billing

On May 5, 2006, Rodney Manalo of Centurion Alarm, who originally

installed the alarm system in our house and set up the Monitronics

account, filled out the forms with us to cancel Monitronics and set up

service with Counterforce since at that time Monitronics service did not

work with VoIP phone service. Since we no longer had a traditional land

line telephone, the alarm was getting several errors because Monitronics

could not connect to the system.. As per Monitronics terms, a written

notice of cancellation was sent to them on May 12, 2006 by Rodney Manalo

from the forms that we signed in our home.

A billing error was brought to my attention when I told my husband that

I sent the Counterforce contract info to our insurance agent when

renewing our annual home owner's insurance and my husband said, "Wait,

who is Counterforce again because Monitronics is still taking money out

of my account?". As verified with Monitronics customer service rep today

(December 28, 2007), Kayla, they received our cancellation notice on May

22, 2006. Direct draft billing has continued from our bank account for

19 months. Kayla stated that they choose not to accept our cancellation

notice by saying it was not signed. I asked them to show me the copy

because I clearly remember signing cancellation paperwork for Rodney

Manalo. I was told no, they would not send it to me and that if I want

to try and get it that I need to subpoena it. I also asked what about

the $542.26 that was fraudulently taken from my husband=92s checking

account and was told since they decided not to accept our cancellation

that there is nothing we can do to get a refund. She also said billing

would continue until we sent in another written notice of cancellation

with our signatures, account number, and account password. I stated that

I did not know the password since we have not used them in almost 2

years. She just repeated her comment about billing will continue. I

again asked how can I send that in again if I don=92t know the password.

She said she could not give that to me and it=92s not her problem. I then=

told her that if they continue to take money from our account, I will

file a lawsuit against them for fraud. She laughed and said there is

nothing I can do to recover that money and repeated again about sending

in a notice. We have already sent them a notice and they continue to

steal money from us. We have contacted our bank and are filling out the

required forms to stop Monitronics from drafting our account.

I called back a second time to speak with a manager. At first Kayla told

me that if I didn=92t give her the account number to pull up the account,=

she could not give me a manager. I told her she knows who this is as I

just got off the phone with her 2 minutes prior and that an account

number is not necessary to transfer a call to management. After being

put on hold for 15 minutes, the =93manager=94 who I think said her name w=

as

Jane but I'm not sure, basically repeated the same chant that Kayla did.

She also added in that they called me on May 26, 2006 to tell me that

they would not accept the cancellation letter. I quickly pulled up my

Vonage phone account and did an incoming call search for that date. I

told her that was a lie. No one from Monitronics called us or anyone

from the Dallas metro area called us on or around that date. I also

informed her that as a Vonage VoIP customer, I can pull up my incoming

and outgoing call records and print out the report as proof that there

was no call. She did not comment on that and just said that since there

was nothing that she could help me with, then good day.

I have filled a complaint with the BBB in Dallas. I have also contacted

Rodney Manaolo and Timothy Kovar with Centurion Alarm Services. Rodney

stated to me that I am not the first customer that Monitronics has done

this to and after a brief search on complaints.com I can see that their

company has recently done this to others.

I want this account completely closed and a refund of $542.26 for the

fraudulent billing of the past 19 months and no future drafts taken from

our account.

The Monitronics account number is 2977917 and is in the name of Marc

Palacios.

Can you help me with this? Do I need to file a civil lawsuit against

them in my county of residence? Also, should I file criminal charges?

Pamela Palacios

League City, Texas

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