APX Alarm Scam?
This evening while my father in law was outside in the front yard working on deck stairs we have just installed a very clean-cut college age person came up and started a smooth talking sales pitch. He said his name was Justin and he worked for APX Alarm Security Solutions and wanted to talk with us about our alarm system. He came into the house and gave his pitch about window break and door sensors and that his system was cellular based and would work even if a burglar ‘cut’ our phone line.
It all sounded pretty good and he threw around names like “Honeywell”, ADT, Brinks, and Guardian which are other local companies who have been around
I was not involved in the early discussions and got involved when Justin came inside to discuss where we would have the sensors placed and talked about the system. It all sounded great but I had several questions since I did not know we had scheduled an appointment for a security company to drop by.
I asked where there office was located in
As I continued to ask questions Justin’s demeanor changed somewhat from the smooth talking sales pitch to a somewhat “let’s get this deal closed” attitude. As he talked to everyone I quietly went into my office and Googled the company name and was immediately has thousands of hits for scams popped up.
I politely told him I am all over the city in many different neighborhoods and could not honestly say I had ever seen any of his yard signs and we would discuss it and get back to him with our decision. He told us we had to make it tonight as he would be in Wasilla the next day. (Wasilla is about an hour away) Since we felt he had changed his tactic we declined on his system and he became somewhat belligerent wasting his time saying he would find someone else in our neighborhood that would be happy to advertise his system.
He left and I went to the internet to see what all was out there and it was about 95% negative about the contract, the system never was installed correctly and did not work or not monitored, and also the lack of service in dealing with the company in Utah.
All I can say is to be wary of those unsolicited sales pitches whether by phone or walking up to your door. If the person trying to sell you anything cannot wait a day for you to think about what you are buying or give you time to check out an unfamiliar name then you probably will be better off passing on the deal.
Comments
Ice
MY inner alarm went off.
Also: He entered my property on foot, must have left his car down the street somewhere. Fishy.
I asked him for paperwork, business card - which he did not have.
Now I feel like calling the cops!
~Heather
Funny thing though, I still haven't seen any yard signs.
Again, be aware of what or who is knocking on your door.
Ice
He wanted inside my home but we didn't want company at the time.
Wasilla PD says the company is licensed but he didn't have business cards(said he only worked part time) and only one set of brochures- nothing to leave us. He got a little crabby and said callbacks are a polite brush off but I won't buy anything from a walking salesman late at night - with no car.
Be careful folks, anyone can pick up brochures and get a note-binder. This could be casing homes for burglary instead of just a poor operation.
Since I first posted I have received emails from people who have been on both sides of the issue.
Like many things, there are both good and bad in this world so caution is the best Rx when looking to buy anything.
Ice
I found a lot of interesting things. I read both the good and the bad. I first found bad things like rip of report. This interested me so i dug deaper. I found out that APX ALARM has about 2000 sales reps in the whole country ussually during the summer. It made me mad to see that people were signing contracts and weren't told the truth by the rep. I also know that there are bad apples in every bunch. I also looked for any negativity about other companyies and it wasn't hard to find. After reading the prices that other people got from this site, I dicided i was going to call him back but ask him to lower my monthly service charge to 50 per month and see if i can get a better deal out of him. I called him back and he came and we settled upon 52 per month. I know this is about 6 or 7 dollars per month more than the cheaper companyies would charge, but I thought it was a fair price for a better company. When it comes to the protection of my home and family, I dont wanna just go with the cheapest thing in town either. So i justified the price to myself and asked some other questions just to see what he would say. I asked him about the contract. He told me that I was responsible for a 5 year term. I thought that was too long and we negotiated out a 3 year term instead as i've seen other companies do as well. They installed promptly. The tech was a clean cut kid as well. I figured they were probably mormons cause the company is from Utah.
I've had the system for a few months now and I am deffinatly satisfied. The company doesn't walk on water or anything. They just did what they said they would do. I accidently set it off the other day and within about 20 seconds, they spoke to me through the intercom. It was great to know that it worked. I know that if i wanted to cancel my system before the term is up, i would have a fee to pay. I'm okay with that. But i guess there are worse things in life. like going through another break-in in my house. I guess nothing is free in life, but i get a lot of peace of mind just from having a system in my home thats monitored. Thank you APX.
Sorry if you guys out there didn't have as honest of a rep come to your house. Just wanted to shed some light on it from a non biased standpoint.
This kid named Larry shows up out of the blue. Exact same sales speech that everyone said. Free alarm for free advertising. I told him that this sounded too good to be true, and why am I so lucky. As he waited outside, i googled APX ALARM SCAM, and i was very surprised.
BEWARE GUYS.
Here in Alaska it seems to be a mixed bag but the local paper Anchorage Daily News had an article on July 24 about some of the problems here with APX.
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/874412.html
Cut and paste the above link in you browser if you care to read what is being said.
Thanks again everyone!
Ice
He moved on to some other houses. This was around 8:30 PM at night. Later, I noticed he was standing on the side street beside our house in total darkness at around 10:15 PM so I kept an eye on him. Shortly after I noticed that, a Ford crew-cab dually pick-up truck stopped to pick him up. It was full of other APX "sales guys". And they wonder why people are suspicious of them and don't want to buy their products!
Look maybe I'm crazy, but when someone works hard and is succesful, they actually make a good living. Why are you critisizing him? Is it actually because of the truck that picked him up? Weird. Really weird. I'm seriously shocked.
I perchased a security system from another company about 3 years ago. It was state of the art too. I got a pretty good deal on it. I think it came to about 500 dollars or so. An apx sales rep knocked on my door the other day too. I told him I already had a security system. He just insisted that I listen to him for 2 minutes. He seemed reasonable so I did listen. He ended up upgrading my system for free. I go a new keypad, more window sensors remote controls for my system, (which are great by the way) smoke protection, and a second motion detector. All for free!!! I'm not making this up. All I had to do was switch my monitorin over to APX. I'm paying about 3 dollars more per month. But the nice thing is that we have a contract for te next 3 years or so that keeps my price from going up AND I have monitored smoke protection am a better system. I don't know too much about APX, but it's pretty nice to call the customer service number and have someone answer within 10 seconds. I love love love apx so far. It's only been a week, but the other day my son came over and wanted to test out the system. Within 15 seconds of the alarm going off, they came and spoke through the keypad to us. I was so excited that it works so well. I'm still waiting for that sales rep to grow horns and come back to charge me for all that equipment...but I have a suspision that he won't. He was great salesman. I wasn't an easy sale, but his persistance and great offer make him a great little salesperson. I wouldn't be surprised if he males a great living. And even drives nice vehicles. I work hard for my money and drive nice vehicles...so why can't they?
People are so desperate to be heard ha, you don't see people writing in blogs about how great it works, how it saved a life, how many people got one because who cares?, really if people want an alarm, think its a good peace of mind than they should be smart enough to read the contract.
It's so stupid how you people waste time in your life to talk about a company going around knocking on doors. I am because I work for a door to door company and enjoy reading about the problems that are going on. Yes some sales people are ignorant, lying, misleading. Those people are every where look at our economy, look at your countries leader!...if you feel some one is giving you the run around than do your job and read the contract.
The reason they push to do it that day is people are lazy as well as they invest time plus 99% of the time people just do nothing till they come back the next day and say oh yeh "no sorry we thought about" or " my spouse said no"...bull sh+t you shut the door sat down and went back to your TV...
no one is getting ripped off its a business, yea you pay it off in the monitoring sure not going to argue, but if you were toi spend $600 on equipt than $20 a month for the 39 month term you sould spend $1380...where as if you got the APX system for $39.99 it equals $1559.61 little more yes, but this is over three years, plus if you ask you will get way more up front.no one is getting ripped off its a business, yea you pay it off in the monitoring sure not going to argue, but if you were to spend $600 on equip than $20 a month for the 39 month term you should spend $1380...where as if you got the APX system for $39.99 it equals $1559.61 little more yes, but this is over three years, plus if you ask you will get way more up front.
I'm glad that everything worked out for you during your break in and hopefully the thief did not get into the house.
Ice
TSoH, Palmer AK.
If you get a local company, you might be able to get service when you need it. But if you want to overpay a company out of Utah, go ahead.
If he's a legitimate salesman, he's a piss-poor salesman, but he flew all the social engineering flags. I could take his script, go down to Kinko's, and probably get access to a half-dozen houses a day. Not trustworthy, in my book.