Why Must I Pay If You Won't Listen

I travel a fair amount, so security is an issue for me. I was away for the whole of August in Australia. I phoned ADT’s control room to firstly let them know that I will be out of the country and cannot react if my alarm goes off. I also asked them to call a friend in my absence. In spite of never calling anyone, when I arrived home, I received a warning notification from ADT for excessive call-outs.

So when I returned to Australia in November, I called the control room to make sure that they would contact my friend. I provided all the necessary details. Yet I still received calls from ADT and queried why they are phoning me while I am overseas when I had made the appropriate arrangements with them. I immediately asked my friend to call ADT and confirm the arrangements from his side. If my facts are correct, he agreed to two call outs and cancelled the rest. Despite all of this I still received a bill for additional call-outs!!!

Last week, I was out of town, and my alarm was activated. I gave strict instructions to ignore it as it is obvious something is wrong, and a technician was going to come fix it. In addition, they must log it on their system to ignore all further activations for the following two days. Later that day I received another call, and again, I told them to ignore it as I was out of town and there is nothing I could do, so they must not respond. The next day I received another call. Again, I told them to ignore it.

When I arrived home, several of their little notices was laying on my driveway and two stuck in my gate. For a security company, how stupid can you get? Why don't you put up a sign saying I am not home? The real kicker is I received another notice that I would be charged for the additional call-outs. So, I phoned the call centre and explained my frustration. The operator said he would email the accounting department. I asked to be cc in the email. That was three days ago and haven't heard a thing. Oh, that is not true - I received an SMS notification this morning confirming that I will be penalised!!!

What is the point of being a client when you are just going to ignore all of my requests and do what you want anyway? What is the point of making arrangements when you do not follow them anyway? What is the point of phoning your customer service when you are just going to dismiss me anyway? For a security company, I definitely don't feel protected. Appalled