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fullscreenVerisure. Archive image. Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB
Verisure had big problems on Thursday.
The company announced that only the app was affected and that the alarms were working as usual.
This is contradicted by several customers who contacted Aftonbladet – and an employee who states that incoming alarms were not received for several hours.
The alarm company Verisure, according to its own information with half a million customers in Sweden, had technical problems on Thursday.
Aftonbladet was contacted during the afternoon by a number of customers who reported that their home alarm did not work as it should.
One said the alarm was not on even though she activated it during the morning, others testify that they were unable to enter their homes as they have digital locks on their front doors linked to the Verisure app.
Automatic voice spoke
Several of the customers told Aftonbladet that they could not raise the alarm or raise the alarm and that an automatic voice in the alarm panel gave the message that there was no connection to the alarm center.
Exactly when the disturbances occurred is unclear, but several customers tell Aftonbladet that they were there at lunchtime.
At 7pm in the evening, Verisure sent out an SMS to customers.
“Some Verisure customers are having technical problems with the app right now. Otherwise, the alarm works as usual,” it said.
The message ended with a link to the company’s website where, in a more detailed text, it was once again underlined that only the app was affected by problems and that the alarm functions were not affected.
“Understood that something was wrong”
Mattias, 50, who lives outside Stockholm, is one of all the customers who contradicts that image.
– When I got home after dropping the kids off at school and preschool, I locked the door via the Verisure app. But for a moment I discovered that I had forgotten to close it and that it was left open. Still, the app reported that the door was locked. Then I understood that something was wrong, he says.
Around lunch, Mattias left home. Then he couldn’t sound the alarm from the car via the app as he usually does.
– It said that an error has occurred. I had to go back and lock manually via our electronic lock which is connected to the Verisure app, he says.
When Mattias returned home, shortly after 1 p.m., yellow warning dots were lit on Verisure’s alarm panel.
– When everything is normal, there are six green dots. Now two were yellow.
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full screen The message sent out to Verisure customers on Thursday evening.
The answer from customer service
When Mattias acknowledged the warnings, the automatic voice of the alarm began to speak. Like several other customers, he testifies that the voice said that there was no connection between the alarm unit and the alarm center.
– Now afterwards I don’t remember the exact words, but it was that the alarm had no contact with the central, he says.
Mattias contacted customer service with the question that his alarm was not connected to the alarm center. Shortly before 4 p.m., he received an answer in the company’s support chat:
“Hello, we are currently experiencing an operational disruption. We currently have no forecast for when this year will be fixed. We are working as fast as we can to resolve the issue. Apologies for this,” wrote a Verisure employee.
At 6 p.m., Mattias again saw two yellow dots on the panel when he raised the alarm.
– Then the voice said that the connection to the alarm center has been restored, says Mattias.
He now wonders what could have happened.
– I interpret it to mean that they would not have received any connection if the house had started on fire. As a consumer, I feel that there was no alarm during this period.
Employee: We would say so
On Thursday, Aftonbladet was in contact with an employee at Verisure who stated that the alarm was not sent to the alarm center for at least two hours. The employee says that the internal systems at the alarm center were also affected by the malfunction.
According to the employee, managers gave directives about what employees should say to customers.
– We were told that the app was down due to a malfunction, but that no matter what, the customers’ alarms worked, says the employee.
– It is life-threatening for all customers. The company lies about safety.
Late Thursday evening, Verisure reworded the text on its website about the outage. In the new version, it was no longer explicitly stated that the alarms worked as usual:
“Some of our customers had temporary issues (today, September 5th) due to a technical upgrade affecting our app, which we have investigated and now fully resolved. No action is required from our customers. We take the situation very seriously and apologize for the inconvenience,” the company wrote now.
Only respond via email
When Aftonbladet in the same vein contacted Verisure’s press service, which can only be reached via email, communications manager Tarik Belqaid replied the same.
“We can confirm that the technical disturbances that affected some of our customers today have been fixed and that all our systems are working normally. Earlier today, some of our customers experienced temporary issues due to a technical upgrade affecting our app. We have investigated the incident and fully resolved it. No action is required from our customers. We have taken the situation very seriously and apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused,” he wrote.
Aftonbladet then asked the follow-up question that customers were informed that their alarms were not connected to the alarm center, while Verisure themselves assumed that only the app was affected.
“What is written in the statement applies. Some of our customers experienced temporary issues due to a technical upgrade affecting our app,” he replied.
Aftonbladet then asked even more follow-up questions in an email to the press service. Among other things, we wanted a comment on the information from the employee that incoming alarms were down for several hours and that the staff were instructed to lie to customers.
The company has not returned with an answer.