Right. I’ve been making sure we get everything canceled before moving. Every company has been mostly straightforward in getting our services canceled. Except for our security alarm system company.
I am flat out telling you now, my Hordeling, to never, under any circumstances whatsoever, sign up with Vivint.
I called them late this afternoon so I could cancel our service with them. I got a representative on the line who verified who I was and finally got around to asking why I was calling. Since I had to make a lot of choices in their touchtone menu to get to the department that handles cancellations I would think they’d know why I was calling. I explained we were selling our house, and moving and we needed to cancel our service.
The rep said he wanted to see what options were available to me. He then went into great detail about moving the equipment and our service to our new house. I told him I didn’t want to do that, I just wanted to cancel the service. He then went into great detail on a different offer. Again I told him I just wanted to cancel the service. Ultimately, he said he needed to transfer me to someone else and asked if he could put me on hold. I said yes and he put me on hold.
For half an hour.
There was no ‘all our representatives are busy’ type of message, or a ‘we will be with you soon’ message. Not even any hold music. Just dead silence. I was only sure I was still connected because the timer on the call was still running.
The wife got on her phone, after I’d been on hold for about twenty-five minutes, and called them to see what was going on. Just as she was finally getting to the point of talking to someone, another rep came on the line with me. I had some errands to run, and I figured I was on a mobile phone, so I’d get mobile and get some things done while getting the service canceled.
The second rep went through the same questions I’d gone through with the first rep. Then he said he wanted to review my options. He said (at great length) he could give me a discount if I moved the service to our new house. I told him no thanks, just please cancel my account. He put me on hold for a few minutes while he explored my options.
He went on, again at great length, about all the equipment and how even if I wasn’t using the security service, their equipment could be turned into a smart home, and I could dim the lights or lower the thermostat through my phone. Again I told him no, please just cancel my account.
He kept going on. I told him I understand that in sales that you are supposed to let the customer tell you ‘no’ three times before giving up the sale and that I’d told him ‘no’ seven times already, and could he please just cancel the account.
He went on again and finally asked why I didn’t want to take any of his offers. I told him because he was beginning to piss me off.
After going back and forth with him a little longer he finally said he could take a verbal cancellation over the phone and was the wife available, since she was the account owner and only the account owner could give verbal authorization. I told him she had been available twenty minutes before but I was now out running errands. I then told him he could wait until I got back home and he could talk with the wife then if he wanted to hold. He told me he couldn’t wait on hold for that. I told him I was on hold for half an hour and they didn’t seem to mind.
Anyway he insisted that the wife had to give verbal authorization so I told him we’d call back when I got home.
I got home, told the wife we’d have to call them back because only she could give the authorization to cancel the account over the phone.
We ate dinner before calling them back.
We called Vivint again. The rep verified the wife was who she said she was and asked what he could do for us. She told him we wanted to cancel our account. He said he wanted to review our options. I told him we didn’t want options, or to move our service or get discounts or anything we just wanted to cancel the account.
He said he had to verify several things first. This went fie until he asked for a verification code from Citizens that our line of credit had been finalized. We asked who Citizens was and what line of credit. It seems that Vivint charges us monthly for the security service but Citizens has a line of credit we had to pay back for all the equipment. That was news to us. I knew we were paying Citizens but I thought that was for the service Vivint was providing. They said we had to call Citizens and get that settled first. He gave us the phone number and we hung up.
We called Citizens. The rep there asked for the relevant information to verify they were talking to the wife and then told us they no longer had the account. We asked who had the account. They gave us another phone number to call but didn’t tell us who it was. They did tell us that the other number was only available Monday Through Thursday 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Fridays 8:00 AM to 4:45 PM. So, too late to call today, they won’t be open on Monday because Labor Day, which means we can’t get this cleared up until at least next Tuesday.
This is the second worst customer experience I’ve ever had. Anyone following me for any length of time knows I’m big on good customer service. Every time we called things just kept getting worse. I have to wonder if they are deliberately making it impossible to leave their service just so they can keep sucking money out of our bank account.
Once again, my Hordeling, do not ever sign up with Vivint for any reason whatsoever. You will regret it.
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