ADT offers $25K reward to stop dishonest alarm sales

ADT on Tuesday announced that it will offer an award of up to $25,000 for those who can provide evidence that a company is training its sales team members to be deceitful in their sales practices. The company, which is concerned about the increasing number of consumer complaints about deceptive home security sales, said that the evidence brought forth must result in the successful prosecution of the offending company in question.

“ADT’s trusted brand is being exploited by swindlers and scammers who mislead unsuspecting consumers,” said ADT General Counsel David Bleisch said in a statement. “Victims end up having their ADT security systems unnecessarily replaced and are duped into signing new contracts with another provider.”

ADT said the fraud begins at the front door when customers are told false statements that range from things such as “ADT has gone out of business” to “I am here to upgrade your equipment.” Sometimes the scammers claim they are affiliated with alarm panel manufacturers.  Before the customer realizes they’ve been cheated, a new security system has been installed and they’ve been conned into switching service to the company committing the fraud.

ADT said that it already has video evidence from at least one company’s training session showing rogue representatives being taught to lie during sales presentations at customer homes. The company hopes more evidence, obtained through cell phones, will come forward. Additionally, ADT said it will continue filing lawsuits against companies and their employees who deceive its customers. Last year, ADT recovered over $4 million from companies as a result of lawsuits.

“We will keep taking aggressive actions to get these bad actors off the streets,” said Bleisch.

Click here for more information about the reward offer.