Vivint Complaint
Submitted by: Anonymous | Post a complaint | Back to Complaints Forum
William Huddleston showed up at my door on 5/11/19. He said he was in the area looking for people to try Vivant home security free for 6 months to see if vivints services were right for them. He told us that within the 6 months we could change our minds at any time. We decided since it was supposedly risk free with the trial period that we would give it a try. We scheduled installation for Monday 5/13/19, and the installers were prompt and installed a doorbell camera, backyard camera, thermostat, control hub, water sensor, fire sensor. All items worked fine and we had no issues with the functionality of the system. Immediately after the installers left our house on 5/13/19 we received 2 charges from vivint. The first charge was for a personal loan they arranged for us apparently to finance the equipment that was just installed in our home, the amount was roughly $22 for this. The second charge was for service which was roughly $49. Alarmed and taken off guard by the charges, we decided to contact William Huddleston our sales rep, he had instructed us to make him our main contact since vivints customer service reps were very difficult to deal with. He notified us that the charges were a mistake and that he would be in the area that week handing out cash refunds to customers who were wrongly charged. Cash refunds? We asked him why cash? He said that most people in our area preferred cash refunds instead of having the cards on file refunded. We notified him that we did not do drugs and that we had no use for his cash and that we would like the money accredited back to our bank account. He said ok, it will take up to 4 business days. We waited the 4 business days and there was still no refund. At this point we decided it was time to call vivint directly and see what was going on. After calling vivint and verifying who we were with them they asked us how they could assist us. We explained that William Huddleston had arrived at our house on 5/11/19 and offered us a 6 month free trial to decide if vivint was right for us. We also notified them that we were already being charged for both service and equipment. The vivint customer service rep notified us that they had no such 6 month trial period and that they would try and contact the sales rep to find out what was going on. After not contacting us back for 2 days we decided to call vivint customer service back. We asked them what was going on? They told us that they were unable to reach the sales rep ( William ). We asked them what the next step would be then? They said that they might refund us back the $49 but we would have to email our dilemma to documents@vivint.com for review to see if we could get our money back. We did as we were instructed and sent the email. After 2 days with no response we called vivint back again to see what was going on. They notified us that they had no record of the email and that we would need to try again. So we tried again. Finally we got a response the following day and were told they would only refund the $49 and they were not responsible for the $22 ( financing of equipment )since it was through citizens bank. We were agitated that the process was so slow and that we were still unaware of what was going to happen throughout the next 6 months that we told them we just wanted to cancel everything and go our separate ways. Vivint told us that there was no way to cancel and the only thing that they would do is offer us 6 months of service for free. We told them that William Huddleston had told us that we could indeed cancel with them in the 6 month period both in his pitch and in text message. Vivint then asked us to email them the text message that confirmed this and we did. After reviewing the text message vivint said no you cannot cancel but we will offer you 6 months free service and an addition 3 months of free service through email. We then contacted them immediately by phone and stated that we did not want the offer and just wanted to cancel the service altogether because the sales rep had lied to us about how everything would go with Vivint. We also notified them that William assured us that nothing would have been charged to us until November (6 months) so we could try the system and see if it was the right fit for us. After a good 45 minute conversation and two customer service representatives the only solution they had for us was to either take the 6 months + 3 months free service or to again send our dilemma to documents@vivint.com for review.
It is our opinion that the Vivint sales rep that showed up at our door on 5/11/19 was intentionally trying to deceive us into signing paperwork that would lock us into a contract with vivint, in order to up his commission sales. If we were not offered the opportunity to cancel our service with vivint within the 6 month trial period offered by William Huddleston, we never would have tried Vivint out in the first place.
What would you like the company to do to fix the problem? (optional)
Refund our money and cancel service. We would like them to remove all hardware installed in our home.