Vivint is known for being a smart home company that has around 1.5 million customers.
However, it’s also known for having quite some displeased customers…
This article is going to reveal 9 Vivint horror stories.
These will make your hair stand on its ends.
So, let’s dive right in and discover:
- Whether Vivint salesmen accept “no” as an answer (beware).
- 9 horrifying Vivint stories that will make you think twice about joining Vivint.
- How a Vivint employee deceived a customer to think they’re from the police.
- What a customer experienced after the Vivint alarm went off and why it happened.
- And a whole lot more…
9 Vivint horror stories
#1: Licensed by the police
The first horror story is about the salesman, a regional manager, and a trainee. They were selling Vivint services from door to door.
The regional manager rings at the door. And identifies himself as somebody who’s licensed by the police.
He then goes on that he needs to speak to the homeowner and provide his police badge. On the police badge, there is also written in small letters: technician.
He continues that he’s there to help with crime prevention and that he’s from Vivint.
The customer mentions he has a contract with a competitor: ADT.
But the salesman says something shocking. He claims ADT has been sold. However, it wasn’t true. So the salesman misleads the customer.
Here you see that they are going quite far to make you a customer.
In the end, the homeowner didn’t feel comfortable with the salesmen and they were kindly asked to leave without making a sale.
When leaving the Vivint regional manager mumbled: ’’Ok, we can just shut it off, and have a good day’’.
#2: Horrific alarm went off by the faulty sensor
Imagine you just signed a contract you’re not sure about. On top of that, the alarms go off due to a wrongly installed sensor.
Out of panic, you rush out of the house since you get crazy from the ongoing alarm.
Well, this is a true story. A woman signed a contract for a residential alarm system with Vivint. Every month 50 dollars for a secured home.
The only thing: the alarm went off when she was home alone. Out of panic, she ran out of the house.
Later on, she found out, together with her neighbor, that one of the sensors on the 3rth floor was wrongly installed. This sensor was activating the alarm.
The poor woman wanted to get out of the contract, but Vivint wouldn’t let her go that easy. They refused to cancel the contract and advised her to unplug the residential alarm system.
After two years she decided to stop paying. Makes sense, since she doesn’t want to use the service and kindly asked to cancel the contract.
After she stopped paying, they contacted her demanding money.
Luckily, a spokesman of Vivint said her contract will be canceled and she will receive a refund.
Good thing that this one has a happy end, but sadly it had to take too long for a proper solution.
You might also like: Ring Motion Sensor Not Working: 3 Causes & Instant Fixes
#3: Pushy salesman
The other day I saw a meme on the Internet. It was a flying man with a cape. Then there were a mother and a child watching him.
So the child asked “Oh, is it a bird, or a plane? Or Superman?”
Then the cape man landed in front of them. And said with the widest smile possible “You need insurance?”
Yup, that’s how persistent salesmen can be.
Especially Vivint salesmen.
Some of them won’t leave until a sale has been made.
This happened to a couple. The salesman said to the wife that he wouldn’t leave until he made a sale.
Wow… the nerve of this guy, right?
Imagine this:
First, they come knocking at your door. And you open politely, of course. Then he won’t leave until a sale has been made…
The good thing was that the husband took control. He made clear to the salesman that if he wasn’t going to leave he would be physically removed from the property.
Luckily the pushy guy left.
#4: Finance tricks
The next one is real shady since it’s about tricking the system to qualify for financing.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, Vivint has around 1.5 million customers. And an average security system would cost around 1000 dollars.
You can imagine that some customers prefer financing on credit in this matter. However, to get the financing you need to be eligible. The Vivint salesmen will then do a check in the system to see if your credit report is good.
Unfortunately, not everybody passes credit verification. When this happened the salesmen found a workaround.
White paging
One workaround was White Paging. Some of the salesmen would look for unrelated people who had a similar name on the white pages.
When this unrelated person passed the credit check, they used this name. In that way, the sale became possible.
Name of a relative
The other workaround was to ask the customer for the name of someone else. For example a relative with a similar name.
They tried that name to pass the credit check. If the relative’s name passed the credit check, the salesmen used this. Of course, the relative didn’t know about this.
And to make it crazier, when these innocent people (the persons whose names were being used without their consent) wouldn’t pay the loan, Vivint would refer them to the debt collector. Even though they had nothing to do with the sale.
#5: Relocated but still had to pay
The next story is about a couple who had to pay for Vivint’s services. However, they wanted to cancel the contract a long time ago.
They got themselves a contract because they were thinking about a security system. But there was a big chance they had to relocate due to work.
Because of this, they asked specifically if they could cancel the contract when they had to relocate. The salesman told them this wouldn’t be a problem.
So, after 3 years they had to relocate due to work. The only thing was: they couldn’t get out of the contract.
So, they decided to stop paying for the service (which they didn’t use anymore).
But, Vivint is a tough cookie and sends it to the billing department because they want to charge them.
The thing for them was that they didn’t agree on automatic payments.
In the end, they paid the full contract, which was around 1800 dollars, and then walked off. Vivint removed his account from the billing department and that was the end.
#6: 10 accounts without a woman’s consent
As you know by now, the company uses some odd tactics to close the sale. According to a presentation in 2017 for Vivint executives they were informed about these odd tactics.
This one stood out: if a customer couldn’t make the payments, the salesmen would contact the customer service of Vivint. The salesmen would impersonate the customer and then pay the outstanding balance from the customer.
’’Why would they do that?’’
Well, when this outstanding balance was paid, the salesmen could qualify for a larger bonus.
Also, a woman from Detroit found out that Vivint used her name to open 10 accounts at Vivint. The innocent woman never heard about the whole company. Luckily her case got resolved and they restored her credit score.
The video you can find here:
And another woman in Texas was found 7 accounts. 15000 USD was told she was being owed to the company.
The company took measurements to prevent this in the future. They ordered to compensate some fines and fired hundreds of sales employees.
The only strange thing is: later on they hired some of them back.
#7: Vivint sign in the garden
The following story is a bit different. This man had a Vivint employee at his door.
He mentioned he didn’t work as a salesman, but sure did come across as a salesman. He asked the homeowner if they could place a Vivint sign in his yard.
This was to promote Vivint in the neighborhood. The crazy thing here: he didn’t own a Vivint security system. It was purely for promotion.
The purpose is that the neighbors would see it, and then sign up at Vivint as well. If he’d agreed he could choose some smart home items as compensation.
Of course, he asked if this would be for free. And the Vivant employee replied: ‘’Sorry, it’s not free, but we can offer you one of these items as a thank you”.
It’s highly likely that they used this sales tactic before.
#8: Customer couldn’t cancel the contract
This customer wanted to cancel the contract. He tried several times to call customer service to stop being charged.
Every time they said that they would ‘’Process the request’’ and that the supervisors are in meetings.
He already canceled the system and he didn’t have an annual contract.
How did it end? No clue.
#9: 9 installation appointments and no one showing up
This woman moved to a new house. Vivint would take care of the security equipment. They would remove it from the old house and install it in the new one.
Unfortunately, the tech person did an awful job. He made holes in the wall and left them. Also, the plaster caked up the wall and in the end, the job was unfinished. He had to come back later to finish it.
The only thing…he never came back. They made a new appointment. She and the husband made sure there would be somebody home to receive the tech person.
They made in total 9 different appointments. The tech guy never showed up… always something. Then sick, then car problems, no one knows, and so on…
In the meantime, they had to pay for the equipment. It’s been a nightmare for them and hopefully, it will end soon in a good way.
7 most common complaints about Vivint
We shared some horror stories about Vivint. However, we also gathered 7 of the most common complaints about Vivint.
Here’s a list:
- Pushy salesmen.
- Bad customer support.
- Deceptive contract terms.
- Cancelation of the contract.
- Expensive price of service.
- Charged despite after cancelation.
- Renewed contract without the customer’s consent.
There you have it. An interesting insight at Vivint.