Reader Skruff gets a wakeup call every day, and he really, really does not appreciate it. It’s not on his phone: oh, no. It’s his ADT alarm system. Every day, it goes off at 1 A.M. Could be worse: it was 2 A.M. before Daylight Savings Time began.

I’m having a bit of a problem with my ADT Security Service, and I would certainly appreciate your advice. Every night for the last 8 days, at 2:00 AM (now 1:00 AM, thanks to the time change), the control panel of our security system beeps at us continuously to let us know there’s a problem. Fortunately, it’s not the “OMG WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!!!” mega-siren, but it’s still loud enough and persistent enough to wake us from our slumber, forcing us to get out of bed, go downstairs, and acknowledge the “trouble” on the control panel. This happens regardless of whether or not we set the alarm before we go to bed.

What’s the “trouble”, you might ask? Well, apparently ADT is having problems with their software update system, which I guess updates nightly, or our security system reaches out to ADT nightly for an update (I’m not sure which). When our system doesn’t get the update it’s expecting, it sounds an annoying alert to let us know of the problem.

When we called the first night when the problem happened, we were cheerfully told that this was a known issue. Unfortunately, they told us, there was no way to disable the alert from our end or theirs, so we would just have to acknowledge the alarm every night when it happens. However, they expected the problem to be resolved shortly.

Several nights and alerts later, it was clear that it hadn’t been resolved, so I called back on Friday afternoon to inquire about the status of this problem. A completely disinterested customer service rep informed me that they were told the problem would be resolved in 72 hours, but that the technicians “gave us the same update 2 days ago, so we’re not sure if it’s really fixed this time.” A request for a service credit for the month for the inconvenience fell on deaf ears because “we’re still receiving a signal from your house, so our service is still working just fine. There’s nothing I can do.”.

It’s now been 72 hours since the last phone call, and we got our middle of the night alert from the system again. Checking the system this morning, it’s still showing that there is “trouble”, which tells me that ADT’s software update problem has yet to be resolved, and we’ll get another wake-up alert tonight. I’ll be calling them back this afternoon and asking to speak with a manager, but I’m doubtful that I’ll get any better answer or response.
So at this point, we’re incredibly frustrated with ADT and their lack of customer service or resolution on this problem. Based on the conversation with the disinterested rep, it sounds like it’s affecting a good number of customers, yet there seems to be no urgency on ADT’s part to get it fixed. Do you have any suggestions or advice we can take to get this escalated and resolved?

Skruff isn’t alone – other ADT customers have complained about the same problem on the company’s Facebook page. We don’t have any contacts on file for the company, but this situation sounds ripe for an executive e-mail carpet bomb. Figure out where to aim it with the help of this article.

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