APX is accusing an 80+ year old lady of smearing their name??? What has this world come to? They say all she had to do is say "no". I bet she said no about 20 times but they went ahead anyway. What happened to helping people, especially the elderly? Instead they accuse her of trying to smear their name, I am real sure that is what she is trying to do. This company is ridiculous. How would you feel if that was your grandmother that happened to? I guess loving your neighbor is not really a priority at APX. Well, they love their neighbor as long as they say yes to the salesman, pay their bill, and be quiet for 3-5 years. Money is the center of all of their activities, you can see that wherever you look with this company. Greed, beautiful greed. Not really the best training/experience/example for good returned missionaries if you ask me.

I have been targeted by these guys on several occasions.Two of three times over the years,they knew I was LDS,the 3 rd time I played with the guy>I distracted him by asking about his funny accent(Utoid).They were extremely pushy,earnest,sure of themselves.They were instantly ,obviosly, RM's of the typical cookie-cutter variety.Outside of the sales call,they were very nice.Some brought their wives to my Eastern state and lived in my ward for a while.But,my gosh,were they programed.

There is nothing worse than a pushy saleman, I've had to eject a few myself but that has been several years as they don't get in anymore. Telemarketers also fit in this catagory with pushy talkers. If any salesperson offers terms and conditions then the oral terms and conditions should have a greater power than signed contracts. Contract terms and conditions are seldom on the contract or agreement to purchase and not available before signing. This practice should be outlawed as deceptive marketing and void any contracts. This practice is especially prevelant in credit card industry. The holder of contracts is so buried that consumers cannot get terms and conditions before signing or approving. This company has the gaul to say they are being honest and have happy customers? The customers wanting out of their service can't find the means or company to discontinue its service. They put up shell companies doing the billing and holding the contract making it more difficult if not impossible to contact. And it's all legal means to defraud consumers. If warnings go out by government officials then why does this company still have a license? Because they are operating from Utah, the fraud capital.

Stop living in fear.

We don't need alarms on our houses! Most of your property they would bother taking will cost less than what you'll end up paying for in alarm service.

This whole set up is the biggest joke going.

Fear mongers unite! Put an alarm on your car, house, kid, etc!

After we moved into our brand new built house(which had an alarm system already installed)a couple of guys came over from one of these alarm companies. Only my wife was home, so when she answered that was the first question they asked "is your husband home?" when she said no they said they were from the builder there to check the system because the inspector said it wasnt working. So they came in and looked around then after they were done they said just sign her and your system will work now. She said she needed to call me but they discouraged and distracted by getting a customer service person on the line to tell her it was just to verify they inspected the system. My wife kept saying no, but they never relented until she got me on the line and had me talk to one of the guys. They are trained to talk to you like you are stupid. They try to get you to hold a brochure that tells you the overbloated stats of crime in your area. They are everywhere too. Its the new fad of employment just like when real estate was hot.

haha, I let them come in (vacuum, alarm, cleaners, whatever) and spend all the time they want showing me their products and kick them out when they start trying to run a credit check. If they want to waste their time, whatever, I'm not buying or signing anything, but by listening to them and asking questions, I figure out the ins and outs of their product so next time a salesman comes trying to sell the same or similar product I know enough to push all their buttons and get them excited before kicking them out again.

I have never had an alarm system in my house and have no association whatsoever with any alarm system company. I agree with what a previous poster said -- that for most people, an alarm system is totally unncessary. At most, all you need is realistic-looking sign saying that you ahve an alarm system. That will prevent most crooks from attempting to break into your house.

That said, all we have is the side of the story from those who are now trying to get out of contracts that they signed. It seems incredible to me that someone would sign a contract "just to get rid of a salesman." And even if so, how could the person signing have failed to see that the date on the contract was inaccurate? If the date field was blank at the time, then the person signing should have filled the date field in herself.

If you don't understand all of the terms of a contract that is presented to you, then do not sign it until you do understand them. If there are terms in the contract that you are not planning on living up to, then do not sign it.

I put alarm systems in and my friend has an alarm company. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONTHLY MONITORING FEE.

Just like cell phones, they want you on the hook for a regular monthly payment. Some systems can be pricey to install, but the monitoring is what they really want.

The funny thing is that a lot of the monitoring is subcontracted out to a few big monitoring companies. The local company takes a cut and the monitoring company handles thousands of accounts.

I'm am one of these "pushy" salesman. I take some offence to this article. Not because i'm a salesman but because the general population does not separate salesman and pushy at all. Everyone thinks that anyone knocking on the door is pushy if they get past their first no. People say no before they even know what I am talking about. Almost every door (95%)I knock on the people don't even know that i'm with an alarm company and they have already given me two no's. These are called smoke screen objections. Every salesman, not just the ones from APX, are taught to ignore these so they can build value in the product and build intrest in what they are selling. There are a few bad apples. But personally, if someone tells me no after I have explained the deal that I am offering them, then I leave the house. Don't think that every RM that has become a salesman has sold his soul to the devil to make some money. Most of us are actually helping families and providing something to them that they really appreciate.

I sold alarms for 3 years, and yes, there are many abuses that go on in the industry, but overall, it is an outstanding industry that provides more good than bad. People in Utah don't understand the need for an alarm because they have never been broken into or know anyone who has. You need to open your eyes and realize that not every city is as safe as it is here. There is a real need for security systems and when you find people that have had alarms for years and are already paying the monitoring fee for an inadequate system, we can come in and upgrade the system for free and they often pay the same a month or a little less. This isn't an evil industry. Yes, it's highly lucrative for the companies, but it's also very much needed by the general public. These people knocking on your doors are trying to make a living too so cut them some slack. How would you like to be harrassed every day for what you do to put food on your family's table?

A few things to think about. Any abuses are too many abuses. People need to realize that there is a better way than having the good with the bad. Stop overlooking the bad that happens under your nose. You can get rid of the bad and still do good. When people do good honest work, good things happen. When people get greedy, things like this story happens.

Utah is the 13th safest state, crime happens here too. As you probably know, people just have a different outlook on life in here.

People who choose to do that job of knocking on doors choose it for the money, not the love of knocking doors. And that is fine, but there are two sides to the story, people aren't harassing anyone. States are investigating the shady actions that have taken place, that is a different story than harassing. Should we leave the drug dealers alone because they are trying to provide for their family? (I am not comparing security salesmen to drug dealers, im just saying) Just because someone is trying to make a living does not make them exempt from criticism of the public opinion, if it is deserved.

Salesmen themselves are some of the biggest marks in the world and Bryce's post above proves this. As a salesman, he is expected to attend daily meetings where they sell him on selling. In his post, he uses the rhetoric of the salesworld to defend his tactics. As if our use of "smoke screen objections" makes it okay for him to ignore the word "NO". Pathetic.
Door to Door salesman have to be pushy because nobody really wants what they are selling. If they did, they would make a call, get online, etc. They don't have to wait for a salesman to show up. Wake up and smell the hot cocoa, Bryce. You were scammed too, and you did sell your soul.

Bubs, just would like to ask you a very simple question? What do you do for work? I can assure you that whatever your occupation is, you rely on some way for your income on SALESPEOPLE! If salespeople don't make sales, you don't eat, the accountants have no numbers to crunch, the mechanics have no cars to fix, plain and simple: sales is the front-running most important industry of all. Every other job only is working after a sale is made. Security or any product or service.

I used to install these systems and so I know quite a bit about the process it takes to get one installed.

The lady in Maryland would have had to of talked to a representative from APX's corporate office before the system was installed. She would have had to have given her social security number and her birthday in order to verify that she was qualified. She would have had to of signed her name on the contract and allowed a technician to come into her house to put the system in.

Salesmen are pushy. It is the nature of the business. Ask anybody who's life depends on commissions if they are going to stop at the first no. If that was the case then our economy would grind to a halt because the flow of money would become extremely retarded. I've worked with salesmen for a long time and if you tell them no and then ignore them, they do go away.

Why is it that people feel the need to run to the government every time they can't say no and they want to get out of something they agreed to? Probably because they have weak minds.

Sherman, I guess I should clarify. I am talking specifically about door to door sales. You are correct that most all industries involve sales, but there is also a big difference between advertising/marketing, and people within organizations who facilitate product distribution once interest is expressed, and DOOR TO DOOR SALES. Why do you think these people often knock on doors with their installers? Why do you think they work on commissions that only pay out fully after 6 months? It is because the companies know full well that many (if not most) of the people buying the product don't really want it, and if they had 5 minutes to think about it without a salesman in their face, they would cancel the whole thing. Stop fooling yourself and next summer, try to get a job that is actually marketable in your future carreer and not just a means to an end.

Do you think that somebody who has been successful for one or more years as a door to door salesman has no marketable skills? I know many salesmen who have taken their door to door experience and used it as a foothold into getting into much tougher arenas. Door to door salesmen use the experience to get into tough MBA programs. I know of one personally who made it into Harvard's program purely off of his door to door experience. I know another door to door salesman who ended up managing a southern California car dealership a year after he started there.

What is the difference between advertising/marketing and door to door sales? Both have a product that they are looking to push, both come uninvited, both have support structures to support the product once it is sold. Guess what... sales reps in other industries get their money taken back if a customer cancels too early in the life of the product they sale too. The only difference between door to door sales and "advertising/marketing" is that the advertisement is walking right up to your door instead of being a billboard or a TV ad.

There is a HUGE difference between someone walking up to your door and a billboard. You don't have to pay attention to a billboard, but some unknown person, knocking on your door, at your house, selling you something that is over priced and lower quality and you could go get it if you wanted it, is very different. NO ONE under the age of 70 wants to talk to a door-to-door salesman. Also, do you think your friend who supposedly got into Harvard, didn't have good grades? Went to a good undergraduate school, etc.? Those probably helped too. Or was it ONLY door-to-door sales experience?

I did door-to-door alarm sales for 3 years, I was successful at it, sold over 100 accounts each summer, but couldn't stand anymore of that life. The money is the only good thing, quality of life absolutely sucks. I liked the paycheck, but EVERYTHING else sucked. I learned a lot about sales and manipulation techniques, some I hope to never use again, but the experience ranks about the same as a paper pushing internship. No one in the real business world gives it nearly as much credibility as you think it does. Trust me.

I gladly pay for my alarm system. I don't know if it's ever saved my life, but I know of people who's lives have been saved by a monitored alarm system. I'm sure they'd gladly pay a monthly fee for their alarm as well.