ADT alarm advice

asakura797

asakura797

asakura797

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Joined
23 Mar 2009
Posts
229
Location
London
After some recent events in my area the most serious occuring yesterday (An 18 year old bloke was stabbed in the neck by a gang of 16 year olds in the park at the back of me), I have decided to purchase a monitored burglar alarm system. With the most popular monitored system being ADT it is still pricey. So far I've had a quote for £190 for a 4 sensor, 2 sirens, 1 keypad with proxemitey and the monthly fee is £26 for 36 months, also the connection fee is £58. It's not really the one off payment that bothers me it's more the £26 for 36 months. Which by the end of the contract will come to £936, add that onto the installtion charges and connection fee comes to £1184. Since this is quite pricey I want some opinons/advice on this before I get myself bound in contracts etc. At the moment I am open to having new suggestions passed at me. Anyone have ADT any thoughts on it etc?

Thanks in advance peeps! :D
 
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the price for the kit is cheap, you could easily pay £500 for an installed system

the monitoring is where they have you though
 
I have an ADT alarm.
We had a higher up front cost, but only a 1 yr contract (that we're now out of).

We've had no issues with it. It works well, non intrusive.
Monitoring seems to work, we've shut a cat in before now and it set the alarm off and they called me straight away etc to check before passing to police etc.

It gets serviced by ADT etc.

Obviously I dunno what else is compared, but I'd chose them again.
 
Our ADT system has been in for years now and no problems, gets serviced and things fixed if required.

We have a fire detector with it which automatically calls the fire brigade. The control has three pairs of buttons red green and blue for you to do an automatic call to Fire, Ambulance and Police. No false alarms and our cats don't seem to set it off - and yes it is working :)

Other companies seem to be a similar price.

Andi.
 
AS_Platinum said:
Or you could call up any local NSI, or SSAIB approved installer company and prob get it cheaper with better equipment. £1184 for a four zone system is an absolute rip off!

Are you sure those sirens are live? ADT tend not to fit a live siren outside on monitored alarms, just a dummy box.

http://www.nsi.org.uk/
http://www.ssaib.co.uk/
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I think they are live, however I will have to check that out. The hell I'm paying that much money to find out they dont work. If they're trying to mug me off I think I need to do some shopping around. Your right though £1184 over 3 years is a wee wee take! :mad:
 
You will probably find a better service overall with a local firm as well tbqh, with National's it tends to be about getting paper-work signed where-as a local smaller company will try and please you. I know, I used to work for a national.

Have they also mentioned the £48.62 admin fee the police require for the URN?
 
There are quite a few firms that will do monitoring for you, ADT are really the only ones with a big advertising push at the moment. It depends if you really want monitoring or not. You can get a pretty cheap wireless panel these days that can be setup with remote calling for activations.

The servicing side will be pretty much the same as any other company to be honest. Any company wont fight that hard for your custom, it all depends on how bothered the engineer can be. Get some quotes for a system and then ask around, see what they are offering for how much, is there a maintenance contract involved? ADT wont because of the monthly charge but there are a good number of firms these days insist you take out a maintenance contract with them otherwise you'll get charged for any call.

But still, over the whole 3 years it only comes to what. £30 a month? not that bad if its that extra peice of mind you need.

If you don't go with the ADT option, i'd still recommend doing a once over on your house. Are the locks on your doors enough? any external lights that could be fitted to deter people?
 
AS_Platinum said:
You will probably find a better service overall with a local firm as well tbqh, with National's it tends to be about getting paper-work signed where-as a local smaller company will try and please you. I know, I used to work for a national.

Have they also mentioned the £48.62 admin fee the police require for the URN?
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Yeah I know there's a connection charge
 
I had a Response Wireless Alarm (SA5) that would call you and the police in the event of a break in. You could even call home and listen in.
Easy to install and you can add to it in stages if you so require plus you could wire it in or have it wireless.

Think it was made by friedland but can only find shops on Google which i cant link to :)

in case your interested http://www.responseelectronics.com/store/manuals/SA5.pdf
 
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Let me share my experience of ADT from this afternoon:

Bought a house from trustees of former owner who passed away 6 months ago. Completed on it yesterday, so today started major renovations, one of the first jobs being removing all electrics from the 1920's building.

Electric goes off, 2 mins later phone call, on previously undiscovered landline, from ADT:

"Hello?"

"Yes this is Ramone at ADT can you confirm everything is ok?"

"Hi Ramone, yes fine"

"Whats your password?"

"Ramone, no idea, just bought this house, previous owner been dead for 6
months"

"I need the password"

"Ok Ramone, just bought house, previous owner been dead for 6 months, im now legal owner, my name is Rex-Kramer. So you will have to speak to the estate of the former owner as i cant help you"

"Ok Sir, but i need the password."

"Ramone, i dont have it, shes been dead for 6 months, i now own this house, i dont need ADT, your security is defunct and im not paying for it, you need to speak to the estate of the former owner"

"Your password starts with B"

"OK you arent listening to me, i dont know it and dont care"

"Ok Sir we will proceed with our emergency procedure"

"Ok fine, should i expect the police any time soon?"

"I cant tell you that"

"Ok bye"

This was at 10am, at 8pm when i left, no sign of the police. My advice would be save on ADT and get an Alsation because Ramone couldnt run a **** up in a brewery, i actually could have murdered her 6 months ago and probably rang it in myself to ADT and doubt they would have sorted anything by now.
 
brummie said:
I had a Response Wireless Alarm (SA5) that would call you and the police in the event of a break in. You could even call home and listen in.
Easy to install and you can add to it in stages if you so require plus you could wire it in or have it wireless.

Think it was made by friedland but can only find shops on Google which i cant link to :)

in case your interested http://www.responseelectronics.com/store/manuals/SA5.pdf
Click to expand...

I installed one of these at my parents house. The only problem is the wireless pir's eat batteries. Otherwise it is easy to install and seems to work well.
 
I have a 2 zone alarm without monitoring and the box is clearly visible on the house, I also have a separate independent garage alarm as well. This to me is a deterrent and no more.

I'm slightly confused as to why someone being stabbed in the neck has prompted you to buy a house alarm?
 
Rex-Kramer said:
Let me share my experience of ADT from this afternoon:

Bought a house from trustees of former owner who passed away 6 months ago. Completed on it yesterday, so today started major renovations, one of the first jobs being removing all electrics from the 1920's building.

Electric goes off, 2 mins later phone call, on previously undiscovered landline, from ADT:

"Hello?"

"Yes this is Ramone at ADT can you confirm everything is ok?"

"Hi Ramone, yes fine"

"Whats your password?"

"Ramone, no idea, just bought this house, previous owner been dead for 6
months"

"I need the password"

"Ok Ramone, just bought house, previous owner been dead for 6 months, im now legal owner, my name is Rex-Kramer. So you will have to speak to the estate of the former owner as i cant help you"

"Ok Sir, but i need the password."

"Ramone, i dont have it, shes been dead for 6 months, i now own this house, i dont need ADT, your security is defunct and im not paying for it, you need to speak to the estate of the former owner"

"Your password starts with B"

"OK you arent listening to me, i dont know it and dont care"

"Ok Sir we will proceed with our emergency procedure"

"Ok fine, should i expect the police any time soon?"

"I cant tell you that"

"Ok bye"

This was at 10am, at 8pm when i left, no sign of the police. My advice would be save on ADT and get an Alsation because Ramone couldnt run a **** up in a brewery, i actually could have murdered her 6 months ago and probably rang it in myself to ADT and doubt they would have sorted anything by now.
Click to expand...

LOL

Was it an Indian Call Centre?
 
Do it yourself.
You can buy all the kit online for ~£250 and with a dialler it will phone you up if it goes off.
Mine phones my mobile, my wife's and my parents until it gets an answer.
 
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