KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ
ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE
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Dealer unhappy with central station
September 25, 2021
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Dealer unhappy with central station
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Ken,
Our long time central station partner sold their business. The new entity has really messed up hundreds of our accounts. (I’ve heard they acquired a couple hundred dealer accounts.). They put wrong contacts on accounts, deleted AHJ phone numbers, changed rules for special procedures and messed up points (made supervisory into alarms and vice versa). They continually dispatch fire trucks for no reason to schools, hospitals, etc. Their technology won’t properly receive signals from panels that we’ve monitored for 20 years. That’s caused panels in buildings to be in communication failure for going on three weeks. It’s a mix of fire alarm and intrusion systems.
We’ve been pressuring them to fix it but they seem completely overwhelmed. Nothing has improved. Beyond just unbearable frustration, this seems to me like it’s approaching criminal negligence. Who do you report this to? State fire marshal? Police? FBI? They are in a different state than us.
We do use K&K contracts.
If you post this, I’d ask that you not use
Name withheld
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Response
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So you’re not with the central station of choice but it acquired your account from the central station you were comfortable with. You do have choices and they include moving to a new central station. Hopefully you are on your own segregated lines and communication pathways and can move easily, though that term, easily, is relative based on the number of accounts you have and your back-office support [or tech support if you don’t have your own lines and need to visit each account].
You might want to try three other ideas.
* call the owner of your original central station and ask that he look into the issues. He most likely has a guarantee in place if he sold the accounts.
* call the new central station’s owner or officer in charge. It’s possible that you haven’t reached high enough in the chain of command to get their attention. They don’t want to lose you as a dealer – customer. Your central station is in the business of monitoring dealers’ accounts and when they don’t do it properly they lose business, yours and others.
* if the central station you are having issues with is on The Alarm Exchange let me know if I can make a call for you; at least we will get an explanation that hopefully makes sense. If the central station isn’t on The Alarm Exchange you should move anyway.
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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