Alder

The TL;DR? Don’t walk from these folks, run!
While the value upfront seems good, they are a scam artist gallery.
Four years ago we were sold a basic home burglary alarm and fire alarm. I repeatedly asked was this a month-to-month contract, or was it a long-term contract? Each time the sales person said to me and my wife who was present that it was a month-to-month contract. We never got a paper copy of the contract, nor digital copy, but we did get a general purpose packet of information that included an official looking form with your state name across the top as if it was some sort of official state form to cancel service within three days.
Before I signed the contract I did some research trying to find out reviews on company. There weren’t very many. Most of those reviews were positive.
In the intervening four years since we signed the contract, all of the negative reviews came out of the woodwork. All of them for the same thing: deceptive business practices saying that they were led to believe that it was a month-to-month contract when it turned out to be a 60 month contract with a crazy expensive cancellation fee.
For most of our four years, we never really had any complaints. The system worked, we notifier system works because the fire department was dispatched twice. It was a good system for what we were paying. But around year four? The batteries in the gap sensors in the front and back door began to fade, and we were trying to contact customer service to get it repaired or at least find a replacement battery. We could not reach a single person. Usually, our customer service calls went to someone overseas from the call center, they had no idea of what we were speaking about, and usually the call was dropped. Many times after a 30 minute wait.
Most of our calls were dropped and we never even got to speak to a person.
Finally, the system batteries died, for the alarm testing as it should, indicating the back and front doors were open. This was due to the dead battery in the sensor.
We could not get a hold of anyone. No one. We would be waiting for 30 or 45 minutes, and it would get hung up on. So, a worthless system is a worthless system, so we unplugged it for about two months and could not reach a single customer service rep. Because we are paying 50 something dollars a month for a service that we weren’t using, and we were sold a month-to-month contract, we opted to call and cancel the service.
After about a 30 minute wait, we got a hold of a customer service rep, he said that we could not cancel the contract without paying an approximately $700 cancellation fee because we had yet to finish our 60 month contract. I stated that this couldn’t be, because the salesman specifically stated that it was a month to month contract. The customer service rep stood his ground and gave me an option of paying roughly $700 cancellation fee, or to just continue fulfilling the term of the contract for 60 months. I asked to speak to someone else in a customer service account manager stated that we had two choices: paid approximately $700 fee, or that we could transfer the account to someone else to pay it. I stated that I would do neither, the salesman sold me a month-to-month contract, I don’t even have a copy of the contract, we’ve been loyal customers paying promptly on a bank draft for four years, and only recently have we had to call for customer service and gotten absolutely no help, and now we find out that you say that we have a 60 month contract? I’m not paying one damn cent!
That evening, I went and did more research on the reviews that had been written since we had signed on with what we thought was a month-to-month contract with Alder. Google reviews, Better Business Bureau reviews, even complaints with our state Department of consumer affairs. None of them were good. All of them for the same thing: Salesmen would lie to the customer stating that it was a month-to-month contract, only to find out they had signed onto a 60 month contract that they had three days to cancel from the start. There was one class action lawsuit out of Arkansas where they paid up, and even one of their former salesman wrote a review on Google reviews that integrity and honesty is a big problem between Alder and their customers and their employees.
The former employee stated that they were being pressured to lie to make the sales, and they would make nowhere near the money that they were promised when Alder hired him on in a summer sales and internship program.
Seeing that these people were nothing but scam artists, I lodged a complaint with our state Department of consumer affairs for mediation.

I’ve had the Alder Security System about 2 months. I emailed a Rachel T. to find out about “who” was doing the monitoring, since my city requires an alarm permit. I never received anything back from him after he stated I could call, email, etc with any questions. Also, I’m not even sure when the alarm goes off that it is connected to any monitoring company? If it is, it is an awfully slow response by the company or not at all. I’ve opened the back door to let dogs out forgetting to turn the alarm off AND I have NEVER been called by anyone! I don’t know what the system is set for (how many seconds/minutes) but think it is too long…if someone breaks in, they could steal everything and be gone easily before the alarm company is notified, if it is even connected to a monitoring company. Another time, I turned the alarm off with my cell phone, made sure it showed disarmed, opened door, was standing inside about a minute and the alarm goes off and had to put the code in the panel….never got a call from the alarm company when this happened?

MUST READ IF CONSIDERING ALDER: I worked for Alder as a summer intern, and the main concerns are a lack of honesty and transparency to both their employees and customers. If wanting to work and accept this internship, just know that you are not going to get paid $400 a sale. They will say you get paid $400, but you get deducted left and right, so it is not practical. You are looking at more of like $200 a sale, and you will have to beg them to pay you for it. Don’t expect to make 1 sale a day. If wanting to buy these alarms, know that a lot of the representatives will lie or bend the truth to make a sale because they do not get paid unless they make a sale. On a positive note, other than the fact that there are a lot of shady and scam like tactics, I did enjoy hanging with my coworkers and loved my manager. They really did make this a learning experience, and that is something that I am very grateful for. Do not go into the internship expecting to make money, and use it rather as a character growth and learning experience. If I was personally a customer, buy RING as I am positive it is the best option.

My 82-year-old mother had an Alder system when she passed away. I called to cancel her service and the rep had me email the death cert and Letters Testamentary. I thought I was done, but 3 months later received another bill. This time, the rep told me that I could not cancel the contract, but had to find someone to assume it or buy it out. I discovered that they had renewed the contract early when they came out to do a repair. I’m sure my mother thought she was signing a service receipt when she signed their early renewal. Please know what you are getting into with this company. There are better options out there. Check the class action suit against them by ADT.

In 2018, my friend who was 85 at the time, had a knee replacement, bad hips, scoliosis, among other serious health concerns, and lived alone. She signed up for the medic alert service, and they also sold her some basic home security monitoring services. The problem is that they did the hard sell and pressed her into signing a 5-YEAR CONTRACT. Let’s reiterate the fact that she was 85 at the time. They only allow a 3-day window to back out of the contract, and they don’t make that easy for the consumer to cancel. The contract does not have a field for a write-in date of termination. They use a pre-filled form with 60 months as a basis for a time frame. I can only imagine that they do not even offer any other time frame. Fast-forward to Nov. 2021. My friend passes away. I am her Power of Attorney, so I am trying to close out her accounts, etc. and when I contact Alder to cancel, they tell me that even though she is deceased, her estate still owes the remainder of the contract. They only allow 2 ways to “cancel” a contract: 1) They offer to allow someone else to take over the full monthly payments for the remainder of the term, or 2) a buyout at 90% owed. I have not run into any other business that will not allow a deceased person to cancel services. This is ridiculous. After looking on the internet, I see plenty of complaints about Alder and the poor customer service, having to wait long times on hold on the phone, not receiving documents when promised. They told me several times I would receive the cancelation form via email on Dec 23, and I didn’t receive it until Dec 27. I am certain they use this delay tactic so that customers have less time to react, since they do autodraft from your checking account. I told them that taking advantage of the elderly is a form of elder abuse, it is unethical and immoral. I hope that an investigation into their business practices is launched, and I am confident they will be found guilty of using coercive sales tactics targeting the elderly and the vulnerable. Alder’s poor practices should be forcibly stopped, regulated, and audited on an ongoing basis. Better yet, a class action suit should be filed against them and put them out of business permanently.

Hello, my husband and I have been having issues with our alarm system for over 3 months. We’ve been extremely patient with Alder, but they have not been able to resolve our issue. The last straw for us was today when they offered to send us a new alarm panel with the expectation that we’d install it ourselves, while someone walks us through the process over the phone. The alternative was for them to send a technician out for an additional charge of $40, which was ludicrous. First, this is unacceptable because it’s their equipment that does not work and has not been working for months. Their records will show that we have made multiple calls, and each time our problem was not resolved. The second reason this is unacceptable is because on September 6th, 2019 we called and spoke to a manager. The manager advised he would rectify the problem. He said he would call us the following day to set up shipping us a new control panel and schedule a technician. Unfortunately, that call never happened. Third, this is unacceptable because they were not able to successfully trouble shoot our problem over the last few months. Why would we have the confidence in them to walk us through a control panel install?