Hawai'i's Better Business Bureau is warning consumers to be wary of home alarm services sold door-to-door after receiving more than 300 inquiries in the past two months about a company called Max Alarm.

The bureau has reports that some unscrupulous salespeople are using the names of legitimate local alarm companies — that include Lifeline Fire and Security, Security Alarm Shop, and Security One Inc. — to fraudulently represent their work in door-to-door sales pitches.

Hawai'i's BBB is investigating Max Alarm, a Mainland home security company actively marketing door-to-door in the state, according to Dwight Kealoha, chief executive officer of Hawai'i's BBB.

He said summer traditionally brings out door-to-door alarm salesmen as well as an increase of inquiries from consumers who want to check them out. "But this particular company caught our attention — first because of a spike in its number of inquiries and then because of complaints alleging Max Alarm sales reps were impersonating local companies," he said.

Hawai'i's BBB has received 330 inquiries about Max Alarm since the beginning of June — six times more than during the previous eight-week period. "Inquiries and complaints about Max Alarm indicate its sales representatives don't clearly identify who they're working for, provide a business card or offer local contact information," said Kealoha. "They also use dishonest sales practices by impersonating or falsely claiming affiliation with the consumers' existing alarm company."

But one of the Max Alarm company owners, Brent Leavitt, denied those allegations in a telephone interview. "Our company has not once pretended to be a different alarm company. All of our paperwork says Max Alarm."

However, Todd Bedford — owner and president of Lifeline Fire and Security — said his is one of the local alarm companies whose customers complained about misleading and false claims from salespeople for Max Alarm.

A current Lifeline customer in Kailua filed a complaint with Hawai'i's BBB, stating that a salesman arrived at her door "saying he was from Max Alarm, and they are now Lifeline."

The salesman then told the homeowner that he needed to make some changes to her existing system and asked her to sign a new contract.

Bedford said Lifeline filed a complaint against Max Alarm with the bureau alleging fraudulent use of the company name and misleading its customers.

The company also is the subject of a pending complaint with the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs regarding unlicensed activities.

Max Alarm's Leavitt said he does approach customers who have other alarm contracts but does not try to mislead people.

"We actually give them a great deal as far as installation," Leavitt said, adding that his company installs systems for $99 that other companies charge $900 or more.

"We sell Monitronics alarm systems, and we have done so for the last two years."

However, Bedford's company, which has done business in Hawai'i since 2002, has received complaints that Max has no local office to service or maintain the systems and instead sells the contracts to a Mainland firm similar to the manner that home mortgages get sold or transferred to other companies.

"They basically knock every door and the summer wraps up and then they leave," Bedford said. "The people that are the most likely to fall for it are our elderly clients." And he said he's come upon clients who were already committed to one contract and then signed another for an additional $40 to $60 a month that's unnecessary and a financial hardship on a fixed income.

Leavitt said his company moved from a Downtown office last year. "We have an office that's in 'Ewa Beach," Leavitt said.

Bedford said one of his clients was approached by Max Alarm and was told by a man named Brent that, "Todd's no longer with Lifeline. He's selling real estate."

In that case, Bedford said his client did sign with Max Alarm but was able to cancel within the three-day cooling-off period called for in federal law. Bedford suggests that consumers make phone calls and do their homework before deciding to hire a company, especially one that costs hundreds of dollars over time.