SAFE Security | Review: Alarm Signal Transmission Issue, Updated

Unmonitored for 8 months! - We have been a customer of SAFE since 2000, when they took over the company that had been monitoring our security system. A few weeks ago, we accidently tripped our alarm, but no one from SAFE called us. When we called them to find out why, they said they never received a signal, and furthermore, they no longer had a record of our password! A service rep came out to check our system and discovered that it was dialing the old number to the central station. His conclusion: We had never been transitioned over to the new monitoring system back in November 2008. Therefore OUR SYSTEM HAD NOT BEEN MONITORED FOR THE PRIOR 8 MONTHS! Of course, we were still being invoiced and had been paying for our system to be monitored all during this time.

When we called SAFE to complain, we were told it was our fault they hadn't been monitoring us because we should have checked our system on a monthly basis (as they say to do on the quarterly invoices.) We had two different conversations with two different SAFE employees & neither accepted responsibility for SAFE failing to transition our system to the new central station. We said that they should have had a procedure in place to make sure no one fell through the cracks, but the response to this was that they don't know when someone stops using their system!!!

We are done with SAFE, a misnomer if there ever was one. It is clear to us that SAFE did not have proper procedures in place when they moved their monitoring center on November 13, 2008. We have a letter they sent out dated November 7, 2008 which says, "The move will take place through our monitoring station and will not require a visit by one of our local service providers. The process....will cause no down time to your security system." Even if we had checked our system on a monthly basis, we would still have experienced a lapse in protection. If proper procedures, such as an exception report, had been used by SAFE, certainly someone would have questioned the fact that NO SIGNALS were being received from our house. After all, we were still paying our invoices regularly. Why would we do that if we were suddenly not using our system. And how much brains does it take to notice that the absence of signals coincided with the monitoring system move?

Bottom line: This kind of incompetence in a security company is inconceivable.

Update:
We did not get reimbursed for the 8 months we were not being monitored. We got $32 back for the 1 month (left after our 30 day notice to cancel). Our letter to the CEO went unanswered but that is not surprising as the company has been sold at least 2 times since this started. The situation was solved by switching to a local company who is an excellent interface to a different monitoring company. I still do not recommend using SAFE monitoring due to the poor response, poor customer service and unknowledgable call staff. One didn't even know what the codes they receive stood for! Tom