I recently purchased a home and my real estate agent informed me of the deal with ADT Protect Your Home for $850 equipment and a $100 Visa gift card. Deal sounded interesting and we already had ADT at our previous residence, so I was willing to give them a chance at serving us. The home had an older system (we were not sure of its age), so I figured maybe they could just restart the monitoring and minimal equipment would be needed.

A guy by the name of Nate Lewis called and gave me his sales pitch. There is a $99 dollar install charge -- there goes the gift card. I informed him that a system was already there, but not sure of its functionality. In hindsight, I should have ended the call here, because he was only interested in getting a new, more expensive system installed in my home. By the end of the call, I was charged 176.88 before them even coming and installing the system that I may not have even needed.

The appointment was set for Monday, January 16th. The guy showed up about an hour and a half late and not in a marked ADT van. I finally found out they were an "authorized dealer" of ADT. I was told to set 3 hours aside for the install. Well, an hour and half is already gone. Finally, around 2pm he finished his "security analysis" and proceeded to upsell me about a thousand dollars more of equipment. As a victim of a couple of burglaries, I was somewhat of the mindset of not placing a price on peace of mind, but this seemed quite expensive for a 1500 square foot home, and that wasn't everything needed.

I finally signed up for a half and half credit payment. He finally started while I called Protect Your Home and asked them for clarification on why I couldn't be invoiced. No one could give me an explanation beside credit qualifications, even though I just purchased a home with great loan terms. Somehow, my credit wasn't up to their standard. When talking with a manager about it, she advised me that if I didn't like it, to go elsewhere.

Problem is our nameless installer has installed some of the system at this point. We were planning to cancel, and he finished about 45 minutes later. He didn't test the system and barely gave us instructions on how to use the system. We had to remind him of what was included in his system. Then when we left we found out the motion sensor didn't even function. We faxed in cancellation the following morning, the 17th.

I check my bank statement and 3 charges totalling $734.96 already withdrawn from my account. An ADT charge of 71.54 and the first half of the near 1000 dollar payment for the equipment. I figured I would give them a few days to reverse the funds for my refund. By Thursday, the 19th, I called asking when my refund would be processed. I was told 3 to 7 days and up to 30 days. What does that mean? Did I mention it took repeating my name and address to 5 different people in all their "divisions"? These clowns couldn't tell up from down. It is now been 12 days since cancellation and no sign of any refunds.

I can't figure out how it takes you 12 hours to take my payment and yet it takes you forever to refund my money. I have now contacted the BBB and since they have so many aliases (bad sign for a business) it is hard to get in touch with them. But I was able to find a few addresses and aliases. Next up is litigation. If anyone from this company calls claiming to have a great deal, please give them a deal of your own -- No business from you!!