Home Insecurity Salesmen

[Batman]

We live on a fairly major thoroughfare and get these door to door salesmen showing their faces every now and then. They all offer the same deal -- free installation of a security system and maybe a period of free monitoring in exchange for putting the company's sign in the yard.
Not sure why, but I'm skeptical. A lot of it is just being wary of door to door salesmen in general, some of it is their sales pitch. One girl from ADT, when I told her we didn't need a system because we had a dog and a gun, told me that "Just a mile from here someone broke into a house, stole the gun and shot the dog!"
They're selling fear, not security, and that really annoys the hell out of me. There's also a piece of me that feels like these people might just be casing my house for their own nefarious ends.

Today's pitch was from a company called Vivint. Never heard of them, and told the guy I needed to do some research. Their equipment looked really cheap in the pictures he showed.
He offered to come back a couple hours later, but I told him don't bother. I'm just not interested. But his sales pitch wasn't as rough as some of the other companies and at least got me curious enough to actually do the research.
So has anyone ever taken one of these offers? Or heard of Vivint?

 

[Inky_Wretch]

http://www.hulu.com/watch/134720/saturday-night-live-broadview-security

 

[JR]

They're the new driveway paving and roofing scam artists.

 

[Batman]

They're the new driveway paving and roofing scam artists.

Indeed. A Google search for "Vivint" was not kind. Seems they like to lock you into a four-year contract and, if you have to get out of it for some reason, tell you "tough ****." That's on top of shaky equipment and issues with the monitoring service. Saying they have mixed reviews is the kindest way to put it.
These people in general, though, just set off alarm bells in my head. I will never buy something from a door to door salesman.

 

[HejiraHenry]

My wife went to visit her parents a couple of weeks ago and wound up having to shoo the security system salespeople away from the house.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I actually have a home security system that I got when I had the drug dealing neighbors living across the street from me (Which was a thread on here over a year ago).

It was APX Alarm, but they were bought out by Vivint. It's something like $48 a month and the equipment and installation were free. It was nice to have when the aformentioned pieces of crap were living near me, because my wife and I would pretend we would have hidden video cameras around our house, and loudly announce that we were turning them on. They didn't like that much.

The alarm is actually pretty good, and it's easy to use. The only thing is, a few times, I've forgotten that I've set the alarm, and opened my front door, only to hear the alarm go off (It takes one minute for it once the door is open). I then either get a phone call, or they call from the alarm box. I have to give them a password, which assures them that I'm legit, and then they ask if everything's OK.

 

[PeterGibbons]

These guys annoy the **** out of me. I think I had the same guy trying to sell me the whole fear thing. I ended up arguing with him longer than I should, mostly because all the crap he was spewing was wrong.
I told him I didn't need an alarm because I had dogs. When he asked what kind I had, I told him pit bulls (which is true, I didn't tell him they'd probably lick him to death before thinking of biting him, my very territorial golden retriever that died last year would've taken a pound of flesh though)

him: well, you know a lot of thieves now carry guns.

me: really? So your alarm will disarm these guns? Or just alert the cops that my dogs have been shot?

him: Uhhh, no, the thieves will be scared away

me: if you come to my door and the dogs jumping and barking at the front door don't scare you away, I doubt a sign and an alarm will

he went on to try to explain all the features of the alarm and how crimes rates have "skyrocketed" in this neighborhood.

I told him this was totally untrue and he should read the newspaper because there was a story last week about burglaries being down (which was true). I then told him other than a few family photos, which I really doubt anyone other than my wife and I would want, if someone wants to steal something from my home, they were welcome to it, I have insurance and it would be replaced with something better and newer.

He finally got the point and left... and my dogs kept barking as he walked away

 

[trifectarich]

Two years ago we were 1,000 miles from home for a funeral. I get a call from my monitoring service at 3:15 a.m.; the alarm has gone off. Without spending 500 words on the difficulty of dealing with the sheriff's office, trying to make sure the place is somewhat secure after they've checked things out, and the airlines to get a flight home ASAP, the system worked like a charm. Evidently, whoever jimmied open the back door fled after they opened the door half an inch and the alarm that can be heard two blocks away went off. One of the best things we ever did, though I certainly would not do it through a door-to-door sales pitch.

 

[Batman]

The Vivint guy yesterday was trying to sell me on how it's not just an alarm system, but a home automation system. Through a smartphone app you can control your thermostat, check the video cameras, arm or disarm the alarm, etc.
Among the things he said was that, in the event of bad weather, the system will alert you. That's a benefit because, in his words, when a tornado is coming someone has to physically go to the tornado siren (located two blocks away from us) and turn it on.
Ummm ... what? I'm pretty sure that's not how it works, pal. The fact that our siren goes off when there's a tornado warning for a part of the county 30 miles away (and any shred of common sense) seems to indicate otherwise.

I'm like trifectarch. I don't doubt there's a lot of benefits to having a security system. But if and when we get one, I'm sure as hell not going to get it from some schmuck going door to door.

 

[playthrough]

I really like being a lazy **** sometimes, but I'm still OK with getting up to change the thermostat instead of using a smartphone to do it.