AUGGGHH! Do I have a case for the BBB? (Vent-ish on home security system)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m about to go nuclear on unnamed home security company. Why?

  1. We moved in July of this year. I called prior to the move to cancel the service. After being transferred 5 places, I thought we were good.
  2. We receive a bill in September for $90 for service on a home we no longer lived in. I call and inquire and am told cancellation has to be in writing. I’m given a fax number and fax the letter in on 9/17.
  3. We received a bill today, showing we owe $180.
  4. I call the company, get transferred to Minnesota (??) before I’m transferred to the SoCal branch.
  5. After talking forever with a rep, he finally digs up the cancellation letter and says he doesn’t know why it wasn’t processed. Then, eventually, he says, oh golly…a fax isn’t acceptable. I about lost it then. I was TOLD I could fax it in, and was GIVEN the fax number to do that with!
  6. THEN he tells me the contract states we have to give 30 day cancellation notice, AND we have to do it in writing, AND we are STILL BILLED for 30 days after cancellation. And since our cancellation wasn’t acceptable, by contract, we have to pay the $180. This is news to us. NO one has EVER brought this up to us until TODAY.

I see. So I’m to pay $180 for a service that wasn’t rendered on a property I no longer live in, and despite multiple requests to cancel.

BULLSHIT.

I tell him, look, we’ve been trying to cancel since JULY, making an earnest effort, and we’ve been steered all over the place in multiple calls. He says–the contract states blah blah blah. I say, so…we’re supposed to remember what a contract we signed SEVEN YEARS AGO says? And when we try to cancel, no one takes the time to remind us of this?? UNTIL NOW?!

Then, I share how I find it ironic that everytime I call and try to cancel because of a move, I’m asked if I want said security service at the new house. I said–with customer service like this, why on Earth would I? If they genuinely wanted my business–AND the business of the new owner in our previous home, whom we have contact with–then they would try and work something out with me. Grrr.

I was transferred to the supervisor, whose computer isn’t working. I was told she’d call me back as soon as it’s up and running. If I don’t hear from them in a few hours, I’m calling back.

Am I screwed over a clause in a contract signed ages ago that no one felt the need to bring up until today? Should I just pay the $180, wish them a Merry Fucking Christmas, and make sure we spread the bad word about them everywhere?

I’m half ready to write a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. Do I have a leg to stand on, there?

This is really pissing me off. Grrrrrmmmppp.

2

I’m not sure that losing track of what the contract signed would actually stand up, so by all means, pay the bill.

But then eviscerate them in fromt of the BBB, the new owner of the house, your friends and acquaintances, potential customers, etc, etc. Expand what you wrote here into a list of what happend and when: every misleading phone call, every fax, everything. Show your audience how their customer service made your good-faith effort to end the contract into Consumer Hell, when accurate information and a reminder of the contract terms at the first call to cancel would have made everything good.

(Why yes, I wrote a letter of complaint–my first ever–about my new glasses last month. And I got satisfaction, in the form of new frames and reinstallation–and wrote a subsequent letter of thanks. :smiley: )

3

I just got off the phone with the same rep again. (He’s not too happy with me, though I made every attempt to be cordial, polite, but firm.) The supervisor’s computer is still down, but I wanted to speak with her anyway.

Apparently, while I was on hold for a good period of time, they pulled up my account and discussed things…and oh, how generous of them. They’re going to recognize the 9/17 faxed letter, even though it isn’t protocol, but I will be billed for the 30 days after.

When I lamented paying for a service I didn’t receive in a home I wasn’t living in, and that I had made an earnest attempt to cancel (and yet those attempts weren’t acknowledged)–and that this is the first I’d heard of the 30-day notice, he pulled up records on previous phone calls and said, “Well, our national service center notified you of that in July.” No, they absolutely did not. That would have stuck out like a red thumb to me. Then he commented–seemingly appropos of nothing–that in the September call, I was unsure of whether I was going to go with this company or another one. I said yes, I most certainly said that; we wanted to look into other options. Then he said in the same phone call I was notified of the 30-day cancellation procedure. Um, no, again, no one EVER said that until today.

I reiterated that this is just poor customer service. No one contacted me in August. No one contacted me after the September fax. Nothing. I had no reason to believe there was a problem until they sent a bill. I said I would file a complaint with the BBB over the convoluted mess I have been dealing with for the several past months, and that I would tell the new homeowner to run in the opposite direction. I also said it just seemed likie poor business practice, though I am not a in business. I said all of this as plainly as possible, not wanting to rant or make this poor rep the recipient of something he didn’t deserve.

I also sincerely thanked him, told him he had been very clear in his information, and that I was quite aware that this is not an issue with him. I said I hope it hadn’t cast a pall over his day, and then asked, again, to speak with the supervisor. He tried to transfer me, said she was away from her desk, and then said, “And I can’t go chasing her down around the building.” I told him of course not; I understood. “If you left her a message earlier, she will return the call.” I began to ask if she would know to return the call, as since she had sat with him and gone over my file I wasn’t sure if she had it in her mind that it was settled. I never got a chance to finish that thought. He interrupted with “She returns all of her calls,” then reiterated the whole 30-day thing–a few times, I swear–and I just shrugged and left it at that. I couldn’t finish my sentence, though I did say that I wanted to make things very clear, considering the communication problems I’ve had with this company.

The dude is not happy with me.

4

Dammit. I missed the editing time window because I took too long trying to find that “likie” toward the end of the post.

Also note that I meant to say “I’m not a business person,” not “I’m not a in business.”

So there.

5

This belongs in the pit. :wink:

From here: