Guardian Protection Services

I have had Guardian protection for 3 years. Good monitoring and good equipment. I had this system installed with my house when it was built 3 years ago. After some conversations with Guardian several months ago I was under assumption I had a 3 year contract set to expire in May. After calling them today to cancel because monitoring fee is to high they tell me it’s five year contract. So I went back to installation paperwork and found it is 5 years. However, instead of having a date specifically on contract the 5 years is explained in the writing at bottom of the page. Lesson learned by me is to read contract completely however do feel like there should be specific place on the sheet that shows the date. Just be careful of the contract language.

We’ve been with Guardian for years and are very happy with the service and monitoring!

A festering pile’ of a company. If you decide to sign with them, just go ahead an ignore the hot air the salesmen is spewing and just focus on contract fine print. I mean what’s the big deal about signing 3 or 5 years when you can cancel anytime for a small fee? Well that «small fee» which the salesmen might claim to be $ 150-​ish is actually the remaining balance of said 3 – 5 year contract. Oh well, stupid me for listening the person that represents them.
Hope you didn’t get a camera system installed (which may or may not be theirs). They do offer a camera system as of a year ago. If the system goes down you may or may not have it covered. Be prepared for the run around finally to realize it’s not getting fixed. Don’t worry Guardian will gladly extend your contract and offer you a great deal on another camera system to replace the 18 month old system that that partially works.
There is a sweet irony to all of this. It was the shady, criminal element i was worried about when i signed. reality, I should have been more concerned about the pleasant salesmen with the tucked in collared shirt and Guardian literature.

I wish I could give NO STARS. I was trying to deal with a rental home that belonged to my late wife — she had a contract with them prior to our marriage. She died unexpectedly so I didnt know the password for the Security System account. I provided them with the death certificate as well as the marriage license. They still would not help me with the account because I didn’t have the password and every question I asked was met with the same response. They are a horrible company and I’d rather be robbed than employ them to install a security system in any home I own.

I should’ve checked Unilocal review before signing up for their service. I am experiencing same problem with all other Unilocalers: «lied to signing up for 3 years contract». I thought I just signed up for 1 year testing their service. I called customer service about terminating their service but need to pay termination fee.
I am fine paying some termination fee that makes sense (ex: 3 months worth of their service) but turned out I need to pay remaining balance which is 18 more months for termination fee. This is not a termination fee at all (facepalm), it’s plain rip off. You got to pay either way, regardless you have service or not. The only thing customer service can do is to send me agreement that I signed and gave me a month free for financial hardship.
It was never made clear to me that I will be stuck in this service for 3 years!
Nothing wrong with their service so far, but it’s just too pricy for me ($ 60/​month). I feel dumb for signing up and paying «stupid tax»

WOW! All the reviews with one star seem to be right on with my experience. Sleazy sales reps and their customer service is an absolute JOKE. Yes, we did sign a contract to which we thought was a 2 year contract. We also expected that the sales rep was an ethical person but come to find out, NOPE. We didn’t read the fine print signing us up for 5 years. Now, we have to convince the renters moving in to our house to take over the contract or we have to pay out nearly $ 900…we have just over a year left on the contract. Why would I try to convince someone to pay for worthless service?
In regards to the monitoring, we had several instances where we accidentally tripped the alarm and Guardian decided that it was an accident and deemed it not worthy to call and check. They automatically assumed that all was fine. Washed their hands.
Let that one sink in… an alarm monitoring company decided that nothing was wrong, without contacting me.
Also, the battery you will need to replace mid way through your contract…$ 100.
One can only hope that others will read the reviews and think twice about their safety and NOT go with Guardian. You will not get what you think you’re paying for.

So in August 2015 me and my wife went to do our Deco option for our house before I had notice that my unit was deploying. The sales rep was polite, so polite tha he ended being a sleaze. They offered a state of the art security system with all the features. The house was finally built. In the first presentation they said the house was going to be pre-​wired. The day they came to install, he started breaking the wall to wire the keypad and installed the sensors for 3 doors and that is it. The installer told my wife that she had 7 days to cancel the service. She calls the day after to ask some questions and one of them was the cancelation policy. They said we can’t cancel because of a 5 year contract when the sales rep said the it was a 3 year service and the documents signed only say 44.95 by _​_​_​_​_​_​for _​_​_​_​_​. So because of their 5 year policy they want 20% of 44.95×5 years, thats about $ 1700.00.
At this moment my wife is dealing with them, but if I get home from my deployment and the system is still there I’m ripping the damn thing and cancelling the freaking service. To all that are thinking or about to be a customer of Guardian Protection services, I urge you TO STOP YOU ARE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE. They dont help their customers at all they go back on their word and they alter the initial contract on their favor. I’m probably going to lose my hard earned money but my peace of mind is priceless.
Quick Update Feb. 09 2016:
This companies customer service is worthless. They reach out to customer that leave feedback on Unilocal and post comments like. «We would like to help you» «our customers are a top priority». This is just their way to try and convince you. If you are purchasing a new property and they offer this companies services run like if it was the plague. The way they trap the sales rep can say anything but paper is what counts, at first the sales rep would say your contract is only 36 months in length «fine print says 60 months», second you have a 7 day trial period «not true» and lastly its a state of the art system «Included 1 key pad and 3 door sensors, additional sensors are $ 40 each». The contract term doesnt start when they install, it actually begins when you signed up for the service. In my case back in August 2015, when the house was not even a lot. But that is why they have been in business for so long, by ripping regular folks and veterans out of their hard earned money.
So after a week of dealing with them they opted to cancel my service for a whopping $ 1495.99 and it has to be done by mail and check or money order. Making the journey more difficult than what it has to be.
Sincerely avoid them like the plague.

Salesmen lie to get you to sign a 3 year contract. We were told that we’d get the first year free, then would have to call to continue services otherwise monitoring would be discontinued. After the year, I got charged, called them and they said either I pay $ 700 or keep paying monthly for the next 3 years. She (Lauren) said it doesn’t matter if the sales guy lied, we signed the contract. Granted I should of literally read the tiny contract print, but trusted Guardian as a company that their employees wouldn’t lie to make a sale. Trying to get a hold of a supervisor now to resolve, but ‘no one is available’ to talk. Been waiting on a phone call back for the past 3 hours now. I know 4 of our neighbors that were told the same… sounds like Guardian is going to have a neighboorhood full of people pissed.

Sleazy sales reps. I was busy moving and the sales rep did not explain that the contract was for five years. He made sure to set up an installation appointment that made me waive my rights to cancel the contract. Dishonest company, now I am stuck with an alarm system installed that I am uncomfortable with. I would advise everyone to stay away.
Update 12÷31÷15: After reading my Unilocal review, customer service contacted me and worked with me to modify my contract to terms acceptable to me. They obtained the names of the sales rep and said that they would contact his manager. They also offered to send another technician out to orient me to the system, as the original tech did not do a good job of that. The technician also had taken my original panel with him, which was my property and Guardian offered me a credit on my account to make up for this, as they could not get my property back to me.

As I said in my original review, there is a lack of order and also some much needed training for there employees. That being said the billing issues were cleared up. Not exactly in a timely matter. When you’re told a supervisor is going to call you and they don’t, then you have to call back after the amount of time you’re told, it’s annoying. I would rather hear an update and another call following. The supervisor I spoke with, Ashely, was amazingly nice and squashed the issues I was having immediately. Having to go through three difference billing reps prior wasn’t ideal, but they did right the situation. And I appreciate having clear answers and resolutions.

Do not sign with this company. They never made it clear the contract was for 5 years and of course, after an attempted break in, I was vulnerable at the time I signed and not careful enough to read the tiny print in the contract. Terrible mistake. They absolutely won’t let me out of the contract so I’m stuck paying $ 40 a month for a service I don’t even want anymore. What service company forces you into a 5 year contract these days. Guardian does. It’s unethical. Don’t sign with them. I have reported them to the BBB.

Nothing but intermittent issues with this service. The issues would usually clear themselves up in 24 hours before I could call it in, but why pay for a service that could be down right when you need it? Oh and it is costing me a $ 750 termination fee for the privilege of not paying them for a service that is not reliable.

Guardian has the worst customer service and an extremely bad product. False alarm trips, zone connectivity issues, technicians not following up on service calls… And they thought they were doing us a favor by buying out our ADT contract… complete crap… Heed my warning and review.

Beware. Signed a 60 month contract. Ok I’m an idiot. Called to cancel, was told I couldn’t cancel until my contract lapsed. I waited, then called to cancel after my contract had lapsed and was told I missed the grace period to cancel and my contract had auto renewed for another 5 years!!! Of course this is all in my contract so I guess I’m strangled into paying for a service I don’t use for another 5 years. I’ll be contacting the BBB about this. Shady business practices.

Do not use this service! This company is horrible. We had them for two years and constantly had problems with the system including the camera system. The cameras stopped working properly within a few months and then we were told they no longer had a contract with that company so we had to purchase a new system. We finally just paid the early termination fee to get out of our contract.

Don’t do it unless you’re ABSOLUTELY SURE you want this system for the five years or however long they are getting you to sign up for. The contract is really hard to understand. In my case when I tried to cancel early, with only nine months left on my contract and expecting some kind of penalty but not much given it’s been almost 4 of the 5 years, I was told I would owe a $ 900 «deferred equipment fee» PLUS a portion of the remaining contract balance. So I just have to keep paying for my initial mistake of signing up for this until the contract is expired. The sad part is that I basically never used it because it was too confusing to figure out and I didn’t really need it anyway. So I paid about $ 3,000 for basically nothing.

Terrible. We rented a place that had a guardian system already installed and we made the horrible decision of signing up for there service. They charged us for «additional equipment to monitor our daughters window and an extra motion detector. We told them this was a temporary rental until we bought a new home and they said it would no problem to move everything over. Then when it was time to move they notified us that they «don’t move equipment» so we were required to purchase new equipment at the new house. You have a «rep» but every time you call in you get a different person who gives you a different spiel about «oh well we can discount this or do that» but none of it is provided in writing and then once they come out to do everything it’s too late because you’ve waited 3 weeks for them to show up you don’t want to have to start all over. If I could go back and undo my contract with them I would in a heart beat but as my less than helpful «rep» says in order to get out of the contract you have to buyout the whole thing which is over a $ 1000 dollars for the remainder of the term. Underhanded, shady folks is a good summation of the people I have dealt with here so far. Do not sign a contract with these people. You’ll notice the positive reviews on here are only people who signed up in the last couple of months… their experience will be a very different one down the road.

Beware of Guardian’s bait and switch tactics! Called Guardian to see what incentives it would offer us to switch our home burglar alarm monitoring system from ADT. Chris told my wife that the only cost would be a $ 99 installation fee; any equipment upgrades would be free. Andrea subsequently confirmed, when specifically asked by me and my wife in separate conversations, that our only cost would be the $ 99 installation fee. We were subsequently presented a contract that obligated us to pay over $ 900 for equipment, which fee would be waived only if we stayed with Guardian for 60 months. Now, maybe the Guardian upgrades (whatever they might be?) are worth $ 900; I don’t really know. That’s not the point. The point is that Guardian was dishonest with us from the outset – we’re supposed to trust these people to safeguard our home? I don’t think so.
PS. Chris called me back, trying to convince me that he and Andrea had not been dishonest. I think it was an attempt to close the sale, but bullying tactics aren’t especially effective. If they treat potential customers this way, I doubt existing customers get any better treatment.
PPS. Unilocal removed the above review, supposedly for violating its privacy policies, so I revised it to remove last names.

We got notices quite frequently that our alarm couldn’t connect. Not sure if it was because we didn’t have a landline or what, but I was never 100% sure if the alarm was actually working. (However, I will say that when we sold our house the new owners hit the panic button the next day and we got a bill from APD for the false alarm, so I guess the alarm does work. :P)
More importantly, there is no way to get out of your contract if you do something crazy like move. Next time I will go with ADT. We never had connection issues with them, the monthly fee is comparable, but really a great deal when you consider that they have reasonable cancelation fees if you do move.

Wretched! Cannot make their system work with anything other than a plain old telephone system — meaning if you have a VOIP phone, they will be UNABLE to monitor it. Will try to up sell you to a cellular system — which you can get from other folks for ½ their landline monthly cost.