Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/30/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have been trying for a month to resolve an issue with this company. I had pre-purchased three years of alarm service for my residence in Brooklyn, **. When I sold my apartment, I asked the new owner to assume service or cancel if he no longer wanted service (this service was used to monitor the ************** in the condo building which has in a low water level). The new owner called and changed his contact information but apparently he did not fully assume ownership for the account. The account auto-renewed and the company is charging me $49.95 including $35 in fees, for a service I am not using and was not renewed, and the company will not let me close the account without paying them money. They are threatening to send me to collections, even though I have been calling for a month trying to speak with people, and not getting my voicemails returned. They have terrible service and it is almost impossible to find someone to speak with. All account cancellations have to have a 4 digit code which they won't give you if you owe any money. To be clear, I have not used this service since 2021, and I have been trying to close my account.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/30/2023

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  During the renewal process the amount I agreed to was ***** per month for 24 months. During the renewal process the website presented me with several questions about optional services which I declined. In fact one of the services I was asked if I was sure and I again stated I was not interested in the additional services. Near the end of the renewal process, before I was finished with the transaction, a message came up that the renewal was being processed please wait (or something to that effect). Then the screen went blank and the connection to the website was lost. I am not sure what happened but being in the software industry myself, I just assumed there was a bug and my connection was redirected to a bad address.My expectation based on my filling out the web form and answering the questions about what I was looking for as far as services go was that I would be charged $***** for 12 months of monitoring The amount would have been $478.80. When I returned home I received an email from the company with an invoice in the amount of $716.80 which was a total shock to me since I declined all of the optional features that they were trying to sell me via their web form.I immediately started calling them to try and understand what they were charging me for. It was explained to me after several calls that there were additional fees for the following:Residential Optional Automatic *Opening / Closing Signal Fees - $5.00 per month for 24 months at $120.00.Add Total Connect Package to Cellular Services - $5.00 per month for 24 months at $120.00.As I mentioned above, I clearly stated that I did not want the optional services when I filled in the web form. I called many times and emailed many times to try and resolve the issue. I was repeatedly told by several people who either responded to my emails and phone calls that it would be resolved it is not.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/08/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I had purchased 2 5 year prepaid term alarm monitoring services from Cencom and its affiliate Alarm Monitoring Services, the most recent of which was set to expire on 5/1/2023. On 4/27/23 I cancelled their service as we were upgrading our alarm and it would now be monitored by another company (the one installing the new system). They decided not to honor my cancellation and put my cancellation on hold, so they've sent me invoices for alarm monitoring services for *** and June, even though I cancelled in April (and they are no longer providing any services to me). To make matters even more ridiculous, these invoices are at monthly rates over 4x higher than I had previously been paying. Apparently, once you sign up with them you're signing up for life as they believe they can decide not to honor your cancellation request and keep charging you forever and at rates far in excess of their normal fees.Also, they decided that I should pay them an "advance refurbishment fee" of $35 for a device used to hook up my alarm to their phone system, but (i) when they sent me the device over 10 years ago, they charged me $19 and there was no mention of any advance refurbishment fee or any other type of cancellation fee and (ii) the device is over 10 years old and is nowhere near worth the $35 they want to charge to refurbish the device (brand new and purchased from the manufacturer singly it cost $40 - purchased in bulk new I'm sure its worth significantly less). That all being said, I'm happy to return the device.All these ridiculous charges and invoices should be cancelled. I will upload their email confirming my cancellation request on 4/27/23 and my original invoice from December 2012, which had no mention of any refurbishment fee of any kind for this device. I will also upload my most recent 5 year invoice from them.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/06/2023

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  This alarm company continue to harass me for last 6 months about an account that I never had with them. They call me to pay $1500 for last 2 year's alarm service that I never had with them. I don't how they got hold of my phone #, my address and email address. I have told that over and over that I have an alarm service and I never used the service of this company, they continue with the fraud claim of $1500 and threaten to *** me to get the money which i DO NOT OWN THEM. This is a scam company.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/24/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We prepaid a 1-year alarm monitoring service with *********** to monitor the elevators at a property we owned. The company that owned the property was sold in mid-2022. *********** was notified via email and phone that the company was sold and there were new owners taking over the pre-paid alarm monitoring account. *********** told us via phone to go to their website to submit the transfer which we did. However, *********** claims they never received the request. We continued to notify them via email and phone of the transfer during the pre-paid period. *********** never transferred the account as requested. Since it was never transferred the new owners and property management company hired another company to monitor the elevators during the pre-paid period. Even so, *********** started sending invoices after the pre-paid period requesting payment for services that *********** is not providing since there is a new alarm monitoring company. *********** claims the invoices are being sent because they were never notified of the transfer online. We have phone calls logged and emails showing them in receipt of the transfer notification request. We have tried on multiple times to submit the request via their online website but for whatever reason, *********** claims they never received the online website request and claims that it is the only way to cancel the service.*********** is now sending 4 invoices daily via email for payment to harass us. We are not using ***********'s service as the new service was set up during the pre-paid timeframe.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/12/2023

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  The business continues to send bills despite expiry of the fully paid contract on 2/28/2022. Based on the agreement, the automatic renewal happens only once and that renewal expired on 2/28/2022. Multiple contacts via phone and emails were made and business is not responding properly to close the account but keeps sending multiple bills for the same service and also sent threatening to ruin my credit score.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:12/15/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I cancelled this contract in writing to Cencom on 11/30/2021. I moved from the address of service on 11/21/2021. They have threatened me with reporting to all 3 credit bureaus and continue to harass me daily by phone calls and texts and emails about payment on a service that stopped working in 12/31/2020. The service stopped working in December 31, 2020 since my ADT alarm system did no longer supporting 3G Service in 12/31/2020.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/27/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  UnresolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  ******* **** /Alarm Moritoring Services makes it very difficult or near impossible for a customer to cancel their contracts. They require you to use an online form and will not accept phone calls from customers to cancel. Following their guidelines, I submitted my cancellation request on April 8, 2021, which the Company acknowledged by email on the same day. Then 35 days later on May 13, 2021, they charged my credit card on file without authorization for another full year of monitoring. They totally ignored my formal request to cancel. To make matters worse, the Company states in online documents that their charges are nonrefundable. They essentially forced us into using their services for another year by taking all of the money up-front, whether we used the service or not.Over the past 2 years, we have had endless billing problems with CenCom charging junk fees at every opportunity. For example, they billed us $17 /month for equipment rental in March and April 2021 even though we own our own equipment and have never had leased equipment. They also billed us $35 for refurbishing the same fictitious equipment. Several times we got multiple false invoices of substantially different amounts on the same day. The billing process is very inaccurate and flawed. Customers are forced to complain to get the fraudulent charges removed or they just keep the money. On June 24, 2022, for the second time, I again tried to cancel my service. I completed 71% of the online form but could not formally submit it since they require the customer to call the Company for a ******* code to include. When I did so, the company representative refused to give me the secret code because of a $25 disputed fee from when I had tried to cancel my service in 2021. Of course, I refused to pay the charge since they could have avoided the bank fee by simply refunding or reversing my previous credit charge 2 days after they received my first cancellation request.

  Business Response

  Date: 06/28/2022

  The consumer started to cancel their services on Friday,March 5, 2021 3:19 PM. As part of the cancellation process, they were offered a deeply discounted rate through our Super Saver plan offer for services at only $9.95 per month.  Not only did they ACCEPT the offer, but they fully acknowledged that acceptance of the SUPER SAVER PLAN would also mean the 12 months of pre-paid $9.95 a month fees would be NON-REFUNDABLE if accepted.
  
  On Thursday, ***** 8, 2021 11:01 AM the Consumer chose to cancel services. (Again) The account was closed as per their request, but they also performed a chargeback on their payment for the supersaver plan.  When notified that the fees were non-refundable, they notified their bank to allow the annual fees, but by our records we never received the payment.  However, we non-the less continued the services based on the Consumer stating that they allow the bank to reverse the chargeback. We sent the consumer a billing for $50.00 as stated in our Terms & Conditions due to the fees we encountered for the charge back and reversal of the chargeback. (It is notable that our records never show the payment coming back to us.)
  
  Since continued the service into 2022 based on the consumer indicating he approved the payment in 2021, the annual fee for 2022 was attempted to be taken on 03/01/22 for ***** of 2022 for the 12 months.  The credit card on file failed and the consumer was sent a declined credit card notice.  After requesting the Customer to file a cancellation again to stop the billing, he insisted that he cancelled in 2021.  Instead of arguing with the client as it was apparent that he did not pay for the 2021 fees anyway, we accepted the cancellation of services in 2021.
  
  We then billed the consumer $25.00 per alarm received,maximum $250.00 per month as per our Terms & Conditions and as per the cancellation form, he agreed too.  That amount came to $1900.00 for services provided at $25.00 per alarm condition since he insists the account was cancelled.  Now he is complaining to the BBB for us to close the account out, even though he is STILL sending us signals. 
  
  The consumer cannot eat his cake and have it too.  He said his account was cancelled. He owes us the $25.00 per alarm signal fees.  However, if the consumer wishes to make a settlement offer, we will entertain that under the condition that he QUIT SENDING ALARM SIGNALS TO US!

  Customer Answer

  Date: 06/29/2022

   
  Complaint: 17491272
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  I do not agree with the accuracy of CenComs narrative. The Company does not deny sending us numerous false invoices during March, April, and May 2021 (e.g. see invoice number *****). In the first few months of the alleged renewal, they charged us  $19.95 / month or $21.95 / month for monitoring services and not the $9.95 / month that I consented to. They were also erroneously billing us for leased equipment which we never had or wanted. Then CenCom tried to charge us $35 on May 6, 2021 (invoice *****) for refurbishing the same fictitious equipment.  With all of these billing errors, I lost all confidence in this Companys business practices.
  
  The Company now claims I did not pay the annual fee for 2021. I can easily prove from my bank statements that CenCon did indeed charge the full annual fee for the fiscal year 2021-2022 on May 6, ***************************************************** If they did not properly credit my account, it their fault and not mine. However, in subsequent invoices from CenCom after May 2021, there was no indication that the annual fee was still outstanding. This clearly indicates the money was actually received and credited to my account.
  
  As to Cencoms new allegation that they, at some point, changed my service over to a $25 per alarm received, maximum $250.00 /month and the total charges come to $1,900 is simply ludicrous. I was never informed in a timely manner or billed for this. No service provider has the legal right to accept prepayment in full for one service and then unilaterally change the customer over to a new high cost service without the other partys written authorization.
  
  Finally, at the time of CenComs response to my BBB claim, they make the additional allegation that they are still receiving alarm signals from our residence. This is impossible. On Friday, June 24, 2022 when I attempted to finally end our service with CenCom, our alarm system was fully disconnected from all external communication lines. If CenCom is still receiving alarm signals purportedly from us, then they have a serious malfunction in their own operating systems.
  
  When it comes to finding a peaceful resolution of this dispute, the only acceptable outcome for us is for CenCom to terminate our monitoring service as requested on June 24, 2022 and for the Company, its affiliates, and other representatives to end all further contact with us.

   

   

  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *****************************