Technician James is OUTSTANDING in expertise, explanations, repairs. He was efficient, effective and a pleasure to work with.

We have been loyal paying customers for the past 10 years. Our carbon monoxide alarms started beeping and they would not send a tech out to look at the system so we had to call the Winchester fire department. Do not use this company. read more

We have been with this Company for 38 years and for a while they were customer focus, and we were happy with the limited service they provided. Today, 38 years later we get an email stating that our annual monitoring fee increased by 10% without as much as a call or letter explaining the increase. My husband called the billing department and had the unfortunate experience of speaking to Max. Max essentially told my husband that 1. The Company couldn't possibly notify everyone of the increase and 2. We should be paying 70-80$ per month. This behavior left us wondering when did AMERICAN ALARM start treating their customers like crap. Clearly Max has not been trained well enough to work with customers. He lacks the ability to understand the definition of a LOYAL customer. Perhaps, the Company incentivizes Max in pushing LOYAL customers away. I will not recommend AA to my family or anyone looking to protect their property. Just like thousand of PIZZA shops, I am sure there are other companies looking for new business. read more

American Alarm bought out our local alarm company on Cape Cod (Atlas Alarm) - they are much more expensive and the service is far worse. We had our first service call recently - 20 min call, all they did was change the battery in a sensor (which did not fix the problem). The charge was $259 including a $79 "truck charge" for maintenance of their truck that gets added to EVERY service fit - on top of a high minimum charge. They are also disorganized: the service department doesn't let the tech know the reason for the visit and another visit is wasted because they didn't bring the part. We will be changing to a different alarm company due to the high cost, poor communication, and disappointing service. (The techs are very pleasant, but the company is poorly run.) read more

Absolute rip-off. $375 an hour for labor and a truck fee of $100 for a 20 minute job. That's on top of annual inspections that aren't even included in your service contract. Complete scam of a company read more

Been using this company for a couple of decades. It used to be great, but now they use a separate company to bill, so costs have gone up and up again. Emails to the billing company and to the president of American Alarm asking for a senior discount go unanswered. Time to shop around since profits are now most important to these people.​ read more

I paid $500 for inspecting a system that was installed before I moved into a house. Every month for the first 6 months something would break that should have been discovered at inspection and every month I got charged a $150 service visit charge, plus materials plus the $50 per month for monitoring. A total scam. read more

Buyer beware. Over the 17 years I was a customer, I saw prices increase and increase but technology stay the same. When I finally needed to change alarm companies to one with better equipment, it took 5 weeks from my request to discontinue service and disconnecting American Alarms equipment to close my account AND they charged me for service during this time! read more

Typical bad sales, promise everything to get the sale then no delivery on those promises. We are supposed to have the app., and we didn't get it. We asked two weeks ago for the app. with the office "the proper channels" so far in two weeks only one message. We were with Brothers that was bought by American Alarm, and Brothers had good customer service. Now we have to chase and beg to add the app. There are plenty of alarm systems and companies. I feel it is the right thing to warn what to expect with American Alarm from my experience, and they are not inexpensive! read more

We recently moved into a home that already had an American Alarm system installed and so continued using them as coverage. Bad move for multiple reasons. For the reasons documented below, we have since cancelled our services with American Alarm and switched to another company that provides better coverage and features for significantly less money per month. I would recommend anybody considering to buy a security system to look anywhere else, there are many great options both locally and online. I would also recommend looking at the 4 other reviews that are "currently not recommended" for whatever reason: They are uniformly negative. First of all, COST: the features and coverage that they provide are very expensive (non-cellular, non-wireless). We were paying over $60/month for basic monitoring and a "Lifetime Service Warranty" that basically did nothing. This sort of monthly payment at almost any other company will provide you with online-access and wireless capabilities with usually some amount of energy/light management. SERVICE: To be fair, American Alarm has always been fast in contacting us when an alarm goes off (i.e. smoke/carbon alarms) so they are competent at least. However, there service has always been... less. When we first moved in the sales agent was at first very communicative and responsive, until we signed the one-year contract with them. After that, most communication with the representative has been brusque and delayed, often requiring me to directly call him to prompt a response. We were unfamiliar with the alarm system so asked them for a manual to figure out how to use them. Was promised a manual but never received one. Then our CO detectors failed. All of them. Our first carbon failed in 11/26, at which time the fire department came and found nothing. We also noticed that because the first alarm was still faulting, we couldn't properly arm our system anymore. After the second failed, we were told that a technician would call to tell us how to take the failed COs off our system so that we could arm it at least. Nobody ever called. Then the third failed a couple weeks later. We are still unable to arm our system. We call again and schedule a service appointment for 12/16 for first call from 8-10am. I tell them that I have a morning work meeting at 10 that I have to be at and they assure me that they will be there promptly at 8, if not before. That morning, the final CO fails in the middle of the night. The fire station is again dispatched even though we've now have had 3 false alarms. Although I am up since 730am waiting for the service call, the technician does not arrive to our appointment until close to 9:30. I have to leave and my fiancee has to shuffle her morning schedule in order to be there while the technician is there. We're finally able to re-arm our system after 3 weeks. Even though we have a "Full service warranty", we receive a bill for the service call. As it turns out, our CO detectors actually were expired in January 2014, before we even closed on the property. They were also faulty because they never appropriately sounded their end-of-life alarm to signal for replacement. There was a recall on this exact model produced and installed in the same time-frame as the ones we had. In summary, this entire time we may have had faulty carbon monoxide alarms that needed to be replaced and our ALARM COMPANY is neither aware of it nor will take responsibility for it. We were also unable to arm our system at all for the entirety of this time. COMMUNICATION: Besides from responding to alarms,the overall communication with American Alarm has been very poor with little transparency provided to the customer. I had been communicating with the sales representative for over a week before he finally told me that he is unable to waive any service or equipment charges because it's not in his department. Since then, I have been communicating with the Director of Quality Assurance and was able to receive some and was told that my case would be brought up with the owner and I would be given a chance to discuss with them my particular case. Yesterday, after over two weeks from last communication, I received a letter in the mail with a bill and my original contract with some terms highlighted. That is it. No additional information. A word about their "SERVICE WARRANTY": We've been paying $15/month for "Lifetime warranty and service" that was sold to us as "covering everything" but, as it turns out, does not at all and requires us to email and call back and forth for over a week to waive a service visit When our CO detectors were found to be long dead, we were initially priced these at $125/each for replacement. Then I find out that they could waive labor and truck charges and get CO detectors for $65 each. So I'm not sure what the service warranty that I've been paying for provides at all, if anything. read more

Their prices have increased steadily while services haven't changed at all. When my family finally decided to ditch them, they dragged the process out so that we were forced to pay an additional 61 days AFTER we cancelled the account in writing. They sucked an extra $64 out of us. Reputable businesses should not operate this way. This company has a retention team, they should be called the no conscience con artists. read more

We were paying for their services for years but we were not receiving their services! We were not notified of this until I called them directly to explain things. They said they would refer my case to customer service but customer service never called me back. read more

American Alarm purchased the alarm company that was already installed in my home and charged me for a new system. My price per year doubled. I had to change due to the "Sunset" thing so be it. It had some neat features on my phone so I could monitor the comings and goings of my son, etc. I was given a "FOB" instead of having to install another panel upstairs. This was handy as it prevented me from getting out of bed in case I heard a break-in or needed emergency medical assistance. I have a medical issue and it's essential that I have this FOB by my bed. When I had a problem with the panel I mentioned to the technician that I didn't understand some of the buttons on the FOB (this is three years later) since no one ever explained it to me. He tested it from the station and it was NOT hooked up! If I had an attack, I would have been dead, as the installer never hooked it up in 2019 to the station. The woman at the desk told me that it was not their FOB. I told her that it was. She said that they would send a tech out and if it was their FOB there would be no charge and it would be resolved. The tech was a great guy. He confirmed that it was their FOB and it was NOT ever hooked up to the main station when the system was installed. So I have been paying for half a system. He also gave me a new battery for free. PS. I then receive a bill for the tech's visit and the battery! I am now looking for a new company if they insist on charging me for this bill, they just raised the prices again!!! Ridiculous !!! read more

If I could give them a 1 I would. We hired to install a full brand new fire alarm system on a building we just purchased. Their timeline was estimated 1 week and actually took over 2 months. There was 0 communication between the engineer that designed the system and the fire department for that matter. We had to act as the general contractor; trying to get them to schedule, contact the fire department, send documents to the fire dept, etc. Their customer service is absolutely terrible. We own 3 companies and would never treat a customer the way they treated us. They constantly blame others for their mistakes and would never own up to anything. I would not recommend this company unless you have a background in building permitting and codes and want to do 90% of the work communcating with the fire department and managing their lack of customer respect. read more

The real test of an alarm system, and the company behind it, is when your house is broken-into. Well, unfortunately, that is what happened to us when we were out of town last week. The alarm did exactly what it was supposed to do: It triggered the loud local alarm and concurrently notified the alarm company. They immediately called my phone, and when they got no answer, they called my wife's phone, explained our alarm was going off, indicating the back door had bee breached as had been a motion detector, and asked if everything were alright. When she said "no, we are not at home", the rep said calling police, and did so. How do I know they acted so quickly? According to the police officer responding, he was there within 4 minutes of the alarm being triggered. Yes, we lost some stuff; as much as the perp could gather in under 4 minutes, knowing a loud alarm was blaring, and the police might be on their way. Had it not been for the alarm and alarm company it surely would have need a great deal worse. read more

Avoid at all costs. Nobody seems to be able to answer questions completely. They will "look into things" never get back to you and then send a notice that YOU have 5 days to resolve the issue. read more

Customer service is non-existent - you will drop into a big black hole and get no response, even after repeated contact attempts. The sales staff is by far the worst in industry. read more

The alarm works as advertised and the set-up is incredibly easy. But, if something needs to be fixed the customer service is terrible. In the last two days i have been on hold for 15, 40, 23, and 30 minutes and on two of those calls the call was suddenly dropped while i was holding. Still waiting on help to install a replacement for my base station. I think that they will provoked the replacement for free, but i have tried using all online resources to install the new unit to no avail. I am on hold for the fifth time, - now for 15 minutes - and still can't get through. read more

Our company uses American Alarm for Fire, Sprinkler, Security, and Secure door Access monitoring services. I could not be more impressed with the army of staff that work for this company. I want to be clear that this review was not solicited and it is well deserved. We had 3 bids for all our service needs and we went with American Alarm because their company was a one stop shop for all of our needs. Long story short it is a new building and their were many logistical challenges form installing equipment to dealing with the local fire department. Special thanks to Jarred, Dale, Mike and David. Our company was lucky to work with such a professional and customer service oriented team. Many of our company team members will also be using them for their home security needs. Thank you, read more

American Alarm continues to charge me (and affect my credit) 6 months after I've cancelled my account. I am very displeased with their service. read more

I cannot say enough good things about American Alarm. I originally installed a Monitored Burglar alarm when I purchased my home in December of 2016. After reaching out to several providers asking numerous questions and having demonstrations provided I decided on American Alarm. Greg Sacca was my representative and he was kind, Courteous and Available at any time with my endless stream of questions. Originally when I was moving into my home I was trying to schedule for the day before, They could only provide Day of Move service but as soon as it opened up they gave me the day before the move to install. Heather Young in Scheduling was proactive and great with Follow Through. James Starkey Did my Install and he was phenomenal, Answered all my questions, Showed me the ins and outs of the system and didn't leave until I was comfortable with Full Operation of the system. In the past Month I decided to have my system upgraded to cover Fire Protection, They installed the system to my specifications and did it in a short ammount of time, also taking a lot of time to make sure the system was installed and programmed to my exact requirements and keeping with the Requirements of the CIty I live in. Sean was thorough in Communicating his timeframe with me. Dana the insall supervisor spent a lot of time with me personally to make sure everything went smoothly. read more

This is the worst alarm company ever- unresponsive, condescending, rude, take no responsibility for their systems- I could go on and on, sitting here as I listen to my alarm go off for the 10th time today and they refuse to come troubleshoot the problem - even the fire department got on the phone with them and said they needed to handle this and they refused to help....find any other company to use! There should be a negative star option. read more

I had the worst experience with American Alarm. They have horrible customer service; the sales manager promised me a refund of my deposit but when I went to collect the deposit paid, it took four months of trying to get through to someone who said, sorry we changed our mind. Even when the sales manager agreed he told me I could get a full refund. They try to convince you that it is worth spending over $1000 to install their system even though most companies put the system in for free. They say pay the money because you are paying for customer service. The head of customer relations screamed at me on the phone, said she didn't care I was promised the refund as I wasn't their customer anymore. Beware... go for the company that puts the system in for free, no need to spend $1000 for nothing. read more

I just completed a 3 year contract with American Alarm for 2 commercial buildings. I would never do business with them again nor would I recommend them to anyone. The trouble started when the salesman wrote the initial contracts incorrectly. That messed up the installation and the billing. Spent a year trying to get the billing corrected. least cooperative and responsive accounting department ever encountered up to and including the CFO. Even after I cancelled the service they continue to send invoices and requests to schedule inspections. The service techs are competent but the sales and support organization is a mess. I suggest you look elsewhere for a residential or commercial alarm company. read more

I sold a house recently and engaged American Alarm to make sure the hard wired smoke alarms would pass smoke inspection. Despite American Alarm assuring me everything was ok, the smoke detectors failed inspection. American Alarm had to come to my house a second time to fix the faulty detector they missed on their first visit, and I had to schedule another smoke inspection. American Alarm then sent me bill with a callout charge for their second visit. American Alarm were (a) incompetent, because they weren't able to do what they promised and (b) dishonest, because they charged me for fixing their mistake. Under no circumstances would I hire American Alarm again: deal with this company at your peril. read more

Their system had battery issue in the winter. We made an appointment for them to come check. We then were billed $300 for a advice that we should install heater to keep the hallway warm enough for where their system and battery installed. The most expensive advice I have ever received. read more

My original review, for whatever reason, was filtered by Yelp. I am reposting. The people who owned my house before I bought it (two owners before, actually) had an American alarm system installed. We never had it set up when we moved in and didn't have the service. After living here for 4 years, the alarm randomly starts blaring one day. I called to have it shut off. The woman on the phone tells me that without a code, I can't silence it unless a technician comes out. Ok, fine. She then proceeds to quote me their service rates. Wait a minute, you want ME to pay for someone to turn off the alarm blaring in my house?? Absolutely not! Then she tells me that unless I pay $225 for the first hour, plus $100 for each additional hour they can't shut it off. (This is essentially extortion, as they know you want the ear piercing sound turned off.) Absolutely not. I ask to speak to the manager, who is "away from her desk" but she can send her an email if I like. No, you're not getting me off the phone until this alarm is off! I have an 18month old baby here flipping out! She then told me someone could probably authorize this as a standard house call which would be $100. No! Still not paying for something I don't want! Frustrated, I hung up to call my husband. Miraculously, minutes after I hung up the phone the alarm turned off. Swindlers!! Do not have an alarm system with them unless you want to pay an arm and a leg for service calls to turn off their blaring alarm when it malfunctions. I received a very insulting response from the company, posted below, after filing a complaint. Just more proof that they care about little besides the bottom dollar. It's a shame that Yelp filtered and removed my original review. Even more so, that there is another review that has been filtered that also shows their poor customer service. Please look into other reviews and complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau. This is not an isolated incident. Apparently, unless you agree to pay their exorbitant yearly service fee (which apparently is worth nothing, having read other reviews and complaints), you are going to have to deal with being terrorized in your own home. From American Alarm: I originally responded to this review on 6/10/13 but for some reason it didn't save. Unfortunately this reviewer is not a customer of ours so I cannot investigate who she spoke to or even listen to the recording (all of our calls in our command center are recorded). What I can say is that while I understand her frustration by being home with a small child and having the alarm go off I can't understand why she would expect a service call for free. Especially knowing she is not a customer. She was quoted our standard service rates to have a technician respond and the operator went above and beyond and offered to reduce the cost of the visit. I don't know of anyone else in the service industry who would reduce their rates (plumber, electrician, other alarm company, etc...). She was even offered to speak to the manager. Who was out of her office at the time but carries her cell phone with her to receive emails in case of an emergency while she is in meetings. There could have been many reasons the system went off (low battery, communication failure, etc...). As she stated she bought the home four years ago and decided against signing up for monitoring service with us or any other alarm company. That is four years without a free wellness inspection that could have prevented what happened. It is also four years that we have not connected to her panel and if she had a passcode we may have been able to shut it off remotely (depending on the model and age of the system). With no passcode we have to send a technician because we are a security company. Otherwise we don't know if someone is the homeowner or someone pretending to be. We rely on referrals from our customers to grow and I know we did everything in our power to help this reviewer she just wanted it for free. read more

It's not often that I ASK the company I've done business with to give me the opportunity to write a review for them (most ask the client to do that)...but in this case, I felt I needed to share how great my entire experience has been from the start. Dianne was/is my rep...I say "is" because Dianne made it clear from the beginning that they just don't sell you the system and walk away; no...it's now a relationship and if I have ANY questions or concerns, I am always to contact her. That alone should tell you how good the customer service is at this company. And Greg did my install....and he was great. He showed up when he said he would, he was respectful of my time, my home...and of me. He was patient with my questions about how the system worked when he finished installing it. Overall, a great addition to the American Alarm team. Now I HOPE that I NEVER need to call American Alarm because I've tripped system or worse....someone broke into my home or I've sustained a fire, but if I have to....I feel secure in knowing I've got a great team behind me helping to protect one my biggest investments. read more

my alarm has gone off repeatedly and they keep charging me to reset it. they offer no fix and only say that is proprietary and so I can't replace it with another company unless i spent another 5k for a new panel. i've asked and asked and they refuse to return my call for a cell service module to bypass the phone lines that they blame for the trouble. do not use this company. they are not responsive at all! read more

This company is terrible. Their equipment malfunctions in the cold and they are NEVER on time. I try to have 8:00 appointments so I can get to work and they never show earlier than 8:30 even though they say they can do 8:00 appointments. The charges just keep going up. I do not recommend this company for fire alarm services. read more

American alarm has terrible customer service. My bill went up about $50 every year and when it reached almost $500/yr this year I called to find out why. I spoke with several people without getting any real explanation or help.. I also asked customer representatives about how to fix the serious problem that our alarm service with American Alarm always stopped when electricity was off despite the back up battery system we paid a great deal to fix/set up but never worked. I asked about internet connection for the alarm serviceI and was told me only other option was radio service which could be installed for an additional $300 discounted rate. I found out radio service is not secure and a very bad way to connect to an alarm system upon further research. I received incorrect or poor information when speaking with representatives. Several times I spoke with people at American Alarm over concerns was told I would receive a call back which I never got. Given my concerns over the increasng bills I looked at the ratings for the company on line and all (except the company website) listed American Alarm and Communications as having very poor service and was very expensive and poor quality. American Alarm was ranked 68th in Alarm companies in customer service and quality. Before you choose aAmerican Alarm check their ratings on Google. You will be no more impressed than I was. read more

We installed an alarm system in September 2011 after being assured by American Alarm that we could have pets and motion detectors (70 lb. dog and 9 lb. cat). We were told by our security consultant that the detectors would not pick up anything under 100 lbs. Several months later we started getting false alarms, one of the animals was setting it off and the police were sent out to our residence. After the second time, American Alarm came back in, adjusted the motion detectors and we were told the problem was fixed. Two weeks later another false alarm and another visit by the police department. That was mid-February. Since then we have been back and forth trying to rectify the situation (and not setting the alarm we paid good money for). Unfortunately, one of American Alarm's solutions was for us to pay even more money to fix the problem. We finally came to a resolution and we were told a scheduler would call us to have the tech come back out. That was on April 3 and no word since. I sent an email to the consultant we've been dealing with, left a voicemail for the scheduler and left a voicemail for the Sales Manager. So far, no response. read more

After a home burglary I did fast, but thorough, research on home security systems. I spoke with four companies -- two national and two local (including American Alarm). American Alarm was the first to come to my home and they actually came out on a Sunday morning, which was extremely convenient for me. The sales rep (Barry) was professional, knowledgeable and immediately put my mind at ease. He looked throughout the house and made great recommendations on what would work best given the layout and my concerns. He explained everything to me thoroughly, and in a way that made perfect sense to someone that knows nothing about security systems. The second local company came out a few days later and was also very professional and knowledgeable. The pricing both companies presented for the same set-up was comparable, but American Alarm offered a discount for their 2-year agreement which made them more competitive. Ultimately I felt more confident selecting American Alarm. The contract and associated paperwork took a bit of time to review but is obviously very important. I had a few questions and Barry responded to me immediately. I get the impression that he works round-the-clock! The paperwork was processed right away and I got a call the next day to schedule the installation. The installer (Henry) arrived exactly on time and was professional and friendly. We reviewed the plan together and then I left for work. Henry called me as soon as he was wrapping things up at the house, but I was not able to leave the office right away. He graciously offered to meet me back at my house after I got out of work so he could train me on the system and the mobile app. His explanation was simple and he answered all of my questions. Both Barry and Henry went above and beyond to make sure the process was easy and convenient for me. From start to finish, this was an amazing customer experience for me. Since the system was just installed today, I can't yet comment on the functionality. If it is BAD, I will update this review. Otherwise, I will highly recommend American Alarm! As a bonus, they do offer a referral incentive for their customers. read more