contract in my new place because I am not allowed to install a security system per HOA rules. Most contracts offer you an out if you are unable to fulfil the requirements of the contract. Now I have to keep paying the monthly charge for something I can't use or pay $750 to cancel. Even cell phone contracts are only $250, plus they prorate the $250 over the 2 months!!!

Please dont get scamed like me and so many others. They will lock you into a contract that you can't get out of. Unless you are planing on never moving or never dying dont sing up.