Hundreds of homeowners say they just wanted to be safe, so they signed up with a home security company and now they say they’re sorry. Investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan found some say the company is cause for alarm.
The keypad is still outside her kitchen.
The sensors are still mounted on her walls.
But Karen is now sounding the alarm on the alarm system installed in her Massachusetts home.
She says the thing started squawking like crazy for no reason.
“It was going off every other minute,” Karen said.
But she says the company simply told her to turn down the volume.
“I felt very frustrated,” Karen said.
Karen says she was being billed for a system that didn’t work.
“It seemed like all they wanted was the money,” Karen said.
And we found her frustration has been cause for alarm in other homes across New England too.
Customers say a battling a home protection company they say is not protecting them and even left them at risk.
We found the Massachusetts attorney general has more than 100 complaints, customers saying the Connecticut company, Safe Home Security, Incorporated, “has lied to us” and “should be put out of business.”
Attorney general Maura Healey says she thinks the company’s business techniques are alarming.
“Threatening conduct, really aggressive, deceptive practices,” Maura Healey the Massachusetts Attorney General said.
First: Look at the company’s contract: can you read this?
“What do you think when you see a contract like this?” Hank asked.
“I mean this is not customer friendly, right? This is really hard to read,” Healey said.
There are other complaints too, one said there were “years of services that were never provided.” Another said, “We ended up paying over $700 for a system that was unplugged.” Karen and other customers complained it was impossible to cancel their contracts.
And the AG says the company knew some systems weren’t working and still would not let customers cancel.
“If someone wanted to cancel what would happen?” Hank asked.
“Really aggressive. The company would threaten the customer and say that they weren’t allowed to cancel with them,” Healey said.
The AG’s now filed a lawsuit to require the company to pay consumers back the money they lost, but Healey worries there are people who don’t realize they’re relying on a security system she says that actually provided no security at all.
“That’s why I think if anybody watches this show and sees this segment and thinks that they may have been a victim here, contact my office so that we can see if we can help,” Healey said.
The company, Safe Home Security Incorporated told us that because of the lawsuit they couldn’t talk with us. If you want to tell the AG about a problem you had with this company here is a link to their website.
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