Vivint Faces Renewed Scrutiny as North Chicago Family Says Door-to-Door Sales Pitch Left Them Trapped in Lengthy Contract

Vivint Smart Home is facing renewed scrutiny over its sales and cancellation practices as complaints involving door-to-door sales, long-term contracts, equipment financing and difficulties canceling service continue to surface.

In North Chicago, Pulse Radio 96.1 owner Aidan Christión says he and his grandmother are now dealing with those issues firsthand after a Vivint salesperson came to their home and signed them up for security service.

Christión says the salesperson never disclosed that the household was entering a multi-year agreement. The salesperson handled the transaction on a tablet, kept the device in his possession and directed Christión where to sign without reviewing the full contract or explaining the length of the commitment.

“He had a tablet, and that tablet, he held in his own hands,” Christión said. “He never had me actually do anything. He’s like, ‘Okay, well, sign this and sign that.’”

Christión says neither he nor his grandmother was told they would be locked into the lengthy agreement Vivint now says governs the account.

That became clear when Christión recently called Vivint to cancel.

During the recorded call, a Vivint customer-service representative told him the account had 57 months remaining on its agreement.

Christión disputed the contract and told the representative that the term had never been discussed during the original sale.

“You made an agreement to a four-year term that was not agreed or discussed or explained to me or my grandmother,” Christión said. “Nobody agreed to no four-year term.”

When the representative asked whether he had read the agreement before signing, Christión said the salesperson never provided the documentation for him to review.

“He did not give me the documentation. He just told me to sign it,” Christión said. “He never went over any of that.”

The representative said Christión’s complaint about the salesperson would be documented and sent to company leadership for investigation.

The cancellation process revealed another financial issue.

Vivint told Christión that $3,057.48 remained in connection with the agreement. The company presented two options for terminating service early.

Under the first, Christión could pay the remaining equipment balance through Vivint’s third-party financing partner, which the representative said would waive Vivint’s early-termination fee.

Under the second, Christión could continue paying the equipment loan while paying Vivint 50% of the remaining contract value — $1,528.74 — to terminate the monitoring agreement.

The equipment financing would remain due even after the Vivint service was canceled under the second option.

Christión rejected both options and demanded that Vivint terminate the service, maintaining that he and his grandmother had never knowingly agreed to the lengthy contract.

Vivint’s representative said the account could not be closed without completing the company’s disconnection process.

The call ended without the account being canceled.

Christión’s experience comes amid years of complaints and legal disputes surrounding Vivint’s sales operation.

In July 2025, a federal appeals court upheld a $189.7 million judgment against Vivint in a lawsuit brought by competing security company CPI Security.

A jury found that Vivint engaged in widespread unfair competition against CPI. Evidence presented during the case showed Vivint salespeople made false statements to CPI customers while attempting to persuade them to switch security providers.

Customers were told that Vivint had purchased CPI and would be taking over their accounts, that CPI was going out of business and would stop monitoring their homes, or that Vivint was connected to their existing security equipment and needed to upgrade it.

The jury awarded CPI $49.7 million in compensatory damages and $140 million in punitive damages. The judgment was upheld in July 2025.

That same month, New Jersey regulators announced a separate action involving Vivint.

Vivint Smart Homes and its installation arm, Smart Homes Pros, agreed to pay $200,000 and change their business practices to resolve allegations involving the sale and installation of home burglar and fire alarm systems.

The New Jersey action followed complaints involving high-pressure sales tactics, cancellation difficulties, billing and contract inaccuracies, equipment and service problems, and misleading information provided during sales.

The agreement required Vivint to make disclosures concerning contract duration and costs and to retain documentation showing that customers acknowledged and understood certain contractual terms.

Vivint has also faced federal enforcement involving its door-to-door sales operation.

In 2021, the company agreed to pay $20 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges involving the misuse of consumer credit reports.

Federal regulators said some Vivint sales representatives improperly used other people’s credit histories to qualify customers for financing. Some representatives searched for consumers with the same or similar names, while others added relatives or other individuals as co-signers without permission.

The settlement included a $15 million civil penalty and $5 million in consumer compensation.

In December 2024, the FTC distributed nearly $500,000 to 470 consumers affected by the credit-report practices.

Complaints about Vivint’s sales, financing and cancellation practices have continued online.

In December 2025, a former Vivint employee wrote publicly about the company’s sales operation after another person complained about how Vivint agreements were presented.

“I used to work for Vivint. This is exactly how your sales people present,” the former employee wrote.

The former employee also said elderly customers had been affected by the company’s sales practices and said they began helping customers understand ways they could legally exit their contracts.

“I got fired for it,” the former employee wrote.

Another longtime Vivint customer posted a series of complaints in December 2025 after approximately $2,000 was withdrawn from their account for equipment they said they did not need or authorize.

“Vivint stole $2000 out of my account for new equipment that I didn’t need,” the customer wrote.

The customer said the withdrawal left the bank account approximately $900 overdrawn and described difficulty getting the issue resolved through Vivint’s customer-service system.

The customer also said they had been with Vivint since 2004 and had spent approximately $15,000 with the company over that period.

In another post, the customer said they had attempted to obtain recordings of conversations with Vivint representatives concerning the disputed equipment purchase but had been unable to get them.

Complaints about cancellation have appeared for years.

In June 2024, another Vivint customer said he and his wife contacted the company three separate times attempting to cancel monitoring service after moving to another security provider.

“After being transferred repeatedly, put on hold repeatedly, then told each time that it had been handled, we kept being charged,” the customer wrote.

The customer said Vivint continued billing them despite the repeated cancellation attempts.

Another customer warned about Vivint’s door-to-door sales operation in 2023, saying a salesperson arrived at their home offering a security system and represented that the equipment financing would work differently than what the customer later experienced.

Years after installation, the customer said they were still paying for the equipment.

The complaints presented across social media include recurring disputes involving door-to-door sales presentations, equipment financing, contract terms, cancellation attempts and continued financial obligations.

Christión says Vivint representatives were also going door-to-door throughout North Chicago when his household was signed up.

During his cancellation call, he specifically raised concerns about sales activity in Black and Brown neighborhoods in the city.

“You guys went door to door all down North Chicago, Illinois,” Christión told the representative.

He accused the company of entering the community and signing residents to lengthy agreements without clearly explaining the terms.

The Vivint representative maintained that Christión had signed the agreement during his interaction with the salesperson.

Christión maintained that the salesperson never disclosed the contract term and never gave him the agreement to review before directing him to sign the tablet.

After hearing Christión’s description of the original sale, the representative said the matter would be documented and investigated by leadership.

“We will be going to document and investigate it with our leadership,” the representative said.

The investigation did not result in an immediate cancellation during the call.

Vivint continued to maintain that its disconnection policy had to be followed before the account could be closed, while Christión continued to dispute the agreement itself.

The dispute leaves Christión and his grandmother facing 57 remaining months of service, a $3,057.48 amount presented during the cancellation process, a separate equipment-financing obligation and an account Vivint declined to immediately cancel.

Their experience now joins years of complaints involving Vivint’s sales and cancellation practices, along with a $189.7 million judgment upheld in 2025, a $200,000 New Jersey regulatory settlement, a $20 million FTC settlement and consumer accounts continuing through 2025 and 2026.

For Christión, the issue remains the same one he raised throughout his call with Vivint: neither he nor his grandmother agreed to the lengthy contract the company says remains in effect, and he wants the service canceled.