My advice is to stay away from All-Guard. We were...

My advice is to stay away from All-Guard. We were a long-time customer and were considering upgrading our system 2.5 years ago. The sales rep, Jim Pass, quoted a rate of $35 a month. We said we'd pay $32. He said he couldn't go below $35, so we said we'd shop around. All of a sudden, he went down to $32, verbally. My husband filled out the contract, as I was indisposed at the time, not noticing that this totally disreputable sales rep wrote in $35 and locked us into a three year contract! He didn't give us a copy of the contract either. It said we had 3 days to cancel, but since we didn't have a copy of it, we didn't know about it. The three year term was something he filled in, so it's something variable upon which the rep can decide how much of a sucker you are. My husband said he was certain Jim Pass did not mention a 3-year contract, as this would have been a red flag to him and he wouldn't have agreed to it.

After the system was installed, it took me quite awhile to notice that we were being billed for $35 instead of $32 and when I did, I assumed they had raised the price without notifying us. I recently learned when I called to cancel service and switch to another company that they had us locked into this contract through the end of 2014. Suddenly, when I wanted to cancel they offered me a rate of $27 for next year if I stayed with them. This became $19 the next day after the lady spoke with a manager. So all along, we could have been paying $19 a month and they've been ripping us off for $35!

Ashley in the billing department was not any help at all, except for emailing me a copy of the contract. I even spoke with the president of the company, Dennis Cooke to complain about Jim Pass and his unethical business practices and he completely backed him up - said we had signed the contract.

Their service is not very good either. Our alarm went off while we were on vacation once and they called our back-up contacts. My husband's brother-in-law drove 20 minutes to get here and waited outside our house in his car for 40 minutes! No one showed up and no one from All-Guard bothered to call him back to tell him he could leave. He was very upset and I can't blame him.

On another occasion, the alarm went off as a false alarm and I entered the code to shut it off. I expected a ball from All-Guard to ask if everything was all right and it never came! I called them asking why they didn't call and they said the correct code had been entered to shut it off. Well, someone could have been holding me at gunpoint forcing me to shut it off. The contract specifies that they are supposed to call us when the alarm goes off and it didn't say they wouldn't call if the correct code was put in. This is breach of contract!

Be sure to read the contract before signing. They required a $40 deposit for no good reason - this was not credit to the monitoring service, just another rip-off charge. If you want to cancel, their contract says you have to pay til the end of the month even if your contract expires early in the month!