BOCA RATON, Fla. and DALLAS--Fed up with customer complaints about lying, cheating and stealing by door-to-door salespeople, ADT and Monitronics this month have filed lawsuits against the salespeople themselves.

"We want to deliver a message loud and clear that if you're a door-to-door salesperson who lies about your affiliation [saying you're affiliated with ADT when you're not, or engaging in other unscrupulous behavior], ADT is going to come after you," said David Bleisch, chief legal officer for ADT. ADT has received complaints from 22 different states, he said.

Bleisch called for an "industry code of ethics" that would spell out guidelines for door-to-door salespeople. "We are going to talk to industry players and work with them and industry organizations to propose a code and prepare a draft," Bleisch said. Asked if Monitronics would support the creation of a code of ethics, Mitch Clarke, Monitronics' VP of marketing, called the idea "a positive thing." The challenge will be "working out compliance and enforcement," he said, but having the industry "adopt a code that sets out the right set of things to do across the board is a good idea. Good business brings good business," he said.

ADT this month filed three separate lawsuits against door-to-door salespeople. Employees of Pinnacle Security, a summer-sales model company based in Orem, Utah, are named in two of the suits. Monitronics--which settled a lawsuit with Pinnacle involving charges of deceitful sales practices and use of insider information in 2007, what Monitronics called a "vast scheme"--filed three separate lawsuits this summer. Each of the lawsuits names more than one defendant, and all are Pinnacle Security employees.

Kelly Walker, Pinnacle president, said he was unable to comment on the pending litigation, "particularly where we are not a party to the litigation. Nevertheless, Pinnacle Security is committed to maintaining high levels of professional conduct by our independent contractors and we take any allegation of misconduct seriously."

ADT's Bleisch emphasized that it has not singled out Pinnacle Security, however: "This is not an ADT versus Pinnacle problem, this is a security industry problem involving any door-to-door sales person who acts unlawfully." He said that ADT was preparing to file more lawsuits against other salespeople who were from companies other than Pinnacle Security.

Why sue salespeople and not the company they work for? "We sued the people that committed the fraud," Bleisch said. However, he said, ADT is not discounting the possibility that the company may have been instructing the sales people in deceptive practices.

A Vision Security salesperson was named in one of the ADT lawsuits, as well. Vision Security is a summer-model sales company based in Orem, Utah. SeeClarke, of Monitronics, was unable to comment specifically on the Monitronics lawsuits, saying litigation is ongoing.

ADT's Bleisch noted that ADT does not have a problem with the practice of door-to-door sales or summer-sales model security companies, per se. In fact, many ADT dealers, including some of its largest dealers, derive much of their business from door-to-door sales.

Bleisch said he hopes to have a door-knocking code of ethics in place by the spring of 2010. "It's our belief that the legitimate summer sales dealers will want to sign on to this," he said.

Comments

N/A says: (50 weeks ago) September 18th, 2009 - 03:59 am

I am one of the salesman named in this cruel act of hypocrisy. Everything that I did was honest true sales practices and yet they manipulated customers into creating allegations. No one has ever questioned taking someone's business before? Have you seen the new all state commercial come to us and we will switch and cancel your old company for you. Stop being hypocrites you take business from other companies everyday!

jeff says: (52 weeks ago) September 09th, 2009 - 10:47 pm

i sell home security for pinnacle. ADT MONOTRONICS do the same damn thing. often worse. my bread and butter comes from switching out those adt and monotronics accounts because their systems are crap and service is costly. most adt and monotronics systems aren't up to date with todays technology and that's why they get switched out and they are unhappy and losing all their profit money.

Lisa says: (52 weeks ago) September 06th, 2009 - 05:03 pm

That's odd, because I had a guy named Tom from ADT come to my house telling me lies trying to switch me from my current service. Later I went online and researched what he was mentioning and he was full of it. Glad I didn't let him. Also David, after looking into your comment, I couldn't agree any more. Both of these companies "ADT & MONITRONICS" I have discovered have an absolute HORRIBLE REPUTATION!!!

David says: (52 weeks ago) September 03rd, 2009 - 04:32 pm

How insulting to hear that a non-U.S. company who's former CEO was jailed for racketeering, has been sued by the SEC, stock/bond holders and several states for fraud, admits to not basing itself in the U.S. to save millions of dollars in taxes, moved their bank accounts to Switzerland, and has class action lawsuits with their dealers, would be in a position to write an "ethics" code for U.S. security companies.

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