Vivint Security: The Worst Customer Service on the Planet and Tale of a $1200 Carbon Minoxide Detector

Why I Chose Vivint

As an Airbnb owner (or former owner), I had unique needs. I needed not just an alarm system but since I was remote, I had to be able to do other things such as adjust the thermostat, view security cameras, monitor for things like water leaks, smoke/carbon minoxide,be able to communicate via the doorbell camera with vendors/workers if needed and a system that did not require a landline. In North Carolina, I used CPI Security for years and they are phenomenal. However, they are regional to the southeast. In Mass the options for what I needed came down to ADT and Vivint (who I never heard of before).

The reason I chose Vivint had to do with ADT thermostat (don’t quite recall) and Vivint had a lower monitoring fee if you purchased the equipment. First, DON’T purchase the equipment. Once you do they charge you anytime something is not working and they have to come out. They really try to push an expensive extended warranty on you.

I had to sign more paperwork for Vivint than I did when I purchased my house. Everything is electronic signature on an iPad. For “low tech” people or people who want to read a physical document, this can be a negative for some.

Not Truly Remote Monitoring

They accomodate you very quickly when setting up new equipment. And the equipment, when functioning, is top notch and very easy to use. Their customer service, however, is the worst I have experienced from any business. Customer Service is important to me and one of the reasons I used CPI for over a decade. Vivint fails miserably here. Maybe I should have gone with ADT?

Troubleshooting equipment usually meant being physically at the panel. Their customer service could never understand that I lived 800 miles from the property and could not be there onsite. That was the main reason I purchased their system - to remotely manage and monitor the property. To get a technician to come out would be $100 right out of the gate and they would require you to be onsite or have someone there. This was the only company I worked with that required this. Other workers….handymen, plumbers, painters, exterminators, sprinkler system guy, I could simply buzz them in remotely without having someone there.

Random Equipment Outage for 3 Months

After a power outage, 1 of my door cameras was not working for 3 months!!! Again they wanted someone onsite. I had a mid-term renter and did not want to disrupt them. And of course Vivint wanted to charge me for new door cam when these were less than a year old. It randomly started working one day without replacing it. No explanation from them.

Even though you can reboot the panel remotely, for whatever reason this does not work the same, according to them, as being there and rebooting it from the actual panel.
Following every subpar customer service call, with reps in their overseas support center, I would receive a text message asking me to refer them to someone else for a free month of monitoring. I would not refer them to my worst enemy. This text would be the only communication. You never received an email summary of your conversation or confirmation of an upcoming technician visit.

Selling My House: The Smoke Detector Certificate

The state of Massachusetts requires a smoke detector certification from the local fire department in order to sell your home. Your home CANNOT be sold without this by law. No lowyer will complete a closing without this document - it is that important.

The Captain from the Fire Department who I will refer to herein as the Fire Marshall came to the house and said I needed a new combination smoke/carbon minoxide detector in the basement as mine was no longer working. Apparently it was part of the old system prior to me purchasing the home. He tells me I have to have Vivint install a new detector that connects to the current system. I could not purchase a standalone device. After this is installed Vivint has to provide me with a document saying the new detector and all the current ones are functioning properly. Simple, right? Here is where my nightmare begins…

Getting the Carbon Minoxide Detector Installed

My house closing is 2 weeks away. Vivint can get a technican out in a week between the hours of 12-4pm. I asked them to narrow the window down as they require someone to be onsite. I could not find someone willing to sit around for 4 hours on a Saturday. My real estate agent, who probably would have done this, but came down with a flu-like virus. I cancelled the appointment and rescheduled for the following week when I would be in town and onsite. In order to get this new appointment I had to spend an hour and a half on the phone with them and “escalate” the issue.

Escalating is not handing the phone to a supervisor. The agents all work from home and this means sending a message to a supervisor queue and hoping someone responds. Once the supervisor responds they then send a mysterious message to their scheduling team for technicians (these appear to be ndependent contractors) and again hoping a technician decides to take the job. My closing was on Dec 22nd, and everyone knows work basically comes to a halt during the holiday week. After pushing and I mean pushing, i get an appointment for Saturday Dec 20th. This is cutting it VERY close. If their tech does nto show up, I am screwed.

But Wait, Vivint Cannot Provide Paperwork Saying Their Equipment Works

Remember the appointment I cancelled for December 13th because no one could be onsite? Well Vivint never told the technician who showed up at the house. He called me but would not enter the house and install the detector without someone being there. This incident was a good thing and a bad thing. More on this later. But during my conversation with the technician, he had no idea about providing documentation that the smoke/carbon detector and other equipment worked for the Fire Department. He had no such document and it is not provided by the local Fire Dept. The Fire Marshall says the alarm company should have this very specific form.

Again, I call Vivint’s super helpful customer service. The idiots there just don’t get it. They can provide me a form saying the equipment was installed but not that it is working….huh???!!! What good is this going to do me. They are also unfamiliar with the form (there is a name for the form which escapes me).

Enter the Smoke Detector Guy

As mentioned having this certificate in Mass is such a huge deal that there are third parties that install equipment and provide paperwork to the Fire Department. So I have brought on Kevin who is a Fireman a couple towns over and does this on the side with his company called, The Smoke Detector Guy. There was a lot of back and forth between the Kevin, the Smoke Detector Guy and the Fire Marshall. For instance, why can’t we take Vivint out of the equation and install all new, compliant 10 year battery operated smoke/carbon detectors. The Fire Marshall said this would be a “degradation”. Or even just one 10 year battery operated detector in the basement? No. Because the system is wired, this detector needs to be wired. Ugggh!!! It not only has to be wired but connected to the existing system. In other words, there is no way to get around Vivint.

Vivint Cancels my Appointment!!!

I call Vivint to confirm my appointment and press for an earlier installation date. Vivint has no record of my appointment. Appears to have been cancelled by them with no explanation. They cannot get a technican out until December 28th and my closing is on the 22nd. The buyers would not push the closing date out until the 30th due to holiday travel. My attorney even told them they could sign the paperwork on the 22nd and we would not execute until the 30th. They refused. They, or at least their real estate agent, even went so far as accusing me of making all of this up so that I could stay in the house longer and demands to know why I “waited until the last minute before doing anyting”. Great. Just great. I am now on the floor in tears, crying on the phone to the Fire Marshall (who is super nice BTW) and my eye has begun twitching uncontrollably due to extreme levels stress.

Bribing (Cough) I Mean Tipping the Previous Technician

This house sale has to go through before the end of 2025. I am selling at a loss but this loss will help to offset an unrelated capital gains tax. Out of desperation I was also contacting (while all this was going on) the technician who showed up the previous week. I offer to pay him $150 personally in addition to what Vivint pays him if he will come out before my closing. After a day with no response, I offer $300. It is now the Friday before my Monday closing and I offer $500. Finally we have a winning number.

It All Comes Together but My Checkbook is in North Carolina

The Vivint tech comes out that evening, driving an hour and a half to get to my house. The Smoke Detector Guy comes to fill out the paperwork and we were actually able to get the Fire Marshall to sign off on it that evening! After all the chaos it felt like something magical, a light shines, a choir of angels sing, but then…I need a $40 check. The Fire Department will not take Venmo or credit cards or even cash. My agent told me this but I had completely forgotten. The Smoke Detector guy drove back to his house to get his checkbook to pay the $40 for the certificate. Even then with the coveted certificate finally in hand, my eye will not stop twitching. I think it is time for a cocktail, for everyone involved in this saga.

The $1200 Smoke Detector

Let’s tally up. I paid Vivint $250 for the combo Carbon Minoxide/Smoke Detector. The bribe, sorry, tip to the installer to come out that night was $500. Money to the Smoke Detector Guy another $450 (part of this was for an electrician he paid to come out and the $40 certificate). So tell me readers, does all this hassle seem like an elaborate ruse to delay the closing in order to “squat” in the house for an extra week? Sigh.

Adding Insult to Injury - Vivint Charges Me to Cancel Service

The houses closed as scheduled and it was time to cancel Vivint after 3 years of poor sub-standard service. My home sale almost did not happen because of them. If not for my Christmas bonus to the technican, the sale would not have gone through and would have cost me thousands of dollars on my tax return if pushed out to 2026. There was no urgency on their part or willingness to help.

Should be easy to cancel my service, just a quick simple call right? Wrong. I get put through to the Customer Loyalty team who surprise surprise are in the US and very friendly. When they realized that I am cancelling with no intention of renewing they transfer me back to overseas support.

The support person tells me I can cancel but because I apparently signed a 5 year contract, I have to pay 50% of the remainder of my contract. Wait, what? After shitty support over the life of this contract, after 3 months of equipment failure, after almost losing my house sale because they cannot provide a simple doc saying their equipment works, after randomly cancelling a critical appointment, after hours of “escalations”, after bribing a tech and having to pay a third party company for paperwork saying THEIR equipment works, they want to charge me $475 to cancel my contract.

I am Convinced That Vivint Customer Service Reps are Missing Brain Cells or are AI Bots

I push back on this to of course no avail. In fact they kept trying to get me to “transfer” the contract to my new house. There is NO NEW HOUSE. This was my rental property. It is not like I sold this house and bought another across town. For some reason I could not get them to understand this concept. In fact they read from what sounded like a script that I could transfer the contract, not pay the fee and even get a free month of monitoring….yippee! Gotta love their persistent sales tactics. If only they put that much effort into making their customers happy.

The rep repeated this mantra multiple times, he just did not get it. Then he said I could also provide them the information of the new buyers and if they take over the contract, I will not be charged. Ok first of all, I don’t know who they are. I met them for 5 minutes at closing. And secondly, do they seriously think I would recommend Vivint to them or anyone else for that matter?

Escalate. Again. Supervisor Dave. Well Dave gives me the same tired spiel about transferring the contract to my new home or the new home owners. Sigh. I go on about Vivint’s terrible customer service, all I have gone through, and wihtout missing a beat, he goes right back to the spiel, as if on cue, about transferring the contract to my new home. Is this guy real? I am starting to wonder if I am talking to an AI Bot at this point. I look at the timer on my phone call and it has been another hour and a half. Finally I come straight out, “Dave, is there any way you are going to waive this $475?” His robotic response again, not unless I transfer the contract.

Dave, will you at least credit me the $250 for the installation of the carbon/smoke detector to compensate for all I dealt with. Yes he can do that at least. THis time I wait to receive email confirmation before hanging up.

The End Result

To get out of my contract: $225. To never have to deal with Vivint again: Priceless.

And in case anyone is wondering, it took another week for my eye to finally stop twitching.