Active Alarm Company, Inc.

The service technician was completely inept, sloppily dressed, lacking in business accumen, and apparently disoriented (more on that below). I also got the feeling they were overselling. Save yourself the trouble and look elsewhere.
I contacted Active Alarm Company because they had previously been responsible for monitoring my alarm. They’re located in Lake Zurich but service the Chicago area; I’m in Lincoln Park. I gave them a call to come out and take a look at the system.
My initial conversation with the sales representative seemed productive; we set up an early morning service visit (7:30). The sales person said that it would not be a problem to connect the alarm to the phone line.
But then the day of the service visit came. To start, the technician called me at 5:30 in the morning. I had initially planned on rolling out of the bed at 7:20, so suffice it to say I was pissed. When he arrived, I realized that this particular technician was an older gentlemen, so I was hoping that he would bring his many years of experience to bear on our alarm system.
Not so.
It became pretty clear that the technician was pretty out of touch with current technologies. He spent a good three hours walking up and down the stairs of our house trying to connect the Comcast phone system to the alarm. Then, when he finally had it done and did a test, he determined that our system was outdated and would not work with the Comcast modem. This after four hours of work. (Mind you, I had been explicit in mentioning that I needed to be into work that day, hence the reason for scheduling the early visit).
What would have been more effective would have been to look at the system and first determine if it would work. Instead, he spent wasted hours trying to rig a system that was never going to work in the first place. Also, he was obviously disoriented. Every time he went out to the truck he wandered up and down the street looking for his vehicle. I thought I was seeing things. But all three times that I watched him go out to the street he looked around with this stupid blank stare. Obviously this does not inspire confidence when this person is charged with helping to protect your home.
But what really got me was when I overheard his manager tell him on the phone that he didn’t want him to «leave there empty handed.» (The technician had the volume on his phone turned up so loud that I could hear the entire conversation). When I confronted the manager with that piece of information later in the day, he tried to (unconvincingly) explain it away.
In spite of all that, I was still willing to give them a chance. However after prodding for quotes for four days and receiving nothing, I finally gave up. I went with Alert Protective Services. Their monitoring fees are $ 5 more a month, but the installation of a brand new and much better system cost me much less than the rough estimates I was given over the phone. Plus, Alert Protective services ripped out the old system and installed the new in less than 2.5 hours. It would have taken the Active Alarm guy at least a full day, based on my observations of his work.
So if you’re in Lincoln Park look elsewhere for alarm systems. See my review for APS coming soon.