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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An elderly woman always felt safe in her home, knowing her alarm system would sound an alert should something go wrong. That was until she said she realized the alarm company she’d been paying for, for years, wasn’t even connected to her home.

Opal Williams says she made monthly payments for an alarm system that she says was being monitored by no one. She only found out the truth when the battery in her alarm started beeping and she called the alarm company for help.

“I thought I was safe all these years,” Williams said. “They asked me my phone number.  I told them I had Vonage and they said we don’t monitor Vonage.”

That’s when Williams discovered that when she canceled her regular landline phone and switched to Vonage, an Internet-based phone service, she had disconnected her home alarm. What’s shocking is that switch happened six years ago, but ADT has never stopped billing her, even though it was no longer able to monitor her home.

She kept paying the bill because she never realized her home alarm was disconnected. It still beeped when she punched in the code. But if the alarm had gone off, ADT would never have  been notified, and police would never have been called.

“I guess God the man upstairs was looking out for me,” Williams said.

When Williams realized the truth she asked for a refund. She said ADT gave her a six-month credit, but she wants a credit for the entire six years, or almost $2,000. So far ADT has refused, and Williams said it blamed her for not realizing her alarm service no longer worked.

“They said it was my responsibility to find out,” she said.

Williams thinks that’s unfair and asked for help from FOX 4 Problem Solvers. What concerned us was that ADT continued billing her for a service it should have known was disconnected.

ADT spokesman Danny Jovic said it tried to call Williams multiple times in 2010 when it first noticed the problem, but was never able to reach her. That’s, of course, because she had changed phone carriers and had a new number.

Why didn’t ADT  bother to notify her by mail or send someone to her home?  We never got an answer to that question. Plus ADT insisted its six month reimbursement was all she wanted , something she clearly denies.

ADT considers this problem solved, but Williams disagrees. And even though now her home alarm is connected to ADT’s service again, she can’t help but wonder if someone will really know the next time her alarm goes off. The reason she is still and ADT customer is because the company now has the technology to operate an alarm system through Vonage.