ADT Burglar alarm phoning home.

LilElvis

My alarm did this after adt replaced the motherboard, but I noticed after about one month and about £30 of calls. The engineer came back out and switched it to another number so that there are no call charges, just the £30+ a month contract fee. Ours is definitely wired into the main socket, but this might not be usual as the system was installed when the house was built. We don't own the equipment, but the plus side is that adt replace any parts which fail and they service and test it twice a year.

vikingaero

ADT sold quite a few of these contracts years ago. The headline price was something like £99 for an alarm for a 3 bed house. It connects to your phone line and dials the premium/higher than normal rate line at the ADT control centre to confirm the system is armed/disarmed or triggered.

The charges were buried in the T&C's and really not obvious when I checked my contract.

CMV46

I have been doing some research on call charges listed on my BT bill which are always 0844 numbers. The charges are for daily calls and averages 25p a call. It is listed as Special Service on the bill and I have been baffled for ages about these charges. I was so pleased to find this thread as I too have an ADT alarm and never ever associated the charges with my alarm system. I will be calling them on Monday to change it to the 0800 number or cancel the contract depending on the outcome.

CMV46

I would be really grateful for some help with regard to my rights as a consumer. As per my previous post I called ADT to change the number to the 0800 number. They usually do this remotely but seemed to have a problem with my system and I was told that they would need to send an engineer to my home to reset the number. I spoke to 4 different people on different days and every time I was told that they could not reset it and would have to send an engineer out. I said well if that is the only way to do it then that is fine. Never once was I told that I would be charged for this visit by the engineer. He arrived and spent 25 minutes in my home resetting this number. I have subsequently received a bill for £110. I think this is simply outrageous. I was not ever advised by them that I had a number that would result in a daily charge on my line and I was never advised that there was an option of an alternative free phone line and I was never advised by anyone that the visit would result in a charge or what that charge would be. Not even the engineer who came to my house advised me of the charge. Do I have any recourse to this appalling company practise which I think is underhand and unethical.
Thank you

matthew20yoda

Hello the same thing is happening to my.I moved into my house two years ago and have just realised these calls.i phones adt today and got say answer.£220 for call out.My alarm doesnt even work.How did u manage to block the number.Im with BT and they say they cant even find the number..can u help as this saga jas been going on for 2years..grrr

Many thanks matt

LilElvis

matthew20yoda wrote: »

Hello the same thing is happening to my.I moved into my house two years ago and have just realised these calls.i phones adt today and got say answer.£220 for call out.My alarm doesnt even work.How did u manage to block the number.Im with BT and they say they cant even find the number..can u help as this saga jas been going on for 2years..grrr

Many thanks matt

Did you take the ADT contract over from the previous owner of the house? Are you paying them a monthly fee?

matthew20yoda

Nope i have no contract with adt and the alarm does not work.They informed me that its with the house.I dont believe that one bit.They say previous owner cancelled the contract but failed to get an engineer out to disconnect the phone line.Which they would have to pay extra for.

Thanks matt

bris

Of course it's with the house, the fault lies with your vendor for not informing you or even yourself for not doing proper due diligence at the time of sale. ADT are not to blame for your vendor not telling you the alarm has a pre dial function.


It's also alarming (pun intended) that it took the original op 12 years and yourself 2 years to check your phone bills. This could have been caught early.

LilElvis

Either pay ADT to disconnect it or get an electrician in to do it. Probably not a good idea to do it yourself as there are warning stickers all over my control box saying that power needs to be turned off before opening and you might accidentally electrocute yourself.

BillTrac

the telephone number the system dials is programmed in at the keypad locally. If you disconnect the telephone line you will get a warning on the keypad. You may not be able to set the system with the fault displayed as it's to show the user there is a problem. The system will dial out to transmit a setting of system signal, an unsetting of system signal, low battery etc. Also, I seem to remember there was a daily 'all ok' signal sent.

I would advise you to get another, local, company to take over the maintenance of your system and programme in a local number, or remove/disconnect the dialler and be a bells only system.

I'm an ex-ADT employee and I worked for them for nearly 18 years in various engineering roles. When I started with them in 1990 (they took over the company I worked for)they were very respected in the industry, being asked to come over here from the USA by the banks. They would never have dreamed of fitting systems to two and three bedroom houses or corner shops. Unfortunately, they swapped a monitoring station for Modern Alarms and the cheapskate mentality that Moderns used was adopted. Now they will screw their customers for every penny they can get.