Legal Question in Civil Litigation in South Carolina

I originally bought a Safe Home Security system soon after I bought my home in 2007. The original contract called for free equipment if I signed and paid a 2 year contract. I paid the contract monthly for the 2 year term. In 2010 a Safe Home Security sales representative called me regarding an extension to my contract. Even though I honored my original contract, paid off the equipment, continued to honor the original contract above and beyond the end date he advised an extension was needed to continue to monitor my home. I never used Safe Home Security during this time to report an incident and several times when I tested the system I thought it strange that Safe Home Security never called my home to inquire the alarm scenario.

The Safe Home Security sales representative pushed me on a 60 month contract to receive a discount. He told me that if I paid for the minimum contract of a year I would be able to cancel my contract since I was a loyal customer and a year would mean that I paid into the system for 4 years however there could be some agreement of monies to do so.

In April of 2011, I lost my main land line telephone due to road construction. During a period of 3 months without a land line, I was not sending a signal back to Safe Home Security to enable them to monitor my home. I really did not think about not having any home security service until I got a bill from Safe Home Security during this time frame. I now figured out that Safe Home Security did not monitor my home and probably did not monitor my home the 4 years I was paying for the service.

Since I didn�t have any service, and Safe Home Security was not working on my behalf because I did not have a phone land line to the home, we neglected to send in a payment. My wife received a call from Safe Home Security requesting payment and my wife advised she was not going to pay for a service not performed. The safe home security representative noted my wife�s complaint and advised that Safe Home could pursue this further.

Since April of 2011 we have received ongoing threating phone calls where on one call the Safe Home Security Representative yelled and cursed at both my wife and me to pay up or they were going to report it on our credit account.

Since I am a self-employed contractor whose jobs come and go depending on a need and I always sign a Statement of Work or a contract of employment to provide a service. If my service is bad my employer would cancel the contract and tell me to walk. I ended up not trusting Safe Home Security and now I told them I wanted to cancel my contract and I would pay them an additional $500.00 to cancel. Safe Home denied this and advised it would cost $900.00 plus penalties.

I advised Safe Home Security that I would not pay the $900.00 and since then the threating calls continue and they have dinged my credit report. Yesterday at 2:30 pm on October 26th I received another call from Ken at Safe Home Securities who told me that I am still outstanding of the $900.00 plus interest. I told him I could only play the $500.00 I advised the safe home security representative a year ago as I was out of work at this time.

Ken advised me he would check it out with his supervisor and call me back. Ken did try to call me back however I stepped away from my phone during his call back and Ken didn�t leave a voice mail with his call back information. I tried to call Safe Home Security and got a hold of a collections agent who didn�t know a Ken so I hung up.

In all I feel I have met my original obligations, safe home security was not monitoring my home the 4 years I paid on the contract and since I have not had a land line phone to my home, safe home security has not had to incur the time spent to monitor my home. Safe home security advised me that under contract I am obligated to provide a land line phone however it is futile because my land line phone has a tendency to wash out during heavy rain storms. Safe home security has offered me an alternative with a wireless service however I would be obligated to pay an additional $2000.00 for this service and equipment. I have denied this alternative.

In my defense I would like to submit an affidavit confirming in 2007 that the state of New Jersey sued Safe Home Security for their unethical practices towards contract negotiations and consumer practices. In the affidavit it clearly states:

As we say in our suit, these companies knowingly tricked scores of consumers into renewals without their consent or knowledge. Safe Home often renewed contracts even when consumers met their onerous -- and illegal -- cancellation requirements. The companies ignored protests from consumers, continuing to bill them and harassing them with phone calls and bogus �late� fees. They installed faulty equipment and failed to fix it, endangering customers, sticking them with defective alarms and exposing them to burglars and break ins.�

Please consider the facts:

1) I have paid above and beyond on my original 2 year contract for 4 years prior to trying to cancel on my second contract for faulty service.

2) It does not matter if I provide a land line or not, Safe Home Security proved that they did not respond to a disconnected phone line for 3 months so a thief who wanted to steal from our home only has to cut our land line to access our property if we are present or away.

3) Ken from Safe Home Security advised me on October 26 at 2:36 PM that it is not Safe Home Security problem if my landline phone was disconnected and that it is my responsibility to ensure we repair the land line if it gets disconnected thus safe home security would not be monitoring my home if I did not have a landline. It was never our understanding under the current contract that once our land line was cut, safe home security was not obligated to monitor our home anymore. It was always our understanding that once our landline phone was disconnected that Safe Home Security would respond by calling the local authorities to investigate why the faulty phone line disconnected. This should be a red flag sent to all Safe Home Security customers that pay for this service.

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