Charged After Cancelling Home Security? How to Stop the Drafts for Good

If you’re still being charged after cancelling home security, the most likely reason is simple: the company never actually processed your cancellation. Your call ended, but no account was closed. To stop the drafts for good, you need written confirmation, a cancellation date on file, and your bank notified. Do all three.

That’s the short version. The longer version matters, because national alarm brands make cancellation slow on purpose, and the charges rarely stop just because you asked once by phone.

Why the charges keep coming after you cancel

The billing does not continue by accident. It continues because a phone request is easy to lose, easy to “not receive,” and easy to route into a retention queue that never files anything. One ADT customer put it plainly: “They charged me for services I no longer have… I CANCELLED three years ago.” (Michael A., Sitejabber, Jan 2025). Three years of drafts after the word “cancel.”

Ring customers describe the same trap. “Even with a confirmation of cancellation email they have continued to charge us for over two years.” (Ring customer, ConsumerAffairs, 1 star). A confirmation email in hand, and the charges still ran for 24-plus months.

The worst version of this is not a glitch. It’s a system that keeps billing until someone forces it to stop. Global News reported that ADT billed 87-year-old Elton Janzen for five years, three of them after he had died, and sent his estate to collections before eventually repaying about $2,500. His daughter told the reporter, “You’re going to have a tough time getting hold of him because he passed away three years ago.” A dead man kept getting invoices. That tells you how automatic the drafting is once it starts.

Here’s what’s usually happening behind the scenes when your cancellation “doesn’t take”:

• Your call went to a retention rep whose job is to save the account, not close it, so nothing was ever submitted.
• The contract had an auto-renewal clause, so the term quietly restarted and your cancellation window closed. (More on that in our guide to home security contract auto-renewal.)
• The company requires written notice by mail or a specific form, and a phone call does not count under their own fine print.
• The account was sold or transferred between a dealer and a monitor, so the company you called isn’t the one drafting your card.

Cancel the right way: get it in writing

A phone call alone is how people end up charged after cancelling home security. Treat cancellation like a paper trail, not a conversation. Follow these steps in order:

• Read your contract’s cancellation clause first. Find exactly how notice must be given (phone, email, certified mail, a specific form) and how many days’ notice is required. Do what the contract says, not what the rep says.
• Send written notice you can prove. Email creates a timestamp; certified mail creates a signature. State your account number, the date, and one sentence: “I am cancelling monitoring service effective [date] and revoking authorization for further charges.”
• Get a cancellation confirmation number and a written confirmation. Ask for both. Save the email. If they only give you a verbal “you’re all set,” that is not proof.
• Write down every call. Date, time, the rep’s name, and what they promised. One ADT customer reported cancellation took “a staggering 46 minutes and being transferred 4 times” (Jason W., Sitejabber, Dec 2024), so expect the runaround and document it.
• Notify your bank or card issuer. Tell them the authorization is revoked as of your cancellation date. This is your backstop when the company ignores step two.

The written-confirmation step is the one people skip, and it’s the one that saves you. A cancellation you can’t prove is a cancellation the company can pretend never happened.

What to do when they charge you anyway

Say you did everything right and a draft still hits your account next month. You are not stuck. There is a clear escalation path, and it works best when you use the steps in order.

• Dispute the charge with your bank (chargeback). Because you revoked authorization in writing, any draft after your cancellation date is an unauthorized charge. Give your bank the confirmation email and the date. This is the fastest way to get money back.
• File a BBB complaint. It creates a public record and routes to a department that can actually close accounts. Volume matters here: ADT alone drew 10,865 BBB complaints in three years, and companies do respond to filed complaints in a way they don’t respond to phone calls.
• Report to your state Attorney General. In North Carolina, the AG’s Consumer Protection Division takes alarm-billing complaints. Regulators pay attention when the pattern is clear. Massachusetts’ AG reached a $6.5 million settlement with Safe Home Security in February 2023 over improper auto-renewal, forcing the company to switch customers to month-to-month and allow cancellation by phone.
• Keep every record until the final draft clears and a refund posts. Don’t assume it’s over because you got an apology. Watch the statement for two full billing cycles.

An honest note: a chargeback can prompt the company to send the balance to collections if they insist you still owe an early-termination fee. That’s why the written cancellation and the revoked authorization matter so much. Documentation is what protects your credit if they push back.

How a local billing team prevents all of this

The reason cancellation turns into a two-year fight is structural. When billing lives in a national call center, “the person who can close your account” is never the person who answers. You get transferred, put on hold, and routed to retention.

Secur-Tek is built the opposite way. We’re family-owned and locally operated in Apex, NC, and the local Triangle team answers the phone, never a national call center. Our monitoring runs on a one-year term with no long-term commitment, so there’s no five-year auto-renewing contract sitting under your cancellation. When you want to make a change, you call (919) 387-1800 during business hours and talk to someone who can actually pull up your account and act on it.

A few things that make the difference:

• One-year term instead of a 36 to 60-month lock-in, so cancellation isn’t a fee negotiation.
• A published cellular monitoring rate of $31.95/month, not a bill that creeps and then keeps drafting after you leave.
• Local, in-house staff you can reach by name, so a cancellation request goes to a person, not a queue.

Thirty-five years of protecting Triangle homes has taught us that trust is mostly about what happens when someone wants to leave. We keep it simple on the way in and on the way out.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my home security company still charging me after I cancelled? Almost always because the cancellation was never processed on their end, or an auto-renewal clause restarted your term. A verbal request is easy to lose. Get written confirmation and a cancellation date, then notify your bank to revoke authorization.

Can I just have my bank block the charges? Yes, and you should, but do it alongside written cancellation. Revoke the payment authorization in writing with the company first. That way a chargeback is clearly justified and the company can’t claim you owe an early-termination balance for service you formally ended.

How do I get a refund for charges after cancellation? Dispute the drafts with your card issuer using your written cancellation confirmation as proof, then file a BBB complaint and, if needed, a report with your state Attorney General. Keep every record until the refund posts and the final draft clears.

Does cancelling in writing really matter if I already called? Yes. A phone call with no confirmation number is nearly impossible to prove later. Customers report being charged for years after a verbal cancellation, and even after receiving a confirmation email. Written proof with a date is what stops and reverses the drafts.

Will a local company bill me after I leave the way the big brands do? It’s far less likely when billing is handled by local staff you can call directly instead of a national call center. Short terms and in-house account handling remove the machinery that keeps drafts running. That’s how Secur-Tek is set up.

Stop the drafts, or avoid them next time

If you’re fighting charges right now, work the list above: cancel in writing, revoke authorization with your bank, and escalate through the BBB and the NC Attorney General. If you’re tired of the whole game, there’s a simpler fix.

Secur-Tek offers professional cellular monitoring starting at $31.95/month on a one-year term, answered by a local team in Apex you can actually reach. Call (919) 387-1800 for a free Triangle security review, and see how we handle billing at mysecurtek.com. Real people. Real protection. For the bigger picture on protecting a home here, start with our guide to home security in Raleigh, NC, or if you’re still trying to exit a national contract, read how to get out of an ADT contract.