CEI Alarm

My Husband and I had our alarm contract that started 8/2008 and ended on 8/2013. The initial Alarm Co. was [redacted]. They were bought out by CEI Alarm on 9/2014. We continued to pay the same monthly monitoring fee to CEI as we payed to [redacted]. A few weeks ago, I contacted CEI to find out how we cancel montoring service as we have gone to wireless system. I sent an email they requested to cancel service as of April 1, 2015. I called today and she ([redacted] at CEI) informed me we owed close to $600.00? I was dismayed and confused as I was all paid up till end of March, 2015. CEI told us we were still under contract?." And they were charging us an "early termination fee." We never signed another contract with [redacted] after other one expired and we certainly never signed anything with CEI Alarm. Why would we? We owned all of our equipment and could have paid ANY montoring service the $32.00/month we have been paying [redacted] and now CEI! In fact, we thought we were being quite nice as to accept CEI when HIgh Standard was sold to them! Now they inform us, we owe an early cancellation fee of close to $600.00! wow, unbelievable! And tried to mail info because they didn't want to deliver "bad news" to us! Today, [redacted] was very rude to me and hung up on me as I questioned the legality of what they were doing, not to mention the morale underhandedness of it all!Product_Or_Service: Alarm Monitoring ServiceDesired SettlementWe don't owe any "early termination fees" as we have no contract with CEI Alarm Co. We gave them 3 weeks notice of requesting cancellation of monitoring service. If they require 30 days written notice, we'd be happy to pay for an extra week, to then meet the mandated "30 days notice." I'm estimating that to be around $10.00. So, they need to honor our request and cancel our service without penalty to us. Business Response Back in August of 2014 CEI Alarm purchased [redacted] in a mutually agreeable and legal transaction. I paid $1088 for the [redacted] agreement at that time. [redacted] contracts state under "General terms and Conditions" on page 2 #7 that [redacted] "shall have the right to assign this agreement or to subcontract any of its obligations under this agreement without notice to customer." Very simply this means CEI owns the contract. In the very first paragraph of the contract it states "Agreement for service is a for a period of five years." It also states "This agreement shall be automatically renewable for three year terms unless terminated by either party upon written notice at least thirty (30) days prior to the initial or renewal term anniversary date at which such termination will take effect." Most alarm companies have very similar agreements with renewal periods. Their three year renewal term still has 17 months left on it which totals $544. Even if they continued monitoring until the end of their three year renewal period I still lose money. When a customer calls and cancels their service we follow a proceedure which includes looking over their agreement, generating a letter with a copy of their contract, and mailing it to them.That is exactly what we did. On Friday 3-27-15 [redacted] called to confirm his cancellation and after aurguing for several minutes with [redacted], my office manager his wife got on the phone and started arguing with [redacted]. My office is next to [redacted]'s office and I could hear [redacted] talking. I heard [redacted] trying to explain the situation over and over but she kept getting interupted by Mrs. [redacted] who didn't want to hear the truth. At no time did [redacted] ever raise her voice or act in a rude manner. While she was talking to [redacted] her husband called in and spoke with me and started arguing with me. He kept saying we never signed a contract and I told him several times that he did sign the agreement and a copy was in the mail. He said fax it or email it to me right now! I said ok what is your fax number and he said email it to me! I said what is your email address? About this time [redacted] walked into my office and said she had to hang up because Mrs. [redacted] kept cutting her off and repeating herself over and over again. This is when [redacted] called me a Mother F@er and hung up on me.I am sending The Revdex.com a copy of the letter [redacted] sent to them and a copy of the agreement they signed.I read their desired resolution and am amazed that they agree to part of the agreement (30 day notice) but not to the part that doesn't favor them. In other words they don't honor a man's signature like I do.My desired resolution would be that they honor their agreement and pay what they owe. However being a good company for over 24 years and only having a couple complaints in that entire time, that were resolved, I have decided I will release them from the agreement if they agree to pay 50% of what they owe. $272. I think this is more than fair because in court I would get the entire amount.Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)We never entered into an "agreement or contract" with CEI. If there is a balance for a few extra days of monitoring service we will happily pay the difference. CEI's business proceedings with [redacted] Security is between them. It is not our business nor our problem as a consumer. CEI is a morally corrupt company. Because we have contacted the Revdex.com they have become frustrated/angry. This has led to this company personally attacking us and questioning our integrity...how very sad. My husband is a two tour war veteran who doesn't need to explain or validate who or what he is, especially to CEI. I hope Revdex.com presents all of these discussions between us and CEI for all consumers. It is imperative that no other consumer do business with this company without full knowledge of who/what they are dealing with...as for us, we will not pay what we do not owe.