Spy Alarms Reviews 

I spoke to a very helpful young man called Norman this morning who very quickly & efficiently sorted out my problem.
I will definitely be asking to speak to him again should I need any help.
Thank you Norman,
Lyn.

We had a new router installed on Monday from Sky, so the alarm system wasn't working due to connectivity issues. Chris helped me and advised me step by step over the phone. He was very patient that's for sure. Thank you for your technical support Chris!!! Great service.

Tech team were great resolved my problem within 1 hour

My call was returned very promptly and my query addressed and answered in 2 minutes. This is a very rare service these days.

We had an annual maintenance visit booked for 1st July. The engineer didn't turn up. When I called I was told the visit had been cancelled, but they couldn't tell me why. There had been no warning.
I have a new booking for 14th July, wondering if that will happen.

Update: I have received an apology from Spy by phone and email, and I will update again after the 14th July visit.

Further update : Engineer Paul arrived for afternoon appointment as booked, and carried out the routine alarm service efficiently.

We were told a maintenance visit had been scheduled.

We waited in all day for the engineer to turn up.

When we called to ask where the engineer was, we were told we hadn't confirmed the visit. The email informing us of the date of the visit did NOT mention that we needed to confirm the date, so we didn't. Their system automatically cancelled the visit, and even worse didn't tell us it had cancelled it.

For the first time our experience was amazing from both engineer who came out on a weekend plus Service desk Sara who helped amend my invoice.

I am writing this review to warn others about the appalling customer service we experienced with Spy Alarms.
We recently moved into a new home where an alarm system installed by Spy Alarms was already present. We had never used the system and had no intention of doing so. However, one morning at 6:00 am, the alarm randomly began blaring.
In a state of panic and frustration, I called Spy Alarms simply asking for instructions on how to turn the unit off. Instead of offering any basic assistance or technical support, the representative used the opportunity to hold us over a barrel. They refused to provide any guidance unless we agreed to pay exorbitant call-out charges in excess of £300, or alternatively, force us into a new 2-year service contract at a cost of circa £200 per year which enabled a slightly lower call-out charge.
It is completely unacceptable to use a customer’s distress as a tactic to extract money.
Thankfully, we did not buckle under this pressure. With the help of AI, we were able to quickly determine that we could resolve the issue ourselves by removing the fuse and allowing the battery to drain.
Spy Alarms had a clear opportunity to provide helpful customer service and potentially build a positive relationship with new homeowners. Instead, they chose to act in a predatory manner. Shame on them for their lack of integrity and customer care. Avoid this company.

The real question is What went right??!

Spy Alarms:

•Purchased my previous alarm servicing and monitoring provider and flocked it up from day one.

•Didn't contact my as a customer to say they had done so or to make me aware of anything changing at all.

•Didn't arrange servicing as per my previous alarm company ALWAYS had done and services were skipped.

•I did not receive both paid-for services due to me in the only year I worked with this company because they are a total mess and failed to book the second (or the first!)

•Admitted later they had no accurate records from the company they bought regarding due services or installs.

•Having not been contacted at my typical june service time, I chased them in august and booked a service with spy and arranged engineer attendance from 12-3. They then confirmed by email which said I had a Morning slot which ran 8-1. Why book me 12-3 and then confirm 8-1? useless.

•Sent a service engineer who didn't show up in the agreed hours and whom then tried to suggest I turned him away because he was hours late and I was no longer at the premises as agreed with their servicing department.

•Organised another service engineer who showed up and insisted he was only servicing half my system.

•Customer services promised a free battery to make up for series of flock-ups but evidently didn't write that down and then attempted to refuse it (ultimately giving it)

•Upon cancelling with them they Insisted I be held to a 3 month termination notice period despite no contract with them (later accepted they had no legal standing to)

•Failed to provide me with passwords, or use passwords allocated by my previous provider for the monitoring station which meant I was unable to stop a triggered alert. (accepted later that they had flocked this up and would learn)

•Did not disconnect monitoring at the end of my contract resulting in triggering of persistent alerts from monitoring station when I moved to my new provider which could not be stopped for hours.

•In trying to get this stopped, I contacted a senior customer services team-member I had been allocated who was away and due back the next day. She then contacted me about this urgent matter 15 (FIFTEEN DAYS!) days later and had not even taken the time to figure out who I am, instead asking to "remind her" despite our entire previous history of talking in the email! I felt so special.

Spy alarms didn't just get it wrong, there is a flusterflock of flockups here. I genuinely believe the owners and management believe they are a brilliant business and that they genuinely care about their reputation but it is obvious from a country mile that this company has too many inexperienced and under-skilled people quietly quitting amongst it's ranks. Management blamed customer service staff being new, and whilst they admitted this was not a good enough excuse, they still gave it!

I was given a lot of well intentioned hot air by various senior management at each stage of them flocking up. They admitted mistakes, poor implementation of their acquisition of the alarm company I was previously with for 10 years and getting it wrong and wanted to "restore my confidence" yet every time I thought they couldn't flock up again and yet they did- over and over.

The notion that this business can be trusted is in my opinion insane. I would not work with this company ever again.

Edit. Following the senior customer service agents comments below, some additional thoughts:

She contact me 15 days later didn't say "I hear you had everything handled by my colleague but do let me know if there is anything else I can do" instead saying "Thank you for your email and I apologise for my delay in responding. Of course that would be no problem at all, could you kindly remind me of your postcode and the name on the account please."

Either you didn't read the email, or you genuinely were trying to help me 15 days late. Either way, what a mess.

You say you are seeking to understand what went wrong in my experience with Spy Alarms. This would be fine had I not already spent 30 minutes on the phone to you (actually you, not a colleague) telling you everything which went wrong.

You seemed so genuinely engaged in learning from my experience and resolving those issues within your company and now you can't even remember that we spoke let alone the plethora of issues I had? Did you not write notes?

There really is no reason to ever speak again, I am not a customer of Spy Alarms any more. My review cites genuine experiences and it has been an evidently wasted opportunity by yourselves to learn- given I have spent literal hours on the phone to you and your colleagues who promised to use these as learning opportunities - yet now you can't even remember that we spoke!

Best of luck!

The next door's useless scaffolders knocked my cctv camera out of alignment. I called Spy Alarms and the engineer Antonio was absolutely brilliant resetting the camera and adjusting it to its original setting. This was not a simple job as the engineer took over half an hour to secure the camera in place repeatedly ascending and descending the ladder. Antonio was brilliant and a great credit to the Spy Alarms Ltd.

Spy acquired our former provider and for a while we experienced no problems but when we have needed an emergency call out the response has been very poor and I believe that they do not have enough experienced engineers to cover the widened customer base, so cannot recommend.

Our alarm had stopped setting and an engineer sorted out the issue over the phone with no visit required.

Great Service. Highly professional service. A great experience. The engineer who attended to my matter was excellent.

Great service. Knowledgeable and helpful

Appointment made in advance. On time arrival of engineer. Work undertaken efficiently.

Another excellent service by the engineer. Definitely knew his stuff.

Main reason for posting is they kept their word from last year about keeping the subscription the same due to an issue last year. Impressive when everything is increasing. Thank you too Becky.

Utterly refused for 3 years to take me off mailing lists and keep booking appointments I have not asked for. Deeply unprofessional and a GDPR compliant has been lodged. Would avoid using.

Timely response to my request - I needed 2 new key fobs and, once I had submitted the required information, they were sent the same day. Once they had arrived I was able, with a tech specialist on the phone, to programme them myself. Everyone was very helpful

We are so disappointed with Spy Alarms. We have been with Guardian Alarms for 14 years without any issues, but since Spy alarms took over it’s absolutely chaos. We were told in January that smoke detector needed to be replaced, the 1st attempt to replace it we were told the Engineer ordered the wrong part, then 2, a second engineer came but didn’t know which smoke detector needed to be replaced, 3 the 3rd attempt, the engineer rang over his time and could not make and 4 now we were told the part ordered had not arrived although the appointment was made over 2 weeks ago. My question would be, why was this not chased up during this period and why we were not contacted on Friday to inform us of the matter. The staff are courteous and offer platitudes, however this does not help solve the matter and impacts the safety of our house. All we ask for is professionalism and the matter to be resolved.