Getting bids from several companies
When you get bids from several companies keep these items in mind and see my list of some recommended companies below:
1. Check the Better Business Bureau web site http://www.bbb.org for ratings and complaints
2. Make sure all the companies are bidding the same counts and equipment quality. If you call on the price for a car and you call the Honda dealer they will give you a different price than the Mercedes and the same things applies with alarms. A system that is encrypted against hackers costs more than one that is not.
3. Found out the size of the company, yes it is true if they are a very small company with 2 or 3 techs their labor rate will be lower and their overhead will be lower. There are other issues with a small company, if one tech is out sick and another one gets in an accident what happens to your service? Peak Alarm has about 100 employees on the Alarm side and about 200 on the guard and patrol side.
4. Check the contract length, some companies price their equipment and have you sign a 60 month agreement and Peak only does a 36 so one company that claims free equipment may be charging you much more for that free equipment.
5. Some companies actually charge your credit card just to come out and give you a bid.
6. You will notice I did not list the names or websites for alarm companies that do the door to door type marketing. Be careful when dealing with any company and check how long they have been in business (Peak since 1969) and check online for their complaints
7. Large companies will obviously have more complaints although the red flags are the BBB Better Business Bureau complaints since they investigate both sides of a complaint so someone that does not pay their bill is less likely to complain and have it investigated although they are likely to write bad reviews online.
The list of following companies are licensed and insured. check out each one for yourself and be careful because there are a few out there that have over 3000 complaints against them on the Better Business Bureau and there is a reason Peak has hardly any. None of the companies listed below have many complaints. You can also check DOPL DIvision of Occupational LIcensing to see if they are licensed and each tech should also be licensed with DOPL and have gone through an FBI background check.