This company has been trouble for years, and now we are on the cusp of going with Comcast, despite our immense and intense dislike of that company. We feel stuck between the least trouble of two evils. Not the lesser of two evils--just the one that is the least hassle.
When we moved into our house, we thought we would be happy with a local company that seemed to be pretty sophisticated for our home security. We like to support local businesses.
But then our system started having trouble. And every time we had problems, it was a hassle to get somebody out for service. These people do not know how to provide service and support.
It turned out that our system needed to be upgraded because apparently they did not install one with a sufficient wireless range for the size of our house. Or at least that is what the service guy said when they finally diagnosed the problem--the next time somebody came out, they denied that. So that was a few thousand dollars more, and we grumbled, but the system was working again, at least.
Then a few years ago we wanted to add a video system. That was a hassle, just trying to get somebody to contact us to sell us more stuff. They had a sales guy who apparently had not figured out how to respond to email. Eventually, after several attempts, we managed to get through, and got some guys out to show us a FLIR system and get it installed. That was another few thousand dollars.
Almost immediately, the video system had problems. It was not picking up motion as it was supposed to do, and we were not getting push notifications to our phones. As well, for whatever reason, the feature on the system that allows it to connect periodically to a clock server to reset its clock does not work, so we have a system with a clock that runs fast and frequently has to be manually reset. And, again, getting people out for service has been a hassle.
Now, a couple weeks ago, our system just stopped sending motion notifications altogether. So my wife called to get somebody out. Nobody was available that day, so she set an appointment for 8:00 this morning. Nobody showed. Around 9:00, she called to find out what was going on. They first acted like they had nothing, but then said something about (inexplicably) having two different appointment systems (why?!), and told us that the person scheduled for our house in Fresno was on his way to Visalia and would not be available until this afternoon! That just about did it for us, because we had taken the day off to handle a variety of service matters, and did not appreciate this level of disrespect for our time. I let loose and laid into them on the phone for this nonsense.
A little while later, they called back and said they would be able to "move some things around" and send a technician this morning. But then the lady on the phone wanted to know what I meant when earlier I had said they had been nothing but trouble. So I recounted the long story of irritation. She repeated that someone would be coming out.
He did come, but then he was not able to do anything, and said it was a problem with the FLIR system. So now FLIR is supposed to be working on the matter from their end. I understand that kind of problem, and I would have expected FLIR to be better than that, but Sebastian is selling FLIR stuff, and we spent a lot of money on it, so I would hope that Sebastian is fighting hard with FLIR to ensure that their customers are not stuck with these downstream problems. I have not much faith that they are.
The really frustrating thing is that we have spent so much money on equipment, and I worry that finding another company, like Comcast, to provide better service, will result in our needing to spend thousands of dollars more in different equipment. So we feel a little stuck, and very unhappy.
Update: It has been over a week since we heard from Sebastian about the matter with the FLIR system. It still does not work. When we had the FLIR system installed, I asked what the subscription cost would be for the push notifications. The installer said there was no subscription cost. That surprised me, but okay. I thought that Sebastian would be (or want to be) reputable enough that they would not be selling a junk system with no support, and I thought FLIR was a good enough company that this would not be problem. "Maybe they make their money on the hardware," I said to myself. Apparently not. The push notifications have now been non-functional for over a month, and Sebastian has been non-responsive for over a week. I would give them zero stars, if I could.
Further update: On top of all that, this company had the gall to send us a bill for this--just to try and make the system they sold us do what they represented it would do. read more
