Central Texas Security & Surveillance

Updated Review: I received a call from the owner today. Shawn was very upset at my initial review. He was very understanding of my point of view, and explained why my frustrations with my equipment were due to the age of the equipment. Shawn was actually present when our system first installed many years ago, and the system has never been upgraded.

Our company has grown exponentially and the system that was first put in place just can't handle all the work when are asking of it. Shawn and I had a great conversation about what is expected of a customer of theirs, as well as when we as customers expect out of them. My new rating is based on what Shawn and I discussed on the phone today, and with the future promise of working on new solutions to upgrade our equipment. Shawn is coming to our location to inspect and provide recommendations on what we need to get our system working they way I want it to.

Original Review: My company uses them, used them before I joined, and I took over the responsibility of working with them. There is always a service fee to have someone out, the techs always show up late or don't show up at all. Nothing is ever set the way we want it set even after we confirm before paying for techs arrival that we are asking for/wanting is feasible. The office line/customer support line is the worst.

Edit2: Large amount of ambiguity incoming. TL;DR - \_()_/ After being in a contract with Texas Security & Surveillance (TSS) for about 6.5 years, it turns out they were never in charge of my monitoring in the first place, and had sub-contracted or transferred monitoring services to a different company immediately after installation and contract signing (despite assurances by the homebuilder of being "monitored locally" being a major reason we wanted their services in the first place.) Take everything below with the grain of salt that I'm never 100% sure which entity I'm talking about (that is, 'company' can refer to either TSS or a separate company doing the actual monitoring and communications as if they were TSS, ) but since I as a customer didn't choose anything beyond TSS, it is still relevant for a consumer to be aware of. If, on the one extreme, none of the below was actually TSS, know only that this was my experience with whomever was monitoring my system, and in such a case, none of the statements or operational behaviors described below would be about TSS directly but about the company doing the monitoring on their behalf; I as a consumer could only hold TSS responsible for transferring services to a bad company. ---------- Edit: After discussing with the company, they have graciously waived the final balance mentioned below.

Rating has been improved accordingly. ---------- Absolute scam of a company; avoid at all costs. Over the years, several alarms were triggered with no response from the company. When we reached out to them to make sure everything was working (and that they were even monitoring at all, ) they said their system doesn't even pick up that the alarm has gone off until it's been going off for awhile (which makes you wonder what's even the point.) Spent several days trying to call and cancel, only to be passed around like a hot potato to different automated systems hoping we would give up.

Eventually we got ahold of one person who said that we were "too late" to cancel and the 6-year old contract which we didn't even get an initial copy of had a "gotcha" clause in there giving us a 30-day window all year to cancel, else it would auto-renew for apparently a full year of payments, according to TSS. Canceled anyway and services stopped being provided for us to only receive a 10-month bill all at once.

The bill arrived a month after the cancelation and claimed to be due the date of cancelation. Hire your next door neighbor for the same price instead; you'll get a better deal that way. It's even more hilarious if you read some of the reviews claiming this exact same issue only for the company to respond with "we're terribly sorry; customer service is our top priority. But you signed a contract that we intentionally wrote in a way to screw you over, so tough cookies."

Worst customer service ever! The only time they are responsive or get back to you is when they are asking for money. If you are calling for service, to cancel or for any other reason expect to spend ALOT of time on the phone and to call repeatedly. Our system stopped communicating with the main office during the freeze, we were informed of this 6 months later.

They finally came out to fix it. After several technicians and several months later it worked for about a month. Then our system started beeping, they had to shut the whole system down because they couldn't fix it. My husband and I called 4 different times to get someone out to fix the system and no one ever returned our call or came out to fix the system.

We finally switched to another service that was reliable and actually worked. We were then informed that we were still being charged and will continue to be charged until we canceled our service. I asked what they were charging us for since the entire system was shut down? I was also informed that I was calling the wrong number (apparently you are not supposed to call the local office) and that I, the customer, was responsible for calling once a month to make sure my equipment was working.

I have never had to jump through more hoops to get service from a company in my life. If you want to waste alot of time and money, use this company otherwise go with a more reliable company.

I have had TSS for about 3+ years and initially I was very pleased. However, that has changed over the past 3 months or so. I sent a request online for camera update info and no one responded. So I called the office to find out what was going on, they gave me the cell number of the rep that was supposed to have called me. I called and left a message 2 weeks ago, again NOTHING.

Then just this week I sent another request on line asking about my contract end date, still NOTHING. I will be ending my contract with them ASAP and looking for other options.

Buyer beware! We were told about the 3 year initial commitment, but there's never been a single word mentioned or any notice about the annual renewal every year locking you into another 12 month contract - it's probably written in the "how we screw you fine print".and they will not budge on this - kinda sucks because we've been paying $50+ per month for several years and hardly use the system as there's always someone home. I'll take responsibility for this one, but this review is to let everyone know about the fine print of their contract.

Short explanation for one star review: Poor customer service when canceling contract. I have been charged for three months of a contract I had canceled in Feb 2020 after completing a 3-year contract (I have the cancelation confirmation in writing from their customer service). After numerous emails and phone calls with "customer service", I received no help and felt no sense of urgency from the company.

I recently issued a block on my credit card and have disputed the past three charges, something I have NEVER done before. I have yet to have this company step up, take ownership, and do the right thing of resolving their mistake which so far has cost me hundreds of extra dollars. I plan to file a complaint with the BBB shortly.

They have a nice gotcha clause in the fine print that you are supposed to remember 3 years later. Not that I didn't call ahead of time to inquire about when the contract would 6 months before it was set to expire, and NONE of the agents I spoke with remembered to mention the written cancellation notice. Imagine that. Screwing over consumers one day at a time. Terrible customer service, unemphatic and unprofessional customer service.

Contract Auto Extension issues. We understood initially that we were under a 2 year contract and so we gave notice that we wanted to end the contract. The written contract showed 3 years somehow, so we stuck with it. However, they still did not end our contract at the end of three years, and extended the contract without notice. (even though we had previously instructed them we did not want the contract to renew) We never received any invoices past our initial contract, and almost a year later we received a notice of being sent to collection.! Our office manager called as discussed, and Texas Security said if we sign another 3 year contact they will waive the past due amount!

If I could give this company ZERO stars, I would. We attempted to cancel our contract at our last house, but after finding out we were in a 3 YEAR agreement we were talked into finishing it out and paying the $45/month while not using the system whatsoever. They were well aware that we had no desire to continue. Well, this time we moved across country from Texas to Wisconsin. Knowing our contract was up the SAME month, I called to ensure we were finally finished with this mess and could was our hands of this company. Unfortunately, they told us that our contract automatically renewed and we were on the hook for another 11 months!

No notice, no phone call, nothing. Worst customer service. How do they not put notes in the account or anything? We don't even know how this company is still in business. It's clearly all about money and not saving these important customer relationships. Terrible! We do not even live in the same state of the monitoring service anymore, but are required to pay the rest of the year.

As a military veteran, their service is not accommodating to anyone in or out of the service. We will literally only be paying the remainder of the year, while not even being in the same STATE as our service, because I have worked way too hard on keeping my credit score high.

Put quickly, I recommend Texas Security & Surveillance without pause due to the fact that they truly care about their customers and will work to make sure everything is right if/ when anything happens. The longer version: I've been with TSS for over two years. After I updated my router I realized there was an error with my monitoring. Even though it took some digging, the owner, Shawn, worked tirelessly to get to the bottom of what was happening.

He sent his best team to come fix my system and made sure that billing was reflected for any disruptions. We ended up talking several times into the evening, during the weekend and beyond. I am confident in his dedication towards doing the right thing. If good service is important to you, and you'd like to work with a locally owned business, I can't imagine doing business with anyone better than Texas Security & Surveillance.