Slomin's Home Security Poor Customer Service, Ineptitude at every level Hicksville, New York

My mother first signed on to Slomins 5 year contract when we moved into our new home in 2005. They came out to install the alarm when I was home and I was told it was completely installed. Then the alarm began going off in the middle of the night. No one ever called because it was not connected to the service center. They tried blaming everyone from our phone provider to our dog. They sent someone else out to fix it but he went downstairs and said as he had not been the one to install it, he had no idea what was going on and only the person who installed it would understand what was going on and how to fix it. We called Slomins and informed them of this, they promised send out the original installer. Two more people came out, neither one was the original installer and both said they couldnt help. Between my mother and myself, we had now taken four days off of work to get this completed. At this point, my mother became so fed up she told them to come in and take it out. We were told if they did this we would have to pay the remainder of the 5 year contract. Finally on the fifth attempt they sent out the original installer, who did in fact fix it. The entire time this was going (3 or 4 months), we were being charged for a security system that wasnt connected to the system and was going off in the middle of the night. My mother paid her bill for the month we received service and was told by customer service that it was our problem and nothing was done. In July, their attorney sent us a letter demanding immediate payment for all 5 years. As my mother was now battling stage III cancer, I wrote them back a letter explaining why we had refused to pay and asserting that by not fixing the alarm in a timely manner, they broke the contract first. They have since filed a small claims case against my mother (who is still battling cancer) saying that they never said it was completed in the first install (which he did, to me), that my mother turned away the subsequent installers at the door because they were not the first one (which she wouldnt know as she was not there when the first installer came) and that the alarm hadnt been hooked up so therefore it couldnt go off in the middle of the night (it was hooked up, just not to the monitoring station and they can ask my neighbors, who had a newborn then, if it went off in the middle of the night). I have every intention of fighting them until the very end as my mother has been the one to suffer for years due to their utter incompetence.