A cold day in Hell....
Jan. 3rd, 2008 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amanda_loddenAs near as I can tell, it is a requirement that one be an asshole before being offered a job at Guardian Alarm.
About a year ago, we switched companies. The details are a tangled mess best left unspoken, but the nuts and bolts of it involved the new company assuming some contracts of the old company in order to continue operating. For the most part, this went okay, with the minor hiccups being worked out in due course.
However, getting the alarm system switched over was nothing short of a nightmare. Guardian Alarm wouldn't do ANYTHING-- they wouldn't change the name on the old contract, and they wouldn't send over a new contract with the new company's name on it. They paid themselves by automatic bank draft every month, and no matter how many times they said they'd stop, they took it again the next month.
Fast forward to a few months ago, when we said "Fuck this" and switched to another alarm company. The new company resells Guardian, which meant that we got to keep the existing equipment (which was there when we moved in) instead of ripping everything out and starting over. Guardian finally noticed, and called to try to sweet-talk us into returning. I gave the sales rep an earful, bitching about how I couldn't get anyone to give me the time of day for 9 months and there was no way I'd go back to them.
Then we got a bill. The bill was for over $600-- $450 for the equipment, which they claimed was theirs, and $150 for the rest of the contract, which auto-renewed every 12 months for another 12 months. After much cursing and demanding a copy of our contract (which DID have the auto-renew clause, damn it all) and swearing about the fact that when I first started trying to switch it out of the old company's name it was BEFORE the auto-renewal date, they offered a settlement. If I paid the $450 equipment fee, they'd drop the rest. I still think we should not have to pay for equipment that was here before we were, but I was tired of arguing with them and I really wanted everything to get wrapped up-- which I couldn't do with disputes still outstanding. So I gave up and paid the $450 (and you better believe I'm leaving copies of that with the landlord when we finally move out of this space, with a note asking him to give it to the next tenant so they don't get screwed by Guardian too).
Yesterday when I checked the post office boxes, I found a lovely little letter from an attorney informing me that Guardian had turned the remaining $150 of the supposed debt over to him for collection. Because apparently Guardian and I use two different definitions of the word "settlement", and theirs involves me paying the entire amount. I have a letter ready to go out in the mail to the attorney disputing the validity of the debt and I have no doubt that I can make him go away, but the sheer balls of Guardian to turn it over for collection (5 days AFTER they cashed my check for the settlement amount) is astounding.
No matter where I go in the future, or whether I am putting in an alarm system at my home, a co-location area, or a new office space, it will be a cold day in Hell* before I give Guardian another dime EVER.
* Since Hell, MI is only about an hour or so away, I feel compelled to add "in July" to the end of that.
About a year ago, we switched companies. The details are a tangled mess best left unspoken, but the nuts and bolts of it involved the new company assuming some contracts of the old company in order to continue operating. For the most part, this went okay, with the minor hiccups being worked out in due course.
However, getting the alarm system switched over was nothing short of a nightmare. Guardian Alarm wouldn't do ANYTHING-- they wouldn't change the name on the old contract, and they wouldn't send over a new contract with the new company's name on it. They paid themselves by automatic bank draft every month, and no matter how many times they said they'd stop, they took it again the next month.
Fast forward to a few months ago, when we said "Fuck this" and switched to another alarm company. The new company resells Guardian, which meant that we got to keep the existing equipment (which was there when we moved in) instead of ripping everything out and starting over. Guardian finally noticed, and called to try to sweet-talk us into returning. I gave the sales rep an earful, bitching about how I couldn't get anyone to give me the time of day for 9 months and there was no way I'd go back to them.
Then we got a bill. The bill was for over $600-- $450 for the equipment, which they claimed was theirs, and $150 for the rest of the contract, which auto-renewed every 12 months for another 12 months. After much cursing and demanding a copy of our contract (which DID have the auto-renew clause, damn it all) and swearing about the fact that when I first started trying to switch it out of the old company's name it was BEFORE the auto-renewal date, they offered a settlement. If I paid the $450 equipment fee, they'd drop the rest. I still think we should not have to pay for equipment that was here before we were, but I was tired of arguing with them and I really wanted everything to get wrapped up-- which I couldn't do with disputes still outstanding. So I gave up and paid the $450 (and you better believe I'm leaving copies of that with the landlord when we finally move out of this space, with a note asking him to give it to the next tenant so they don't get screwed by Guardian too).
Yesterday when I checked the post office boxes, I found a lovely little letter from an attorney informing me that Guardian had turned the remaining $150 of the supposed debt over to him for collection. Because apparently Guardian and I use two different definitions of the word "settlement", and theirs involves me paying the entire amount. I have a letter ready to go out in the mail to the attorney disputing the validity of the debt and I have no doubt that I can make him go away, but the sheer balls of Guardian to turn it over for collection (5 days AFTER they cashed my check for the settlement amount) is astounding.
No matter where I go in the future, or whether I am putting in an alarm system at my home, a co-location area, or a new office space, it will be a cold day in Hell* before I give Guardian another dime EVER.
* Since Hell, MI is only about an hour or so away, I feel compelled to add "in July" to the end of that.
