Complaint Review: Vivint Smart Home Security - Provo Utah

I am a customer of Vivint and have been so for 2 years, but against my will and all better judgement.  Day 1, after signing as a customer from a visit of door to door Vivint sales person, they went to work within the hour, the night prior to me leaving on vacation to install their system.  At 10 PM, the contractor busted a chunk of stucco and concrete off my wall big enough to put your fist in, damaging my home, so I had to stop installation short of completely bring done. 

It took 6 months of fighting with Vivint to get their claims office to fix my damage and even then they sent me a terrible contractor who left a half done crap job and was apparent that it was done by an amateur. It had to be redone again by the same person before Vivint would pay for the damage.  At that point, I went back to Vivint and repedidely asked for them to continue the install and add 4 more security cameras, to which their reply was that they couldn't, because the financing was signed off on, past the point where any changes could be done and wouldn't budge on adding the cameras, lest I pay $4500.00 out of pocket, to which I replied, more or less..

you can go to h*$@, as I had already dropped around $5000.00 through their financing.  Bottom line, the system was not completed, during or after the fact, and I have only 2 cameras and needed 6.  

Over the course of the next year, from Dec 2018 to about late 2020, October, about 1 year ago, I have had numerous problems with Vivint Technology that was installed.

1. Although I purchased the system and the control hub, I don't know how to gain access to super user features to manage the wireless network to the cameras and remote devices. They won't allow the customer to have that login information to their own equipment.

2. The location of the hub is central to my home, but doesn't have enough signal strength by itself to reach beyond 38% strength to the cameras and is worse to the doorbell camera which has failed 3 times in 2 years and has had to be replaced by nothing short of full on arguments with support and management due to their sheer uneducated knowledge of how their own equipment works and a mindframe that a customer couldn't possibly know more than they do.

3. The alarm has went off, and passwords entered correctly and system disabled, but still have dispatch come over my loudspeaker only to tell them it's another failure.  

4. The android app, with brand new, top of the line Samsung high speed smartphones, with a pile of ram and processing power crashes and hangs constantly.  The alerts when people ring the door bell, doesn't allow fast enough access to speak to anyone at the camera before they leave.  Completely useless to my office and home, considering I need fast response and knowledge of my surroundings.

5. Short of all of the above problems, they still process ACH transactions for payments out of my checking account although the software, hardware and customer service is garbage at best.

6. Their account management verification server is offline, and has been for months, with a backend server HTTP 404 message.  I, nor anyone else on the planet can login on the computer to see their account status, reset passwords for their own account, see status of financing, amount owed or anything related to the account, because of this.

After calling support, and informing them of the major problem, and asking for escalation to a manager they said they could submit a software request with a 5 day turnaround time, which would be an enhancement request, not an emergency.  When I asked them how a security company support line doesn't have an emergency escalation number, they told me they were never given one.  I said, that is piss poor for a company who is in the "security business", whereas a customer can't manage their own account online.  

I would, in a hot second rip this equipment out and pitch it out in the road, but the damage that Vivint had to do to install it would be visible.  I have holes for every camera, the hub, drilled holes for door sensors, window sensors, glass break sensors and a ton of other crap.  

Avoid doing business with these guys.  If I had a piece of advise to pass along, it would be to hire your nosy neighbor and their guard dog before ever humoring Vivint to be your security company.. you will have better results.