Platinum Protection Customer Review: Client Not Impressed With Sales Tactics

Beware of slick sales.

BACKGROUND: sales rep with a "GE" shirt was in the area (did not initially explain what "PLATINUM" meant), claiming company was giving out free equipment because of slow economy, and several homes in neighborhood were picked out to receive the free equipment. Rep kept showing me about 5 or 6 contact cards...showing addresses and names of my neighbors, hinting that these people were having alarm systems installed tonight, and there were only 2 free systems left. Presentation focused on all the free equipment I would be getting. Indeed, it was free and seems to work well. Warning bells started to go off when I caught the rep in a few small lies. Initially he claimed it was a 3 year contract and no automatic renewal. I read the fine print and pointed out that it is 60 months (5 years) and it IS an automatic renewal unless written notice is sent 30 days in advance. Rep claimed I have 5 days to "test drive" equipment. He actually used "a week" and "5 days" interchangeably. Actual "test drive" period is 3 days. Rep got a little flustered over these, but I have to give it to him....he hung in there. He did throw in an extra motion detector. Next morning I drove around my neighborhood, looking to see who else had "PLATINUM" signs in their yard. Only one other house did. This struck me as odd, since I saw the rep showing me 5 or 6 contact cards, and telling me details about the various neighbors who signed up (the guy with the mustang, the couple with the dog, etc etc). The guy had an impressive memory. Where he screwed up is when he said that a person in the neighborhood a few houses down recently had their PLATINUM system upgraded to the new wireless. He mentioned he got over $1200 of free equipment, and loves his service. Well...on the way back from work, I drove by this person's house, and saw a sign in their yard for a whole different company. So, I gave him a call. He remembered speaking with a rep, and assured me he is not a customer of PLATINUM and has never been. That was enough for me. I canceled the same day. Sadly, the customer service rep I called was very professional, as was the tech who installed the equipment. The equipment looks great too. But I cannot deal with a company who's sales rep begins a business relationship by lying to me. Integrity is the number one principle in good business. If I can't trust you, we're done. I will probably go with the same company that my neighbor has...the one who was supposed to have had PLATINUM. Unfortunately I have nothing more to say about the company because our relationship started off bad, and ended quickly.

A word of advice: do not fill out any sort of contact cards for these people. The sales rep may use these to fool your neighbors into believing that you are a customer of PLATINUM, or that you just signed up. Likewise, don't give out details about yourself. If they claim they just signed someone up, offer to call that neighbor, or offer to walk down there with the rep. Call them out on their B.S. If they offer details about your neighbor, try them out and make something up (oh, you mean the couple with the African Grey parrot, the large fish tank, the two little twin girls). See if they take the bait. If they do, call them out.

A word of advice to PLATINUM: give your sales reps a class on ethics. Either you have minimal training and certain reps just come up with their own scams, or part of your training actually includes lying. Either way, revamping your training with emphasis on integrity would help you retain more business. You may not sign up as many people initially, but you'll retain more business. If you plan to be around for the long term, remember that it's not all about short term numbers. I'd love to have someone from PLATINUM respond to this posting.

Lastly - I'm going to see the other neighbor who has a platinum sign. He might still have a day to cancel. I want to compare notes and see what he was promised. Maybe I can save someone a lot of grief.