Arkansas AG sues APX

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—The Arkansas Attorney General's office on Sept. 10 announced it was suing summer-model giant APX Alarm for violating state door-to-door solicitation laws and “deceiving Arkansas consumers,” but APX executives believe that further investigation will reveal that's not the case.

“It would appear that the Attorney General's office has not investigated the issues thoroughly,” said Stuart Dean, spokesman for APX Alarm on Sept. 14. “Many of the allegations are contrary to what the customers would have represented to us during the pre-install survey that all new customers must complete before any system can be placed in the home.”

Dean said that APX was providing “information to the AG that will show what these customers represented to us and that they were aware of the terms of the agreement.” Once the AG has an opportunity to review this information, Dean said. “We are confident this will resolve the issue.”

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel filed the complaint in Pulaski County Circuit Court. According to a press release from the AG's office, the complaint says “APX salesmen misled consumers regarding the product they were selling, its price, and the terms of the monthly monitoring fees. Some customers were led to believe that APX was affiliated with a competitor and was there to upgrade the consumer's existing system when APX actually replaced the existing system with one from APX. APX also marketed its alarm as free, but failed to disclose that customers would be charged installation and monitoring fees, or disclosed the fees only after the alarm had been installed.”

The filing says there are 37 complaints. The AG is seeking a fine of $10,000 per complaint, full restitution for each of those customers.

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