I installed Alarmforce monitored security intercom, motion detectors and alarm 4 years ago, before they became Bell Smarthome, because my husband and I both travel frequently for work. The first 3 years were incident free, but then my home has been broken into 3 times in the past 6 months which proved to me that the system is essentially useless. I chose Alarmforce because of the live monitoring, where someone comes on via the intercom and speaks directly to whoever has tripped the alarm, and because of their security guard response service. BUT THEN, the alarm did not sound at all during the first break in. My family was out of town for an extended period during which intruders were apparently able to easily disable the system and help themselves to my belongings. I was alerted to the break-in by happenstance by neighbor who saw a stranger walk out of the front door. of my home. I immediately called the monitoring center to see if there had been an alarm at my house---there had not been-- and I got nothing but the run-around from a pleasant but completely unknowledgeable GenXer. I was told that I needed to call technical support about the failure of the alarm and that there was nothing that they could do. Technical support was equally unhelpful, but they did agree to come out to check the alarm in A WEEKS time!! The technical support GenXer did mention, 'Oh by the way, I do see a note in the file about some kind of issue with your alarm a month or so ago, but it was never followed up on.'---all said in the cheeriest of voices. I proceeded to call the police who arrived promptly and determined that the burglars had taken up residence in my house and had likely been there for a few weeks, i.e. from right around the time of the "unknown issue" that was never followed up on and I was never informed of. When the technician finally came out a week later, he offered no explanation as to why the alarm had failed and offered no suggestions as to how we could prevent a reoccurrence. Of course, the burglars returned within a couple of weeks to continue their pillaging. This time, the alarm did sound, and the live monitor asked the intruder in my home to identify themselves (they did not) and told them that authorities had been dispatched. Alarmforce waited 30 minutes before calling to alert me about the alarm and said that a guard had been dispatched, but hadn't arrived yet. When the Alarmforce guard finally arrived, now 45 minutes or more since the alarm, he found the front door to my house unlocked, but the second interior door was locked, so he left and said it was a false alarm. Meanwhile, the intruder had breached both doors, went inside, locked the interior door, and waited for the guard to leave. Again, they marked that as a false alarm since they found the house to be "secure" when they arrived. Since there is no direct communication between the monitoring station, the onsite security guard, there was no way to tell them that an unlocked front door does not equal a secure house and that they should have assumed that someone was inside. Fast forward to the third burglary...the security guard took more than 30 minutes to arrive, and It look 4 phone calls and nearly an hour for me to get the report from the guard via the monitoring station and that was only after escalating to a supervisor. Net, net, Alarmforce is not interested in protecting your home. The response of he monitoring station is slow and apathetic, the technical support team ignores known issues with the system, which is easily dismantled by intruders, and the guards don't arrive quickly enough to be of any use. Once they do arrive, the guards do a cursory check of the premises and then leave. They cannot enter your residence without your permission, but they don't bother to tell you that and since you can't get communications through to the guards via the monitoring station you cannot instruct them to enter or help them interpret what they find. The guards will leave all of the doors to your house open and walk away and still label it a false alarm even though an alarm and motion detectors have been triggered and all of the doors to your home were locked when you left it. AND, they will not return if the alarm sounds again within 6 hours, like for example, when they leave with the intruder still in your house and he sounds the alarm again on his way out! Don't waste your money on Alarmforce! I guess I got what I paid for with the bargain price of $25 per month.
