"M. Smithers" " wrote in message
...

Hello Dan,

I have experience with Protection One. The reason they will collect their
fee, which they are billing you for, is they gave you a break on
installation, providing you signed a service contract.

There was no installation. The system/their yard signs/window stickers were
present in the house when we signed the lease. I'm assuming the landlord,
who had lived in the house prior to renting it, had it installed. There was
no mention of a "break" for signing a 3 year contract, or of any alternate
time arrangement, in fact there was no mention of the term at all either
when I called to initiate the service, or when the guy came out to "test it"
& get me to sign, even when I told him we were renting & looking to buy in
the near future. Obviously he knew, but said nothing. I assumed it was
month to month. There is no mention of any term on the front of the
contract, it only appears on the back, which in retrospect I should have
taken 45 minutes to read (all 4 legal-size, fine-print boiler plate-ese
pages of it) while the "technician" stood there twiddling his thumbs. This
was my 1st experience with an alarm company, had I known what I know now, I
would have done things differently. I assumed it was like any other
"utility", cable, electric, telephone, gas, etc., maybe you had an
activation charge, but after that you paid monthly for as long as you used
the service & when you were done, you were done. I'm sure all the arm-chair
know-it-alls will claim they ALLLLLLWAYS read all the boiler plate,
regardless of how long & regardless of who's waiting but most people don't,
a fact the businesses rely on. I have an e-mail in to the landlord
inquiring if the new tenants have signed with them. For all I know, the
people before us are still paying for an early termination, the present
tenants are paying for current service, and they expect me to pay until 2009
as well. Is this legal? Well I'm sure their army of attorneys has assured
that it is. Whether it's right is another question.

BTW my wife & I have excellent credit, in the 800's. We own our house
outright and the only consumer debt we have is a credit card we pay in full
every month. We're probably in as good a position as anyone to tell the
*******s to go **** themselves. Which I may well do.