Did you get that dreaded knock on the door?

“We really like your location here because you’re right in the middle of the street and lots of traffic goes by.” Or, “We love your yard because it’s well-kept and you’re right on the corner, so we’d like to advertise with this Northstar sign in your yard.”

Chances are likely that you did and it may have even been this same salesperson that was on your doorstep who later writes on his blog:

“I don’t want to say that all salespeople are dishonest. I’m just saying that to be a great door-to-door salesperson for Northstar Alarm, you have to bend the truth.”
And
“It’s a strange day, filled with uncertainties and worries, but also joy and relief. We were so happy that we didn’t have to face another day knocking on doors and waking up people from naps and bothering people and deceiving them and working with money-driven not-that-cool people.”

Ironic isn’t it, a company that is pitching to sell you a product that is supposed to protect you when they, themselves, are robbing you blind!

The person that stood in my doorway did the same, lied to me. In my own house!
Come to find out, there are numerous people throughout the entire country who have fallen prey to the deceptive practices of NorthStar.

The Better Business Bureau, to date, has received 169 complaints against this company in the preceding 36 months. Of which, 101 complaints are categorized as Contract Issues (74) and Sales Practice Issues (24), which is consistent with most of the complaints I’ve see posted on-line. Sure, the BBB claims that all 169 of those complaints have been resolved. However, upon further review of their process, the BBB has closed 133 of those complaints “assumed satisfied” because they do not get any more correspondence back from the complainant. That calculates to 78% of the complaints that are listed as closed are actually “assumed satisfied”! Presumably because the person who opens the complaint gets discouraged. All the BBB does is collect data basically and has no authority over companies but it does provide for a pattern of business practices, as the records can later be opened by sopena but the details are not readily available to you or I.

In addition to filing your complaint with the BBB, you need to open a complaint with the Attorney General in your state and/or District US Attorneys. The AG does similar to the BBB, collects and monitors complaints about companies but they can actually do something about it. They do not/can not represent individuals in court but they will file suit in the name of the state if they feel that it is in the best interest of the public. I have already sent correspondence to all of the States AG Offices where NorthStar transacts business but you need to do the same!

Lastly, find out who the Regulatory Services for NorthStar is in your state. If you are in Texas, it is the Private Security Bureau. http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/psb/ This is who actually licenses them to conduct business in the state. In accordance to Rule 35.36 of the Private Security Administrative Rules they are required to inform you of the Private Security Bureau for the purpose of filing complaints. The PSB info is not anywhere on their contract because they use the same contract in multiple states and my guess is the installer didn’t inform you verbally either.

Now for the details of Deceptive Trade Practices: NorthStar first violated State and Federal Law when they misrepresented the terms of the contract and your right to cancel. Many of us were told that we could cancel anytime within the 1st year or that it was a shorter contract than what you actually signed. Title 16 Rule 429 of the Federal Trade Commission Act describes your right to cancel.

Additionally, they are required to leave you with 2 copies of the notice of cancellation; 1 to keep and 1 to send. Now how many of you were just left with the pink copy as I was?? The white is labeled as the Corporate copy and the yellow is the Area copy how can they satisfy this federal law if their carbon forms didn’t provide enough to do so??

Finally, according to this law the Muchant must not:
(c) Fail, before furnishing copies of the “Notice of Cancellation” to the buyer, to complete both copies by entering the name of the seller, the address of the seller's place of business, the date of the transaction, and the date, not earlier than the third business day following the date of the transaction, by which the buyer may give notice of cancellation.

NorthStar failed to provide the name, address and date of transaction on the version of the notice that I received.

(e) Fail to inform each buyer orally, at the time the buyer signs the contract or purchases the goods or services, of the buyer's right to cancel.

My guess is they lied to you too about your right to cancel.

(f) Misrepresent in any manner the buyer's right to cancel.

This one is obvious, there are numberous people who say the same thing.

Despite all of the complaints to the BBB, the Director of Operations for NorthStar, Ben Billingsley claims "NorthStar takes regulatory complaince very seriously and routinely evalutaes it's systems and procedures to ensure its regulatory complaince. NorthStar also makes regular efforts to appropriately train and encourage its representatives regarding regulatory complaince. In fact, although NorthStar has a number of representatives in a number of states, it has encountered very few problems involving its representatives"

Sounds to me like he probably wrote the book for the other liars. I will be going and handing out pamphets with BBB, AG and PSB info to the other houses in my neighborhood and I need more people who are fed up with these guys to do the same. Add @gmail to the end of NorthStarIsInViolationOfDTPA to contact me and do the same.

We signed a contract with these guys in June of 2003 when a salesman came by our home. It seemed like a decent deal- service charges of $50/month for 3 years in return for a security system and service for those months. We soon found that the service was a ripoff, as we didn't receive anything from it even when the alarm went off. That being said- we called in July of 2006 to see when we could cancel and what the termination fee would be. There was a stiff penalty involved (I can't remember how much), so we agreed verbally on the phone to have the service through our termination date of June 2007.

1st part of the scam: Fast forward to June 2007. My wife calls Northstar and tells them that we would now like to terminate our contract. They tell us that we can't cancel over the phone. We must write a written request to cancel the service. This is the first part of the scam- make the customer physically write a letter, and hope that the customer doesn't get in the cancellation request on time.

2nd part of the scam: When we talked to Northstar on the phone, the representatives NEVER mentioned that our written cancellation request had to be made 60 days prior to the cancellation date. So we wrote the cancellation notice and sent it in. I then received a letter back saying that they couldn't cancel the service in June 2007 because of this issue.

3rd part of the scam: The letter I received also stated that since they did not receive my cancellation notice in time, that my contract would be extended until June 2008!

Somehow they got a full extra year out of this contract. Do I have the time to fight it? No. It is not worth the money. I did tell them repeatedly over the phone that the extra $600 they made from me would sacrifice their business and reputation in my town and neighborhood, and I will spend the rest of my life destroying their reputation whenever the 'home security' subject comes up.