NorthStar Alarm Services review: contract cancelling 66

I think is funny how people don't want to be held responsible for what they agreed to when signing a contract. Then they call the company that made the contract a scam, because the company sticks to what they agreed too.

I love my alarm, but then again, I knew what I was signing when I signed it.

Also its different than a cell phone contract, its like buying a car or a home. Most of the time you can't just cancel the contract with the dealership after using the car for a year (if you can then let me know where to find it). It's the same type of agreement you're signing when you get the alarm system.

We just moved into our house and tried to switch the existing contract into our name. They told me they would e-mail a contract, then asked for my bank account information so they could start billing. I told them I would provide that information after I received the contract. Two weeks later I still did not have the contract but they were calling and asking for my bank account information. At this point they are giving all appearances of being scam artists - they want access to our money before a contract is provided. This has been my only experience with this company but so far is it not a good first impression.

there is always two sides to every story. I am a technician for northstar, i spent about a month in indianapolis installing security systems. i am back home now, in utah, still installing. this has been a very helpful job for me in paying for school. now i know no one likes sales people, however being a salesman can earn you lots of money. i know many salesmen in our company... they are all great guys just trying to get through school, or make a good life for themselves. i am a tech but i have tried selling in good old mormonville, utah to earn extra tuition money(i am 19 and have had three semesters of school, totaling about $7, 000 of tuition money that i have PAYED FOR FROM MY OWN POCKET) so a sell here and there would be nice, however people can be rude as rude gets. PLEASE be kind and courteous when a salesmen comes to your door and please realize it is really not a scam. don't slam the door, it hurts, really. TIP: a good way to say no is telling them you have a credit score of 500 or something, remember to be KIND, and wish them luck. i am sorry to those who have had a bad experience, our customer care is better than MANY companies, alarm or not.

I had service with them for 1 year. 6 months of it they did not porvide service. Because they said my unit was out of date and could not service that anymore. SO I PAID 6 months for no service. I told them that I wanted to cancel because that is just bad service. They told me that I need to upgrade my equiptment for $300. I have been fighting them now for 2 year because they wanted me to finish the contract. Tonight I get a collections company call... THEY ARE SCAMMING PEOPLE! Total BS... RON JONES INDIANAPOLIS

Do you want to know how big of a joke this company is? Scroll above to the username Ryan and read his other comment, or look here. His other comment reads this:

"I worked for Northstar also last year in Texas, I worked with JAMIE VALLEN also last year. He was fired the first month because he was a bad technician and couldn't do his job properly. I just don't like when people that get fired or do a bad job blame people for their inadequacies. Hopefully Jamie has moved on with his life. From all of my experiences with Northstar they have treated me well, and it was a good experience for me."

Hmm... that doesn't make very much sense. Ryan who happens to be a guy that I know personally and worked with constantly seeing as he was my boss... Also claims to of bought a security system that he happened to do so much research on... Wow sounds to me like Ryan (who also runs and owns a descent portion of this company) is committing fraud. He is going onto a forum dealing with his own company (his own $) and writing false comments acting like a customer to gain support of this company. Don't buy into this guys crap. In my 3 years in the alarm system business this guy happens to be the biggest S.O.B I have ever dealt with. Ryan is a flat out liar, and I've seen him take advantage of people everyday I was there. He also happens to like non-english speaking homes cause it's harder to be pushed out of their door. I'm just saying and his actual words to me when I worked for him. This guy owns a big chunk of what is now Northstar. He really doesn't care about any of the customers. Almost all systems pulls I did while I was a technician for this company in Texas was from his accounts. I wouldn't trust this company. I'm not saying there isn't good people in it. Cause there truly is, but they try to force longer contracts than needed. They aren't typically upfront about all the costs. (read your contract) and some of these salesman (advertisement reps as they would LIKE to be called) just aren't always honest, but let me also tell you that this is typical in the security business. I say this honestly if you want a good alarm system pay the bigger guys a little extra money and have it done right. Don't buy into this "better customer service ###." By the bigger guys I mean Brinks, or ADT (don't be fooled by the guys that say "ADT Authorized Dealer") Those are the people who will be a little more honest and truly give you what you're looking for. They're not your typical summer sales "sell and run" type company. Their reps and techs are typically not seasonal and you know what you're getting when you go in.

JASON2121:

You're saying that because you work there and you know the contract front and back. You have to admit, a contract that "auto-renews" for an entire 18 months if you do not send a written cancellation notice a full 60 days before it expires is pretty dirty. Not even Cell Phone carriers do that... Your company's contract also has worse mid-term cancellation terms.

With a cell phone carrier, for instance, you can cancel your 2 year contract (which is valued often times at 100 dollars per month in revenue for them) by paying a $175 early termination fee.

With your company, the entire balance for the remaining time on the contract is due upon early termination... which discourages early termination and encourages people to try to wait until the 60-days prior... which gives them a chance to get trapped in it all over again.

Sure, its a legal contract... but customers are put on the spot to sign or not sign the contract when the salemen come to their home to sell the service, and the contract is way to long to sit there and go over. If you have to put it front and back on a 8.5x17 sheet of paper in 6 point font, something tells me you're trying to entice people not to read it.

Every honest contract I've ever signed has been standard 10-12 point font single side, and as many pages as it takes.

Point is, it may not be fraudulent, but it is sure as hell dirty and underhanded to do business like that... You know its bad if the phone companies won't even do it.

I would just like to state that as a licensed technician for NorthStar Alarm in Houston, TX this company is not fraudulent. Read the contract in it's entirety before signing anything...as you should with any contract you sign. It's pretty basic though. Either you want a security system or you don't. If you do make sure you know what you are signing and if you don't then don't. That's it. However, Great company to work for and I love the people of TX. Thanks.

The problem comes when trying to cancel the contract. The salespeople are not consistent or honest with you, and it would take two hours to read the contract in full on your own. The contract states that you must send written notice of cancellation in advance 60 days before the end of the contract in order to cancel it, or it will auto renew for 18 months.

This means you have to send them a letter 60 days before the end date of your contract stating you wish to cancel. If you send the letter 59 or less days before the end of the contract, it still auto renews, even though you cancelled before the end of the contract. At best, this is unethical. The only thing CLOSE to this behavior that would seem legitimate to me is the service continuing 60 days from the date of the notice, regardless of the end date of the contract provided notice is received before the end of the contract.

These people are simply screwing people out of 18 months x the monthly fee of the service. You'd be hard pressed to find customers who cancelled this contract successfully at the end of their first 3 year term. I guarantee of all of their customers who attempted to cancel at the end of 3 years, only a negligible number were successfull at doing so without penalty.

Northstar is the worst experience I have ever had! I sent the contract for cancellation within the alotted 3 days, and obviously this did not make the technician happy because I have never been talked to the way I was.
This company is a complete scam, I was told they would leave a hole in my wall or I could pay $500 dollars to leave the system there and pay a laundry list of fees.
The techinician that came to my home made me feel completely uncomfortable and I had to sit on the phone for an hour to get them to send a different one- completely unacceptable. Please Please do not ever sign with this company. I have been with other companies in the area and have never had probelms. Unfortunately from my understanding they are not registered with the BBB but I will definetely try and find a way to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else!

I have NorthStar and they have been great

It's probably because:

1. I actually read the contract before singing it and knew how long it was.

2. I pay my bills.

None of these complaints sound like the company is trying to rip anyone off just people don't want to pay for it anymore. Can a company really be held 100% responsible for your buyers remorse?

I have an idea why don't you try to cancel any contract that you signed up for and see how the company treats it? Go ahead sign up for a cell phone and see if AT&T will just let you shut off service because you aren't in the mood to pay anymore. How about your mortgage? Stop paying that and see what happens.

It's hard to say if customer service is bad because they are trying to rip you off or you are trying to rip them off. I say it is the latter because I always pay my bill and they are amazing when I call in.

I have now had an alarm with NorthStar alarms for 2 years now. Before having Northstar install their security system I did research on their company and felt really good after I found out that they have been around for about nine years. There represenative from there company was really respectful and honest to me. I decided to have the system installed and felt really good about it. About 6 months ago I was out of town and my wife and child were home alone and someone tried to break in my home. The alarm went of instantly and the alarm company came over our two way speaker and was able to make sure my wife and child were alright and they sent the police over immediatly. One of the best purchases I have ever made, I don't know what would have happened if we didn't have an alarm.

I also had a major promblem with this company. I entered a three year contract with this company after a salesperson came to my door. After five months of service, some programing issues occurred. They could not fix the problem resulting in almost three weeks of no service. They were going to replace the entire system, most likely charging me. I canceled the contract and went to another alarm company because I couldn't risk the safety and security of my family. The other alarm company used the same equipment and everything is fine, except that I'm working with a lawyer to cancel the contract because they failed to provide adequate services.

A contract is a contract people. Read these things before you sign them. You sign a legit 3-5 year contract you have to understand that you are going to be paying for 3-5 years. And if you stop, they will send you to collections and you credit score is going to take a huge hit. It's the same with a house payment or a car payment. A contract is a contract.

However, I do agree that the mess ups with the billing do need to stop.

Maybe this might start the ball rolling.I Contacted an Attorney and he said to write a letter requesting your contract to be canceled immediately.And that you will no longer require there services. I also added with my experience that there Costumer Service is very poor and there Billing Department is very inconsistent, and at the signing of the contract that the person was not honest and in other words lied to me and my wife on services that came with their contract.My Attorney told me to keep sending these letters even if it go's to Collection, then at that time you send a letter back to collection agency stating that you want to contest this action.Just make that you keep good note's on the issues that were brought on by this corrupt Company.If everyone that has issues with this company would follow this actions maybe we might be able bankrupt them or at least cause them to change there ways for the better.Good luck to everyone involved in this nightmare.

I'm in with these guys and will regret it for the next four years. PLEASE, PLEASE do yourself a favor and slam the door on them!

I am haveing problem with the Billing. they do not stay consistant with there billing.They started the billing out, over charging my account then reanbursed me, then the next did the same thing, so we got that staighten out in December, which the billing date is the middle of the month. Then January the billed me on the first of the month. So I called the and told them to bill me thru mail and they said they would have to charge me $2.00 billing charge, so since that conversation I had with them they billed again inthe same month and the $2.00 service charge went to a $20.00 charge.I have tryed to cancel since the first week they installed because of bad information they gave my Wife stating she could have her cat in the house and after they installed the unit we were talking with installer and he said we could not and on top of that he said your batterys that support the sencer need to be changed every 3 months, and if we did not stay on top of that our system could malfuction. I have bean calling them every month sence August trying to cancel, I even made a statment that I will stop payment and they responded by the would take to collection, that I was commeted to 5yrs.I have read a lot of simaler complaints.there has got to be a way out of this, if anyone has a idea please post your comment.

Yes this company is totally fraudulent. My wife was duped into signing a contract with this [censored] who fraudulently claimed we could cancel the contract or have a new system installed if we moved to a new address. Well, we moved a year later to an area they did not service an sent a certified letter saying we wanted to cancel since they did not service our new area, Long story short, they said we have to pay $1000 to get out of the contract. Big time scam salespeople. Need to be turned into BBB. Which I will gladly do.