Jan 22 2009
Dear Alarmforce
For nearly four years, I’ve had the misfortune of having your alarm system in my home. I have endured countless problems (see below for links), including your wireless sensors not consistantly communicating with the main unit, battery issues, poor customer service, and the lack of action that occurs when an alarm is triggered..
Oh yes, you really do get a voice through the unit. It isn’t that loud, booming voice you hear in the commercial.. It always like some timid person trying to sound important..
My “favourite” part of having your service is discovering that my local police department won’t respond to an alarm unless there are two sensors triggered or if I am present and request that the police be present..
Here’s a scenario that my wife posed to me that illustrates how useless having your system is.
A burglar breaks into my home at night. Let’s say that they trigger the door sensor, but of course the motion sensor isn’t tripped, because it isn’t armed when I’ arm the alarm to “stay.” Anyway, the burglar comes up stairs, holds a gun to us and says, “Don’t say a word”. Alarmforce’s timid creature comes over the system and asks us to “identify ourselves”. We say nothing. Because only one sensor is tripped and there was no verbal response from within the home, the local police are not dispatched and therefore, help is not on the way.
What good is your system? I’d have better luck with having a phone and 911…
In closing, I’ve had my alarm system unplugged for about five months and don’t miss it. When my contract is up, I’m dumping your alarm system and getting a new one.
I’m going with “Large Noisy Dog”. 
Past Stories: http://blog.eagleinbc.com/?s=Alarmforce
We had our new AlarmForce system installed in July 2008. On top of basic package we “purchased” 2 additional smoke detectors, 1 glass break sensor and 1 door contact for a total of $361.20. (I put that in quotations because we really do not own anything.) The equipment appeared refurbished and the sensors seemed so large they look outdated. Also, the siren cannot be heard outside and the recorded voice makes the control box rattle!
My wife was home during the installation and I had left instructions as to where I wanted the sensors located. However, the installer insisted on placing the motion sensor BEHIND AN INTERIOR DOOR which, if left open, would render the system useless. He came back at my request and moved it (damaging our wall – the guy used tape and screws) to another location. In this position, the system could not be armed if our wood stove was hot! I finally moved the sensor myself to a third location (damaging the wall again) and have not had another issue.
In October, the system said that there was a “low sensor battery”. That’s right, in three months a set of two lithium batteries had went dead in the glass break sensor; hmmm. Then in December, the same error crops up again! The frustrating thing is that the system does not tell you which sensors are faulty. We did a test and three sensors did not report in. MORE lithium batteries down the tubes!
Just this past month, I took a terrible coughing fit near the glass break sensor and set off the alarm. That wasn’t the bad part. I waited patiently by the AlarmForce box for the operator to come over the speaker. After a few minutes, I figured that they were not going to respond and went to get ready for bed. I had time to get to the bathroom, several rooms away, before I heard someone!
Our latest AlarmForce pain came when our credit card company ended up canceling our card due to a security concern. In the midst of my shock at this inconvenience, I did remember to call our heating oil supplier, phone company, cell phone provider, etc. but forgot to call AlarmForce. TWO DAYS LATER they mailed out a $21 service fee because of the card being declined! Let me stress that they did not call us first, just mailed out the bill. I contacted customer service to explain the situation and was met with a very harsh attitude by their representative. However, after 20 minutes I was able to have the fee reversed.
The trouble is that I cannot get out of their service contract. We have thirty months left which at $25/month equals $750 that I just cannot throw away. We will have to live with their poor response and inadequate equipment for the foreseeable future.
Does anyone have a copy of the Alarmforce contract that I could view. I am tring to get a coworker released from his contract as this system is totally garbage. The system I have is from Voxcom which is currently bought out by Reliance Protectron Security Services. I have had the same system for the last 11 years without any problems.
Paul, Edmonton Alberta
I had an issue where the alarm went off at two in the morning on Dec 26th. We got a call that there was an alarm and then after many calls from us to them they never called back to say it was a false alarm. So with my troop of family including a very nervous dog we went home at 3 in the morning to find out that they had left us a note that everything was ok (how nice).
Anyway i have patiently waited for the contract to end and am nearly done, apparently there is a cancellation option but they need 60 days notice. This is not in my contract but according to the rep i could have done that….that would have been nice
Good bye alarm force, I was basically paying $25 a month for a really annoying door chime.
I too have had countless problems with my alarm force,the worst being that when the alarm was tripped by my neighbour ,who was looking after our cat,all she had to do is unplug the unit and wouldnt you know nobody came??
It was at that point we realized that it is all a farce.We tried to cancel but they told us we had to finish our contract out…so I said cancel it when the time is up.Well now we are in conflict with them over money they say we owe because our verbal cancellation wasn’t enough!Would have been nice if the operator on the phone might have said something!!
So in conclusion I too believe that this company is only here to rip off their customers or help the crooks walk away with our stuff!Give everybody a false sense of security and I will be letting my insurance company know .
We had that garbage alarm system in our home for almost 4 years, I’m not sure why we stayed with it. I guess we thought we were protected for a bargain price ha! Have had numerous problems with sensors and batteries and it is not a pet-friendly system at all! We have been trying to cancel with them now since July 7th, it is now September! We called customer service in July to tell them our contract was up and we were cancelling their service (we have since gone with APX and are very happy with it) They told us to send a cancellation letter to the email address they provided, we tried about 5 times and all emails were undeliverable so we called them and finally after about 2 phone calls, they wrote a cancellation notice for us from their end. Then we were told that a Purolator envelope with way bill would be sent to our home address so that we could send the old (junky) equipment back to them. We were also told at that time that we would not be billed if the equipment was returned by the 15th of the month. Well we waited and waited, no envelope. We called again a few weeks ago and told them we hadn’t received anything, they said they would try to send it out again and that an extension would go on the account so that no funds would be withdrawn. We also put a stop payment at the bank and today I receive an invoice in the mail for the monthly amounts and a $20 admin fee for not being able to process payment! Well I lose it! I call customer care again today and let loose! The lady says she’ll send me an email with a way bill attached. I received the email and when they called back to confirm, I asked why wasn’t this done/sent to us in the 1st place? They said it was because they tried to email us several times with the info and didn’t know why we hadn’t received anything. But they told us they would be snail mailing an envelope and said nothing about emailing a way bill to us! It is almost like they waited until they could bill us again (or try to) I raised a stink and got a manager today to finally waive the fee! Only on condition of them receiving their junk by Sept.22. I hope that will be the end of it! It should not be so difficult to cancel a service with a so-called reputable company. I would not recommend alarmforce to anyone. Good luck if you want to cancel it! Their website says they are a BBB business, but I think not!
Guess what??? This morning got a phone call from alarmforce telling me that we owe $$$$ because they did not receive their equipment back! We sent it out with the purolator way bill that they emailed to us and now we are trying to deal with Puro to see where this stuff went! Apparently, Puro is not recognizing the number that alarmforce gave me on the way bill. Alarmforce can pretty much say that they didn’t receive anything anyway and try to charge us $$$ now for everything. What a nightmare! Please, any advice out there??? It is now October and we have been dealing with this since July! Help????
My favorite AlarmFarce story is when I accidently tripped the alarm and, when the “central station” finally came on, you could hear a football game going on in the background. We are thinking of going with “big noisy dog” as well. I hear that actually works.
Never, EVER recommend Alarmforce to any of your friends or family.
As a former employee, I can tell you all that the alarm is pure crap.
The procedure is to do the “Voice Threat” 3 times.
Let’s talk about the Voice Threat.
It’s done 3 times.
That’s a total of one minute just yelling in a speaker.
You can hear the toggle and so can a burglar.
Also, the voice threat is “attn this is the Alarmforce Central Station, identify yourself immediately, the athorities have been dispatched”
SIMPLY NOT TRUE.
They have never been dispatched.
It’s all bull.
After that, you call the location. You have to let it ring 8 times.
Then you call the keyholders.
Then you have to get PERMISSION TO DISPATCH.
Or, if no answer, then you dispatch.
Then the dispatch…..we have to give the authorties your information.
Name, location, type of alarm, etc. That could take 2 minutes as they prioritize your alarm.
After all the calling, it could take up to 10 minutes for the authorties to be dispatched.
It’s all a lie. They suck.