The quality of service given by the security company AD, has been disputed by some of their previous and existing clients recently.
Liezel Daniëll of Weltevreden Park wrote to the Northsider expressing her dismay at the service she has received from the security company since 2012.
In December of that year Daniëll and her husband tried to cancel their contract with ADT after only being signed on for two weeks.
“Our alarm had gone off three times in those two weeks and all these times they said that they couldn’t access our property to see if everything was in order, due to our vicious dogs.” The irony of this statement lies in the fact that they own two dachshunds.
ADT made amends for this and assured them this would not happen again and the Daniëll family remained signed on with the company.
But on 11 March this year, an intruder tried to access the property while Liezel was alone at home with her five-year-old son and ten-month-old daughter.
“I pushed the ‘silent’ panic button and our alarm started screaming,” stated Daniëll. “It wasn’t so silent after all. It also wouldn’t switch off and carried on for half an hour before ADT finally arrived.”
Her husband tried to call them in those 30 minutes, but said that they had hung up the phone on him during his first call. He phoned again just to be told by the operator that their profile states “No access. Vicious dogs.”
“We never put that status on our profile, and weren’t even aware of it, since we challenged ADT on it in December 2012.”
Her husband kept on saying to them that they were wasting time quarreling about the profile status, when his family could be in danger, but the operator then cut the call again.
“Surely if a panic button is pushed, the person’s life is under threat? Do they expect their clients to ask their attackers to just give them five seconds so that they can open the door for the security company to come and rescue them? I do not understand the logic.”
A previous client of ADT from Randpark Ridge, Nicolene Aylner, also feels her experience with ADT was not a good. “In June 2013, my neighbours phoned to tell me that my alarm had gone off,” explains Aylner. Her neighbours could see the back door of her house from their property, and they saw the intruders break the gate open with a crowbar first, and then proceeding to hack the wooden door open with an axe.
Three weekends later, the same thing happened while they were not home and many items were stolen. “Both times it took ADT about 15 minutes to respond,” Aylner complains. They terminated ADT’s service soon after and joined another company.
ADT has since responded to these allegations and confirmed that the head of their operations department and the operations area manager have both subsequently been to see the Daniëll family.
“We have also checked the system and found the panic to be faulty. One of our technicians has been to the home to resolve the problem. As a gesture of goodwill they were offered three months complementary service which they have accepted,” said Nicolle Kairuz on behalf of ADT.
