A B.C. man continued to be charged for cancelled home security alarm monitoring for five years after he told the company he no longer wanted their service.
The company, ADT Canada, ignored his request and kept deducting money from the man’s bank account — even three years after he died and his apartment had been sold.
“A company that is meant to keep people safe is actually ripping people off,” said the man’s daughter, Anne Janzen, of Vancouver.
Elton Janzen of Surrey, B.C., died on Nov. 25, 2015. He was 87.
Two years earlier, he and his daughter had attempted to cancel Elton’s ADT security monitoring. But the company continued to assess charges and withdrew money from his bank account, which was still active, his daughter says.
Janzen says ADT made it very difficult to cancel the service. She says she had previously attempted to cancel the service, but company representatives insisted on speaking to her father, who was incapable of coming to the telephone at the time.
“This was ongoing, this process of trying to cancel it. And we thought several times that we managed to do that,” she said.
Global News made repeated efforts to reach ADT Canada for comment, including making phone calls and sending emails to the company’s offices in Boca Raton, Fla., and Mississauga, Ont., where its Canadian head office is located. Messages and emails were not returned.
Janzen contacted Global News and hired a lawyer to draw attention to her situation.
“It wasn’t until I … contacted media and a lawyer that I got cheques three days later,” she said.
Janzen says ADT agreed her father’s estate would be repaid almost $2,500 for the overbilling.
Originally, she says the company sent her a credit voucher for ADT services worth $2,000. She was not interested.
Then, she says, despite assurances from ADT about addressing the issue, the company only returned about $1,700. She is refusing to cash the cheques until the full amount is returned.
In 2018, when Janzen discovered that her father’s account was still being charged, she prevented the automatic withdrawals from going through.
At that point, despite her father’s death, she says ADT sent the new bills to a collection agency and still tried to collect from her deceased father.
“I said: ‘You’re going to have a tough time getting hold of him because he passed away three years ago,’” Janzen explained.
She says collection agents also threatened to sue her personally for outstanding invoices, even though her name was not on any contract for service.