KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ
ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE
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Comments on hindsight on successful break-in
December 13, 2022
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Comment on hindsight on successful break-in from article on November 28, 2022
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Ken
If the customer had Alarm.com, and the smash and grab feature was turned on by the alarm company. If the battery was good, (which it should have since nothing was said about a low battery signal being sent) once the door was open the radio would have send a door open signal to alarm.com. Once Alarm.com never got a dis-arm or alarm signal. Alarm.com would have send an alarm to the central station.
Thanks
Jack
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Ken:
Our SOP is to remote the radio away from the panel and then have a ‘tamper’ loop.
We have successfully detected attacks of this type where the panel is destroyed and the radio sends in the ‘help! I’m being attacked’ signal – resulting in minimal loss.
Respectfully,
Joseph Pfefer
Joseph (Joe) Pfefer, President & Founder
Jade Alarm Co.
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Response
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One of the essential features in the Standard Alarm Contracts is the provision that you have offered and suggested more and more and better and better security equipment and services. Why not, the customer has to pay for it. The only time you don’t have to recommend more is when the system is an approved commercial fire alarm which is required to be permitted and approved by the AHJ; then you have little or no choice.
This feature of offering more to the customer is so important it is covered in another document that I recommend you use with the All in One security agreements, the Disclaimer Notice.
You use the Disclaimer Notice in [at least] two ways: 1) to mention specific items of security that you have recommended that the customer has expressly rejected, and 2) itemize a host of equipment and services that is available [from you or others] that the customer is not contracting for [and not getting].
The Disclaimer Notice is not an agreement; it’s an acknowledgement from the customer. You will prepare it ask the customer to review and sign it. You present the Disclaimer Notice when you present the All in One, before you do the job, not on your way out.
I don’t recall a single instant where the customer has refused to sign the Disclaimer Notice; at least none that has come to my attention. A customer refusing to sign the Disclaimer Notice would have a hard time justifying the refusal, because anything in the Disclaimer Notice that they disagree with can be remedied by having them contract for the missing equipment or service.
When disputes arise because of a customer loss the customer will be quick to claim that the alarm design wasn’t sufficient; something [that of course would have changed the course of the break-in] else should have been offered; they didn’t understand the contract or have a chance to read it or your salesman said something contradictory [and incriminating and solidifying your guilt in the loss]. The Disclaimer Notice will be another document that is focused just on those issues and will [hopefully conclusively] establish that it was the customer’s judgement and budget that dictated the level of security.
I spend hours every week, sometimes several days a week, negotiating alarm contracts with alarm customers and their attorneys. [most of this is done for Concierge Clients – who get a free half hour each month for contract review and negotiations]. Recently I suggested to a particularly unreasonable residential customer, a lawyer of course, who objected to just about all the protective provisions, objected to the shift in risk of loss, and wanted the alarm company to be fully responsible of he suffered a loss from break-in, burglary or intrusion. I spent an hour [yes the alarm company owner was on the zoom call too] explaining the reasoning behind the protective provisions, the uniformity of the provisions in the alarm industry, and [to the lawyer’s surprise] the fact that all states enforce the protective provisions because they don’t violate “public policy”. But I also mentioned, more than once, that if he wanted a guarantee that there would not be a break-in the alarm company was prepared to offered that stepped-up service and responsibility. I told him that the alarm company would deploy armed guards to surround the house 24/7, the cost of which service would be thousands each week. BTW, the call ended when I gave up after an hour and it only took the customer a few days to acquiesce, sign the All in One as written, and the Disclaimer Notice. Quite the effort for $99 install and about $25 RMR. [Fortunately most negotiations involve far more substantial customers and levels of service].
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Ken Kirschenbaum,Esq
Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum PC
Attorneys at Law
200 Garden City Plaza
Garden City, NY 11530
516 747 6700 x 301
ken@kirschenbaumesq.com
www.KirschenbaumEsq.com