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QUESTION: ALARM CO. OBLIGATION TO REPAIR
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Ken,
    We use your Standard Form contracts.  I have a residential client of 4 years that won’t get his alarm repaired.  The communicator, while alive, is not communicating with the control.  I suspect a wire fault. This is an issue where the client pays us his quarterly monitoring but doesn’t seem to care that his alarm is not working.  How do most dealers handle a client like this? Do they take the money and run or fire the client?
anon
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ANSWER
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    I am going to guess that you have a Monitoring Contract but no service contract.  However, the monitoring contract requires you to render operable the Communication System.  You don't have to repair a detection device that doesn't permit the system to arm, but if you believe the problem is in the communication you should be able to determine if it's wear and tear or some other reason that would not be your responsibility.  For example, if the cable company came in to convert to VoIP and forgets to connect to the panel then it's not your obligation to perform the repair without charge.
    There is really more than one question raised.  Is the subscriber refusing to pay you for a repair or is the subscriber refusing to permit you access to make the repair?  Whatever the case you need to document the fact that the system is not communicating and that you're willing and able to make the repair so the system is operable, either at no charge or for a charge, and that the subscriber has refused to permit the repair.  Once you do that you can continue to collect the RMR which the subscriber still owes under the contract.
    My concern here is not so much whether you'll have to return the RMR if the subscriber wakes up and realizes the system didn't work even though payments were made, but that a loss occurs and the subscriber claims you were being paid and should have performed the service - and that you should have done whatever was necessary to make sure the system worked so you could perform your monitoring service.
    This problem well illustrates how subscribers and alarm companies arrive at different conclusions regarding their respective obligations.  The Standard Form Contracts  - especially the All in One forms - help alleviate the confusion.  Every service you perform or offer is separately itemized and then separately charged for.  There shouldn't be any confusion whether the subscriber signed up for service of the equipment and what's covered by service.  
    I just thought of another little clever way to try and convince you that you should be buying and using the Standard Form Agreements - the All in One forms.  I am confident that you will find them cheaper than continuing to take sleeping pills, anti anxiety medication and heart burn meds.  I won't go so far as representing that the contracts will cure those conditions, but ... you get the idea.  Order the latest All in One forms today so that you can have them ready for use as soon as 2015 starts.
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RECOMMENDATION FOR IPAD APP FROM NOV 14 2014 ARTICLE - PROBLEM WITH ZMICROTECH
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Ken
    Zmicrotech software may be good if you have 100 accounts and don't plan on growing much.  We put thousands of accounts online with them and then uncovered the holes in their software that were not addressed.  We were told the bugs existed in the software  when we bought it and we should've done our due diligence before we bought.
    For example they said the reason their software always crashed and lost data was our network,  but $20,000 later after we put in a new network we still had the same problems. 
    Trouble is the bugs were not apparent until you actually started working with the software. I do not believe they would have any clients over thousand accounts for over two maybe three users running successfully.
    Stay as far away as you can from Zmicrotech software.
Mike Macdonald
Sight Security Corp
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