Well, that was weird

robinsokj

I'm in my house minding my own business when there is a knock on the door.  It's people from ADT.  They say that they want to give us a free security system if we will put one of their signs at the front of the yard.  We would do free advertising to the churches across the street. 

I'm leery of course, but intrigued.  Isn't there a monthly fee with these things?  

lmpdjc

Huh.  There is a monthly fee and then a fee if it goes off and they have to respond.

AvidVertigo

Robin, this has happened to me before too and I passed.  It seemed too good to be true.

yankeebaby2

Yes and those people are more rabid than the IRS.  Don't take it. 

kate930

I have had ADT offer to give me free installation but I still had to pay the monthly fee and it was like a 3 year contract. I would look more into it. 

ETA: I mean look more into it before agreeing, not look more into it b/c it's a good deal. I dislike ADT.  

BamBam510

Be very leary.  Their was an ADT scam going around here and a lot of people got ripped off.  It was a door-to-door thing as well.  Call ADT, I don't think they have D-to-D sales.   They'd probably ask for your CC # for something as a security deposit or whatever and then the charges will start.  

lildevil968

You pay $99 for installation, and about $46 a month. That is the same thing we got, and it really is worth it. We pay $46 a month for monitoring, window alarms, and 3 door alarms.

Aimeelb1

Same thing happened before DD was born. We went ahead and got it b/c 2 of our neighbors houses had recently broken into so it makes me feel better when I'm home alone with her. I usually have it armed most of the time, especially at night when DH isn't home yet.

We got all the equipment for free and we pay $50 a month for the service.

emily0829

yankeebaby2:

Yes and those people are more rabid than the IRS.  Don't take it. 

If you're thinking about taking it anyway, you need all of it in writing, specifically laying out what is free and what is it prior to accepting.

If they want to give away a security system for "free", why not just approach the church and give them a free month or something? Seems odd to me.

emily0829

laura_belle:

Just take the sign.  People will think you have a security system and be more leery of breaking in. 

Hahaha! I did that at my house.

emilysmommy2010

 Around where I live people were passing out those signs and when people would put the sign up in their yard someone would break into their house. 

mrsdeanna

They did this for us.  Free installation with signs for outside and alarms for your key chains to turn your alarm system on/off from the outside.  I believe we pay $44 a month.  I really do like it because anytime the door opens/closes to the outside, the door does a chime.  I think it will be good for when DS gets a little older for when he can figure out how to open doors.  

ceceandme222

All of the alarm advertisements I have ever received have been mailers. I would be very leary of this. 

We have broadview and pay a monthly fee, but got a free wireless installation because we signed up during a promotion.  

mrsdeanna

mrsdeanna:

They did this for us.  Free installation with signs for outside and alarms for your key chains to turn your alarm system on/off from the outside.  I believe we pay $44 a month.  I really do like it because anytime the door opens/closes to the outside, the door does a chime.  I think it will be good for when DS gets a little older for when he can figure out how to open doors.  

And the guy was doing door to door sales, but we called the company to make sure he was legit.   

FloF9

I got ADT and it was a 3 year contract.  IIt was about 10 years ago and it was about $35 a month.

After 1 year or so, I received letter notification that the pricing (monthly) was going to increase, due to economic, blahblahblahblah.  Then 6 months after the  pricing went up again, and I ended paying about $44 a month until the contract ended. 

There are ADT "dealers" which means they're a 3rd party you're dealing with, not even directly through ADT.  It's a little shady if you ask me.  They did direct deposit with us.  BIG MISTAKE.

Anyway at the end of the 3 years it took a huge ordeal to cancel.  I kept getting passed around from dept to department.  One guy tried to bargain with me by having me renew for $24.99.  When I refused he bumped it down to $9.99 A MONTH!!!

This pissed me off - I mean why the hell did they gouge me for 3 years then right?  A lot of these signs aren't good to put up anyway because a lot of break ins know what to expect with certain alarm systems.  Just my 2 cents.

 

Ciconrad

We had ADT in NC and never had some of the experiences others did.  The system was already installed when we moved in but we paid $35/month for the entire 6 years we were living there.  It never went up.  We never got charged when the alarm accidentally went off (which was like 4 or 5 times).  Some towns/cities charge you if the police come out and it was an accidental alarm, but ADT itself never charged us.  When we moved, we had no hassles with cancelling the contract.  I was always REALLY pleased with ADT.

JandB07

Be careful and make sure they are legit before you let them in your house.  In our area there have been incidents of people posing as door to door salesmen for security companies but really they were casing the house to burglarize later.

amtaka

We had this happen right after we moved in.  We called ADT to verify it was legit.  (Got the number from the ADT website...didn't trust the salesman.)  We had been wanting to install an alarm so we got it.  We got the equipment for free and the service is $50/month with a 3 year contract.  All we had to do was keep the service active for 3 years and put the sign in our front yard.  Our contract is coming to an end in a few months so we'll see how much the monthly fee increases. 

robinsokj

Does anyone pay for the equipment or is this a total con?

(Con as in free equipment is a great deal?)

lite-bright

Yes, there's a monthly fee. 

Basically, they try to hook you by giving you their standard "system" for free -- covering X number of doors, windows, etc. and then if your house has more, you ante up the difference. Then they make their profit on the monthly fees that you still have to pay.

DH and I got the same offer and looked into it -- basically they send someone to your house to make you the above offer, and scare the hell out of you to convince you to get a security system. This guy came with a binder full of crime-related newspaper clippings, gave us the hard sell and was irritated when we turned him down.  

I hate, hate, HATE scare tactics and the whole thing pissed me off.  

mrsdeanna

robinsokj:

Does anyone pay for the equipment or is this a total con?

(Con as in free equipment is a great deal?)

We did NOT pay for the equipment, signs or alarms for our key chains to turn alarm on/off from outside.