My better half is moving in soon...so its time to get all grown up and have an alarm system installed

I'm looking for any input. Any good promos running now? Who is good? Who should I avoid?

THANKS!

If the house already has a system in place, I'd recommend nextalarm.com-they can use your existing system for a much cheaper monthly price. They also sell units, but I'm not really sure how they compare on price.

If I were looking for one now I'd basically go with anyone offering a free system and free installation.

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Malloy...I have ADT but I think Brinks supposedly runs a better operation monitor wise. Although you are still tied to Philly cops responding..which is dicey especially if your alarm is not registered with the city.

I would avoid tying yourself into a contract just to get a promotion. Pay for the system and if for some reason you want to bail on the monitoring you can do so without a penality. If you do lock yourself into a contract they are allowed to raise the monthly rate after 1 year..at least ADT can do so. In those cases you can write them within thirty days of the notice and ask to get out of your contract without penalty which they most likely will grant although I belive they reserve the right to deny your request. It's in small print....

You can always just skip the monitoring service and install a whole mess of sirens in the house so it makes the robber's ears bleed or your own if the alarm accidently goes off....

I just quit my job about a week ago where I was working at ADT. I was in sales and wasn't making enough money. The good thing about the job is that I got to see alot of what went on on the inside. ADT isn't perfect, but NO alarm company is. However seeing what I have seen I would definitely reccommend them vs just about anyone else out there. Brinks is ok, but I'd recomend ADT even over them. If you take alesis's advice and just go with whats free, I would watch out as theres ALOT of shady companies out there. Read the fine print definitely no matter who, even if ADT. Almost all companies have a 5 year contract or longer. ADT has a 3 year contract and I believe Brinks does too. Slomans is definetly 5 years as is just about every other company, if not every other one.

While in training, the teacher told us about how he was going golfing one time with the owner of another alarm company. We will call this XYZ alarms. Well Mr. owner of XYZ alarms answers his phone and writes something on his arm. Then XYZ owner dials another number and talks for a minute. When questioned by my trainer, XYZ owner says that he answered the phone because someones alarm was going off and then he called the police to tell them of the trip in said alarm. If XYZ owner ignored the call then the police would of never gone to that house!!

Now I have no clue if the above story really is true even though I was told it really was (the guy did work for ADT that told this story after all). It does make you think though about who may be monitoring your alarm system. Read into the companys. Don't ever just pick one because it would give you a free alarm. If you don't pick ADT at least pick a larger company. The larger companies have multiple monitoring centers. ADT I know has 7. This means if one of them goes down for any reason you still have the remaining 6. ADT has the fastest response time in the industy as well as the most monitoring stations. Your alarm system going off will NEVER be "placed on hold" because all operators are busy. Remember a live human does have to answer your alarm going off and then call the police. Its not an automated call sent to the police at all. This should be a very VERY important part of picking who monitors because ALL alarm companies will put wording in the contract limiting their liability (big suprise here, huh?)

ADT can also take over most existing alarms instead of the company Alesis mentioned. ADT would do it for free and actually send a technician out to do it instead of making you do it yourself as there is a chace Alesis's company would do (I am guessing on this part as I have never heard of the company. There are way to many fly by night companies to keep track of)

Now as of ADT rasing your bill. Yes that part is true, after a year they can. However I'm pretty sure (Its been awhile since I read all the fine print in there, though I definietly did more then once) the fine print also says you CAN cancel in this case w/o termination fees. ADT's "termination fee's" is 75% of your remaining bill though I have heard of companies charging you the full amount left in your contract regardless. If someone tells you that you can't cancel when they raise your bill then just talk to someone higher up on the food chain. I know there is always a way to get out of ADT's contract if you talk to the right person and give the right excuse.

Finally, any more questions feel free to PM me. I also can give you one of my ex-co-workers phone numbers and tell them to give you a good deal. Most of them are great people that I still talk to even though I don't work there anymore. The guy I have in mind to give you his number doesn't b.s. either and all the times I had gone out with him while I was training (or heard him on the phone during the weekly call night) I never saw him lie to a customer once.

Kerri

Wow, thanks for the quick replies. Kerri, special thanks! I'm on my mobile now, but I will reply later.

I've had a couple of systems installed by a local guy. I paid for the system up front so I could get what I wanted instead of getting the free one, but my monthly central service fee is less than $20 including tax, while the bigger companies cost $40 or so plus tax, plus they're hard to get out of. I think after 3 years, you can get out, but you're supposed to cancel 30 days before the 3 years ends or they auto renew for 3 years. It's supposed to be sticky; my neighbors had trouble when they moved out of the country - their company was threatening to sue, no idea how it turned out. It may be cheaper to get the freebie system if you just need a couple of doors and a motion detector (I think that's the deal), just be careful of getting out of that contract. I wanted more stuff and had to get a better keypad, so what I did worked for me. Good luck!