Conn.-Based Security Company to Pay $5M Over Customer Complaints
The Attorney General’s Office says it heard from hundreds of angry consumers who were locked into bad contracts and left with broken and poorly installed equipment by Safe Home Security.
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HARTFORD, Conn. — Residential security company Safe Home Security has agreed to pay a $5 million settlement to resolve long-standing consumer complaints, Connecticut officials announced last week.
Attorney General William Tong and Consumer Protection Commissioner Michelle H. Seagull said Middletown, Conn.-based Safe Home Security “repeatedly failed over many years to comply with court-ordered consumer protection measures.”
Tong says he has “heard from hundreds of angry consumers who were locked into bad contracts and left with broken and poorly installed equipment.”
The Office of the Attorney General first initiated a lawsuit against Safe Home Security in 2007 after numerous complaints about the security company. Consumers complained that the alarm and monitoring systems were often defective or negligently installed, that technicians were not regularly available and missed appointments, and that long-term contracts did not comply with Connecticut law and were renewed automatically without giving consumers an opportunity to cancel the contract, according to the Office.
The state reached a settlement with the company in 2014 requiring $30,000 in customer restitution, a $70,000 civil penalty to the state, and injunctive provisions relating to Safe Home’s compliance with auto-renewal statutes, debt collection statutes and statutes relating specifically to companies engaged in the residential alarm business.
However, even after the settlement, the state continued to receive hundreds of complaints regarding the company’s business practices. The Office of the Attorney General filed a motion for contempt in 2019 claiming that the company continued to block consumers from terminating long-term contracts, misrepresented the terms of contracts to consumers, charged consumers for services when the consumers’ alarm systems weren’t working, and other conduct.
The new judgment stipulation filed on March 8 represents a settlement between the State and Safe Home to resolve claims brought by the State in its motion for contempt. When it is entered by the Court, the judgment will require Safe Home Security to pay $1 million within 10 months, with the remaining $4 million suspending pending their compliance with the judgment.
The judgement also states that Safe Home Security must hire an independent monitor to review their compliance for a period of five years.
“Safe Home is a highly respected company with satisfied customers across the country,” said Joseph Lipari, outside counsel for Safe Home Security. “Significantly, there was no finding of liability or wrongdoing, and Safe Home simply settled the suit with the attorney general as a business decision and in order to avoid protracted litigation.”
You can read the full statement from the Attorney General’s Office here.
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