The Bait & Switch of Home Security

In America, burglaries and home invasions are highly publicized crimes that surface regularly in fiction and media. Turn on the news, and it seems like just about every week, someone nearby is getting robbed - whether it’s shoplifters at retail stores, burglars who steal valuables, or viral footage of opportunistic creeps caught on a Ring doorbell camera.

Many companies have popped up over the decades with a variety of solutions to help people better protect their homes - private patrols, panic rooms, burglar alarms, and DIY wireless cameras. In the world of home security, there is no company more famous than ADT. ADT and its iconic blue signs are plastered over many lawns and commercial buildings. ADT was the first to turn home security into service - a company that would come to your house, install a custom security system, setup burglar alarms, and then “watch” your home 24/7 365 for a monthly subscription.

Through the high-crime and low-tech era of the 80s and 90s, ADT was seen as a necessary investment for homeowners. Yet as we dive deeper, the fundamentals reveal the opposite. In this episode, we’ll cover ADT - a troubled company who with even the highest market share must rely on multi-year contracts, lock-in, hidden pricing, and aggressive sales in order to cover up a fundamentally flawed business and the sobering reality that no one makes money in home security.

🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf

0:00 Always There, Always On
6:00 Home Security As A Service
13:56 Your Monthly Payments Are Our Priority
20:32 All Cash, No Bite

[ModernMBA]

0:00 Always There, Always On
6:00 Home Security As A Service
13:56 Your Monthly Payments Are Our Priority
20:32 All Cash, No Bite

[mlmFormula]

100% spot on calling out the sleaze factor. And you were being polite.

I had a warehouse I leased for 1 year. It already had ADT equipment, just had to connect it. Local ADT rep says we require 3 year contract. And I said well that sucks, I only signed a 1 year lease. Guess it won't work, thanks anyway. Guy fires back, "I'll do a workaround for you, I can do it." So I say sure, since I figured it was because they had to do nothing except start collecting subscription fees. Then...

Year passes, I call ADT to confirm it cancels.

Nope, there's a 3 year contract. And the customer rep essentially called me a liar when I calmly explained the situation, like oh, I don't know... why the h** would I sign a 3 year contract for a 1 year lease lol.

I still had the original contract, scanned it in, sent it over.

Didn't even get an apology, or explanation on the "mix up", which he never even admitted.

So at first I wondered did the ADT rep forge the contract? Or was dude just trying to bump up his retention numbers.

Then I realized, it doesn't matter. When I sent over the scanned doc, he wasn't like "Omg, that's wild, I'm forwarding this to my manager because that's not the contract that I have here".

Nope, dude didn't even miss a beat. So either he was making it up the whole time, or this is a common occurrence.

Either way, that ain't good.

[Aidan-ZA]

Yet in South Africa, services like these are vital as the police do not respond - the company itself sends out an armed response team (even medical), usually consisting of people patrolling your neighbourhood.

[snorman]

I had ADT install a system over 20 years ago. I sold the house a year later and called to transfer my service to the new house. They said no, you signed a 3 year contract for that house. Nobody ever told me it was a three year contract and i didn't notice it in the paperwork when i signed up.

They told me i had to pay the remainder of my contract, *and* sign up with another contract in the new house. I told them if that's what they were going to try to do i won't be signing up again and I'm going to tell everyone i know how much they suck. I didn't even want to cancel, i would have kept paying them for service at the new house. But no they wanted the contract paid out. How absolutely stupid do you have to be to do business like that?

[anthonypaparo]

I worked in home security for a private company. Our contracts were really terrible -- and if you tried to cancel we would say you owed the rest of the balance (years worth of service!) at the cancellation.

I'm glad to be out of the industry.

[_CoachW]

I actually had a client who provided a bodyguard service. I asked him about home security. He told me a smart lock, a dog and nosy neighbors. Past that the return on investment wasn't worth it. Just goes to show you, keep it simple.

[anythingvalidation]

family friend was the only person i knew who had any home security (adt). she would give the blue signs out to friends to put in their yard and then ask the adt people for more, saying someone kept taking hers. the sign is 90% of the battle, its not worth the risk for most thieves to figure out if you actually have it or not

[mariojr]

I actually inquired ADT for pricing on possibly having 2-4 cameras installed- Salesman refused to give me pricing unless I provided him with my SS number so they can run a “soft credit check”. Lmao I was like what a joke - I’m not buying a damn car - I just want prices on surveillance cameras 😂

[Droidman]

What's always confused me about the appeal of home security is that the cops are not going to get there in time, while at the same time alarms send the police department a ton of false alarms, bogging down the system.

[MatthewKeys]

Today, we’re going to discuss the failing business of security. But first, a word from our sponsor, the security company Aura…

[bronsontolliver]

Knew a guy who posed as ADT to gain access to convenience stores. He would disable the motion sensors and note camera locations. He would come back later that night and, using a sledgehammer, break in and steal cigarettes by the carton. Ended up with 40+ year prison sentence.

[UnicornDreamsPastelSkies]

"Total security has never been available to anyone. To wish for it is unrealistic, to imagine that it exists is an invite to disaster." - Wilson, Home Improvement

[FIDEL_CASHFLOW_]

I just bought a house last week. ADT has been intrusive and relentless in trying to get me to sign up for a home security system. The representative physically showed up to our house the second day that we had the keys and I was not home at the time but my fiance was. She made the mistake of giving this guy my number and I blocked his number as soon as he called and left a voicemail. This guy has showed up two more times over the course of a week and a half. Both times I have told him I am not interested in a home security system. He sat there on the sidewalk and gave me his sales pitch again after it didn't work the first time but this time he started rattling off all these crime statistics and was really trying to give me the hard sell. After about 45 seconds of this I held my hand up, interrupted him, and said again that I'm not interested. I told him please do not come back because I'm not going to change my mind on this. He cursed his lips said okay, then got back in his car and drove away. I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up again in a month or two or they send somebody else to my house.

[chilaeyaezell]

I once worked as an installation coordinator at a security company. During that time I moved into a new apartment and asked on if our sales guys about the employee discount as I was interested in installing a security system since I lived alone.

His advice, "Meet and get friendly with your neighbors, they will keep an eye out for you. You already have two dogs, so their barking will be a deterent. Here, take some of our stickers to put at your door and windows to add additional deterance. Other than that, get a shotgun and learn to shoot in case someone is still bold enough to enter. That alarm system isn't stopping anything that what you already have won't deter."

Did just that, and years later I still follow that advice. No problems, and I feel secure.

[iseabeck]

I used to work for Safestreets, ADT's largest 3rd party. Working there introduced me to depression.

[jf]

I used to work in this industry. We picked up lots of business from ADT customers who were dissatisfied with their monitoring rates. It was easy to beat them on monitoring prices while still marking up the monitoring service that we would pass along to the consumer. It was impossible to beat them on the speed of installation though.

It always seemed like the "smart" home devices could be a goldmine for these companies because they come with a higher monthly monitoring rate. However, the only popular smart devices that could be integrated with the alarm panel, the video doorbells, work fine without being connected to the panel and monitoring. I suspect the next thing they offer is going to be some AI service that's tied into the panel/app...and knowing ADT it will probably work like shit.

[jonathanboever]

I manage a local security company and do almost everything opposite of ADT, we focus on custom installation projects (rather than amassing monitoring clients), we have one year contracts (month-to-month thereafter), we rely on word-of-mouth (rather than high pressure sales). We are also shifting with the times, finding that proactive security cameras are the future rather than reactive security system alarms. Everything here about ADT is spot on, however.

[quadsnipershot]

When I worked at a best buy store I remember working with vivant home security at times, my god those people would try to interject in anything smart home. Like no this person on limited income does not need a high end security system. I believe we eventually gave up on them due to other issues as well.

[kareemmehdi]

The real annoyance here is that most home insurance companies give steep discounts if you have home security systems. There are a few DIY companies which are much better than dealing with ADT but it is still an annoyance

[PD_CĪPHĒR]

tried to look into security cameras once. Its infuriating how borderline impossible it is to find one that doesnt have a subscription for the software (after paying hundreds to thousands of dollars)