Complaints

This profile includes complaints for The Monitoring Center's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see Find Local Branches.

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  The Monitoring Center

  17 - 2150 Winston Park Dr Oakville, ON L6H 5V1

  
• 

  The Monitoring Center

  276 3381 Cambie St Vancouver, BC V5Z 2W6

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/08/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I am disputing a guard dispatch charge deducted from my bank account on July 11th. The Monitoring Center did not notify me of the charge nor, did they not send me a copy of their invoice until I proceeded with my inquiry on July 21st. On Jun 28th, we accidentally tripped our home alarm and it was immediately turned off. I contacted TMC to advise them of the false alarm while unknowing their representative was on the phone with my husband at the same time. The rep upon speaking with my husband asked if they needed to dispatch police/guard services as they tried calling our home, to which my husband replied that he was at work and did not know what was happening. Dispatch said "we need to know sir" at which point MY call was coming thru on the other line and she said "your home line is calling." I spoke with dispatch and told them NO CALL was made at the premise and, the reason for MY call was to advise them of the false alarm. She then proceeded to ask if she should cancel the guard service and i said YES! Keep in mind this all happened within a few short minutes. My issues are as follows: -The timing between the alarm trip/immediate shut off/and notification did not warrant dispatch services. Especially when the TMC rep was trying to obtain authorization on one line with my husband, whilst i was on the other line calling in the false alarm to THEN be asked about canceling guard services? -contract indicates we are allowed 2 free dispatch calls (confirmed with York Region Police) -funds taken from my bank account with NO written notice of the impending charge and, no invoice sent until my inquiry was initiated While I appreciate their TMC's role is to protect their customers but, i think some grace should have been granted given the timing of this whole scenario. If policies change, customers should receive written notice. Furthermore, a customer should be advised if payments are going to be taken from their bank account and not arbitrarily taken.

  Business Response

  Date: 25/08/2023

  TMC has reviewed your account details and understand the inconvenience this may have caused you. By our records, you have already been in contact directly with our police/guard liaison and management team with resolution on this matter.

  To review, this involved reviewing your alarm event and account details including, alarm response and verification procedure and pre-authorized payment information you have provided The Monitoring Center.

  Alarm response indicates we are to dispatch following our call to the premise, followed then by keyholders to inform. Call logs show 2 calls to the premise that took place, both in which could not get through possibly due to multiple alarms reporting over the line at the time. Once dispatched (as per account procedure) we contacted a keyholder and would require their security verification ID number to cancel any dispatch. At that time it was recognized another call coming through and without verification it was indicated we would take that call alternatively. Upon verification we then cancelled the dispatch.

  Alarms were reporting from 0931am – 0933am while our dispatch took place at 0932am followed by your inbound call to our central station at 0936am.
  We have since made a work order and followed up for service review to provide options to firstly change your current alarm response procedures on file as well as alternative communication options to avoid such events taking place in the future.

  It is always important with TMC that there is a mutual understanding of alarm response and we also remain transparent in our policies and procedures, including our payment processing.

  Pre-authorized payment information signed for authorizes all charges to be applied by TMC including, but not limited to: annual charges, service fees, and dispatch fees. Our Police Form and outlined procedure and charges are based on regional dispatch information at that time and are subject to change without notice. Such changes are available on regional department websites. Our understanding is through resolution previously mentioned, there has been a refund issued for this dispatch in good faith, alteration of your billing to issue an invoice prior to any billing going forward, and defaulted to our guard service that provides lower dispatch fees and quicker response times to alarms. We feel TMC has made the necessary steps to acknowledge and resolve these concerns with our most recent interaction and continue to take steps to assist in avoiding such instances in the future with our service team providing further assistance.

  We appreciate your business and trust you hold in TMC to continue to keep you safe.  Please contact us directly if you require any further assistance.
  
  Thank you

  Customer Answer

  Date: 30/08/2023

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.  To be clear, TMC has agreed to remove the PAP from my account and is only authorized to process my annual fee only.  I have left a message for their service team and, now await their call back to review procedures previously provided in previous correspondence.   
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***** *******

• Initial Complaint

  Date:19/07/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We are seniors in our eighties living alone in our own house. To support our security and independence we depend on an alarm system with continuous remote monitoring. For about the past ten years, this monitoring has been provided by The Monitoring Center in Oakville (from now on referred as TMC). Over the last few months the monitoring continuity was frequently interupted by gaps, lasting from hours to days. Each such gap was announced by a phone call, day or night. An automatic voice announced that this was an urgent call, directing us to a series of messages and then to an operator, who ended up by assuring us that the connection to TMC was only temporary, and would recover within half an hour. The operator always remained deliberately vague about the cause of the interuptions, which in reality sometimes lasted considerately more than 24 hours. When we eventually insisted that something needed to be fixed, TMC first tried to fob us off, and finally offered a fix that would cost us over CAD 100, and could not be done until 2 weeks later. That was the "straw that broke the camel's back", and we cancelled the contract for cause. Since we had already prepaid CAD 135.60 on June 16 2023 (according to RBC) for the wireless connection over the coming year, I demanded that this money be refunded. After a lengthy back-and-forth, and me threatening with small claims court, TMC finally agreed in writing to return us the refund by cheque. This cheque has not arrived over the past 3 weeks.

  Business Response

  Date: 11/08/2023

  We are sorry *****, for any misguidance and discomfort you have felt with your last experience with The Monitoring Center. Your communicator is one in which provides a supervision cycle of self-checks to ensure it's reporting with our central station. In the event of any interruption it reports an OFFLINE status to our central station with immediate response to notify you. In many cases these can be very monmentary with their own restore reporting on the next cycle or by initiating a signal on your end as well. We can confirm in your history of 2023 this first started taking place near the end of March in one instance restoring within 40 mins. This was then followed by 3 instances in May and 6 in June - with one instance we can confirm surpassing 24 hrs to show a restore. These can be caused by many factors and when we see a sudden increase in these instances where they were never occurring before it could be based on network provider changes in the area or a fault developing on the unit itself. When originally installed, this was a 3G compatible device. There are now newer, dual-path network communicators offered that run on LTE and are 5G compatible to keep up with mobile network updates. Being out of warranty, this was originally quoted to replace at part cost only, with labour waived. Upon your discussions with our customer retention team, they worked directly with our service manager to secure a date within 7 business days and waived the cost of the upgraded communicator altogether. 
  Unfortunately at that time you decided to ultimately terminate your services due to the prior experience with our TMC operator. Please understand we do our best to provide a full understanding of functionality with the system while providing the best service in line with our policies and procedures. That would include our contract that states annual monitoring fees are non-refundable, but due to the recency of the renewal taking place and servicing circumstances surrounding this renewal our accounting team had made the exception. We once again apologize for any doubt you may have felt in our ability to service you and your home up to our standards and would like any opportunity to revisit this with resolution if you so wish. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 11/08/2023

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because: TMC has not explicitly commented on the return of the prepaid annual fee, i.e. the promised cheque, which they never sent!
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***** *****

  Customer Answer

  Date: 15/08/2023

  unexpectedly a refund cheque for CAD 135.60 arrived today in the mail. I
  this case I accept the reply from The Monitoring Center.
  
  Thank you for your help.
  
  ***** *****
  ******

• Initial Complaint

  Date:04/01/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I cancelled this service on 12/6/2022. The day after they AUTO Charged me. They said no problem and I still have not received my refund. If I took a month to pay for my service would that be ok? NEVER!!!!!! My advice is do not let them auto charge you they take complete advantage of that. ** ** *********

  Business Response

  Date: 05/01/2023

  We do apologize for the delay and have explained The Monitoring Centers refunding process for our customers perusal below.
  
  We have attached a copy of the customer's signed contract, our valued customer since 2010.  In clause 4 on the back of the contract it is explained that the requirement for cancellation is 15 days  notice prior to renewal of the contract in order to stop the pre-authorized payment on renewal.  
  
  Our customer reached out to the cancellations department on December 7th, 2022 which is 23 days prior to her contract renewal date of January 1st, 2023. This means the customer was indeed eligible for a full refund in the amount of $128.27.  The cancellation was processed and a refund invoice was created on December 7th, 2022. The refund request was sent to our accounts payable department on December 7th, 2023.  
  
  In the cancellation email correspondence the customer was advised that a refund would take up to 45 business days to process as indicated in the email thread attached.  
  
  The refund has now been processed and is expected to be credited to our customers account tomorrow 01/06/23.  ** **** ******** *** ****** ******* ************** **** ******* ************* **** *********
  
  We do apologize for any inconvenience caused.  Our intention is to process refunds as efficiently as possible but it is a time consuming process.
  
  We thank our customer for her patience and understanding.
  
  Respectfully
  
  
  Mirella
  
  Sales Manager
  
  1-866-247-4999   Ext 2235
  
  [email protected]

• Initial Complaint

  Date:20/12/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  This issue is related also to the senior rate that I have been under for the last few years and promised that it would not increase for life. Rate was 9.99 per month and totalled 119.88 plus tax however it has jumped to a annual charge of 155.88 plus tax. An additional issue is billing charge for not automatic payment of 48.00 annually due to I still write checks for all of my service billing and I have had no issue with any of those company’s giving me grief over this method of payment..when in fact the monitoring Center is a once annual invoice and payment..? That really does seem excessive as it would be more than 50% of the original cost also annually. I have attempted to contact Mirella via email to no avail and have paid the full amount via check to be mailed today however I hope to have this rectified sooner rather than later. Just seems like nickel and diming to the seniors as they also would be the ones using the old method of payment these days. Thank you…

  Business Response

  Date: 23/12/2022

  Thank you *** for allowing us the opportunity to remedy this grievance.
  Our accounting team has advised that *** was increased in Nov 2021 to 12.99 and we were
  not aware of his senior status as we do not gather identification from our customers at time of
  conversion. *** did not contact the accounting team in November 2021 to alert us to this
  matter and we received his cheque for processing.

  In Dec 2021 we added a billing charge because the customer is not on pre authorized payment
  which is our regular practice for those customers who are not on our pre authorized payment
  plan. We will waive this charge on his behalf.

  If *** had called into our accounting department to advise of his senior status, his status would
  have been revised immediately.

  Our accounting team has now changed ***’s status to Senior status and are expecting a
  payment of $135.46 only for his renewal covering 2023 and any other balance will be waived by
  our accounts payable. This payment is due January 1st, 2023.

  Accounting has now set ***’s account frozen at $135.46 for all future billings.

  We do apologize for any inconvenience, we do honour our price freeze for our senior
  customers. We hope any customer questioning their billing will contact our accounting team with
  their issues. We are always happy to assist.

  Also, I located ***’s email in my SPAM folder and have emailed him my response ... advising
  that moving forward if he does not receive a reply to his email to please contact me via phone.
  *** was kind enough to acknowledge my email correspondence.

  We hope this helps.

  Thank you
  Mirella, Sales Manager
  1-************ *** ****
  *******@********************com

  Customer Answer

  Date: 24/12/2022

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *** *******

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/05/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On 3/29, The Monitoring Center arrived at my home to install an alarm system. Prior to the installation appointment, I had been in communication with the sales manager and requested (and been confirmed via email) that an extra keypad be installed (for a total of two). I was unsure of the best combination of other door/window sensors, but was assured that the installing technician would have everything needed to complete my install. On the day of the installation, the technician was quite unprepared. he had only one keypad, and that one was apparently used as it did not have the plastic film that typically protects a touchscreen, and the touchscreen was already scratched. He also did not have enough sensors to complete my install and told me he would have to return with two new touchscreens (the one missing touchscreen, and another new one to replace the damaged one that was installed initially), and the rest of the sensors. That was over a month ago and there has been no return visit, and despite being assured last week by Mirella (the sales manager) that I would get a reply from the service manager, nobody has made contact with me to resolve this situation. I have already been charged the first monthly payment on my equipment (half of which I don't even have yet), and I have not been given any clarification on whether the warranty will begin upon completion of the install, or on the original install date (which would be unfair because I will not have a full year on the most critical parts of the system since they have not even been installed yet).

  Business Response

  Date: 17/05/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/05/04) */ First and foremost I want to apologize for any experience you've had with TMC that would be seen as poor service from your side. I have outlined below the details of the circumstances as I've reviewed with my best explanation and will ensure you are credited for your monitoring services up to this point. Please do not view this as any excuse for any shortcomings you have felt on your end, but simply understanding of the process that had taken place, which will be reviewed further through all departments involved. Technician attended 03/29 to complete an install outlined for: $359.00 (3+2) $129.00 1 EXTRA KEYPAD $312.00 8 EXTRA CONTACTS @$39.00 EACH Technicians normally rely on replenishment of parts coming directly from the manufacturer as opposed to any licensed suppliers they can simply walk in and pick up. Unfortunately there have been instances of parts shortages, back orders, and delays in shipments that can leave technicians a bit more limited with their parts time to time that I can only say is out of their control. Typically if the office is made aware of such shorthanded parts for specific jobs we would then call ahead to inform any affected jobs, in which I apologize in your case as this doesn't appear to have taken place. At the time of any installation under these circumstances, following the walk through of the home and confirmation of coverage required, will outline final options such as this case to perform the install with what they have for the most coverage we can provide at the time or return to complete everything at once. In this case, it was elected to continue with the install with the damaged touchpad (not refurbished or previously used, but discovered to be damaged when he was going to install elsewhere and was not used because of the damage) and return with a replacement touchpad as well as a secondary touchpad. The other devices outlined as required on the return are for a tilt sensor and a glassbreak sensor. Typically these are common parts to have on hand, but nonetheless they were not outlined in the original quote and although it was indicated they would have parts to complete the install, these were not parts they were aware they required based on the specific sales quote as well. In any case, any addition of parts, especially those not previously outlined, may result in a return visit to complete based on time allotted for the original job and parts on hand. Again, we apologize for this inconvenience. At that time - before even testing the devices installed, the technician had contacted the office from site to arrange a return date with you present to approve the return date and time. Following your forwarded email it was simply to remedy arranging an earlier appointment date, in which your work order status was prioritized to be called for any earlier openings in the schedule if we could accommodate. With regards to warranty, they are specific to the installation date. Under that premise, the equipment installed on 03/29/22 will have that indicated as its start of warranty period, the equipment returning to install on 05/18/22 will have that date as its start date for warranty period. As we have already installed 9 total devices (much more than half, and more than what was initially outlined in your quote) along with a functional system that is monitored, yes we would apply charges and monitoring at that time as that is the start of the monitoring of the system. Due to your recent experience and if there has seemed to be any miscommunication or misunderstanding of the return date arranged at the time of the visit, I will contact accounting to ensure you are credited for an additional 3 (three) months of all monitoring services so your renewal date will reflect 3 (three) month later due to the wait on your return visit. If you have any further questions or details to review please contact me directly at the number listed below. Thank you Kyle, Service Manager 1-866-247-4999 Ext ****