APX Alarm | Customer Review: Contract Issues, Updated

APX, to our dismay, has proven to be the worst business-related experience in our life. In fact, the ONLY business-related dispute in our lives. Their current F rating with the BBB is more than deserved. Please read enough of the following to follow what happened. You be the judge of their ethics and practices.

In our case, after receiving a written cancellation within three days of the original contract, they waited a few days to telephone my wife. Chris told her how heartbroken APX was that we were not satisfied (the equipment did not work properly for our home). Then he asked if she'd give them another chance. They would be bring some more equipment. Free. Please? The cared about us and our family's security so much. How about it? - Chris was very very good. All this over the telephone to my sweet wife who has the unfortunate tendency to want to be nice. So, she said OK. They brought some more equipment. Which still did not work right. We contacted them again. "We'll fix it this time for sure." They brought another piece of equipment, but it still ending up setting up unavoidable and undetectable (in our downstairs exterior entrance area) false alarms.

So, we turned the system off. Completely. Disconnected it. We were told that would bring an immediate response - like maybe we were being held hostage and some bad guys forced us to turn off the system. Yeah. Right. Nothing from APX.

So, we wrote them a letter confirming our earlier written cancellation. After all, they called us within a few days of getting the written cancellation. But, we heard nothing. For over a month. So, we wrote them a third time confirming our earlier cancellation (again) and our other written confirmation of that cancellation. We still heard nothing. Weeks passed.

Finally, in desperation, my wife changed her credit card number. As soon as their next billing cycle came around - like magic - we get a phone call. APX. God bless 'em. They wanted our new credit card number. But, at least we could finally talk to a nice person at that nice company that said how much they cared about us. Ma'am, we canceled the service. Do you have our file? See the cancellation notice? See the other letters? Did you happen to notice the service was never used - except to evaluate that it was not working acceptably? Did you happen notice it has been disconnected and turned off for more than two and half months?

What happened next is, sadly, a common experience for many very upset victims: Nope. No deal. Can't cancel. Not ever. It's a full five years. Every dime. Like it or not, use it or not. In case I did not make it clear, we were given nothing in writing to read or sign after that telephone call asking for another chance to fix everything and make it right. Just my wife's consent over the phone, to what she believed was giving them another chance, was (in their thinking) making an unbreakable five year contract. Think about that - an oral statement in a phone conversation establishing an unbreakable contract for equipment that had not yet been seen, installed or evaluated.

"Well, we have a recording. She said OK to changing the cancellation." Yeah, but it was over the telephone. Where was the informed consent? Did Chris actually stop and carefully explain saying OK would be taken by APX to mean all further opportunity to cancel would be lost? Like the "fix it" attempt or not? How does this not try and circumvent laws that prohibit door-to-door companies making oral contracts (a policy APX's own contract emphasizes in its own fine print)?

How does this not end up using a valid cancellation just as an opportunity to pursue the consumer in an unexpected phone call by a skilled smooth talking APX representative?

If a contract in writing is legally signed, and then legally canceled in writing within three days, how can anything other than another written contract be valid after that? If (as their contract insists) a written contract cannot be changed in any way by either party orally, but only in writing," then how can a written cancellation of that contract be changed (forever) by a statement made over the phone - and let me emphasize this again: an unexpected and unsolicited telephone call.

Nothing, of course, would have prevented APX from bringing us something in writing providing full disclosure of what they assert consent to allow a second visit from a technician would entail. A nice little clear document that could have been read, considered, and then either signed or not signed -- in writing. Nothing would have prevented that nice little attention to legality and consumer rights.

This company has been, in our experience, unrelenting, unethical, unreasonable, uncaring, and interested in nothing but demanding money for service we decided to cancel and, after two additional visits, still found entirely unworkable. A service we have used. All equipment was carefully removed and sent back to them via registered delivery.

None of this matters a bit to those nice folks in that caring company over there in that nice little town of Provo, Utah. Give us your money or we'll (with the help of our frequently used buddies at Anderson, Crenshaw and Assoc [do a Google search on their consumer-related issues] ruin your good names, your credit, and go after our house. All because my kind-hearted wife said OK to nice caring Chris over the telephone.

Since I assume there are some honest folks somewhere at APX, I don't hope to see the whole company buried beyond recovery in a sea of bad publicity (as it seems is actually happening). But I do hope someone with the good sense to want to guard the reputation of this and other home security companies will step back from these abusive practices seeking nothing more than the highest immediate profits at the cost of consumer outrage, an F RATING with the BBB, and numerous state and local investigations - and make immediate changes.

People who find the equipment unusable and/or the service completely unsatisfactory should not be required to fulfill multi-year unbreakable contracts. Consumers who legally cancel within the three day required by the FTC should not be pursued. Or, if APX feels they just have to pursue them, then at least additional written documents should be presented to the consumers to be read and signed. A phone conversation with a salesman should never be the basis for an unbreakable contract.

Update:

Our situation was resolved satisfactorily.

Following my posting on several sites the long story of our attempts at a fair conclusion of our relationship with APX alarm, we did receive a telephone call from a young man in their "consumer advocacy" department. He
agreed to review our situation. Within two days another representative from APX telephoned us and indicated they would be willing to drop the matter, effectively foregoing any claim of obligation to the company or any third
party collection agency assigned our case. We are fully satisfied with that arrangement.

We would have wished a similar arrangement could have been worked out months earlier. We had no desire to take advantage of this company or cause them harm. As noted, this has been our first, and hopefully last, experience involving a dispute related to the validity of a contract or debt claim.