QUESTION:
Ken,
I have a question regards in regards to my sales contract, specifically in regards to notifying a non-paying customer of termination before actually cancelling their monitoring service.
Briefly, we sell the equipment to the customers, they own the equipment from day one. We do not require customers to sign a long term monitoring contract, they can cancel anytime. Lastly we use a national monitoring service, and the customer must sign the monitoring center's contract.
If we have a situation arise where a customer that is not paying their monitoring bill, and we cannot reach the customer by phone or mail, when can we discontinue service? Would another provision detailing a cancellation procedure or policy have to be added to the sales contact to cover us?
Thank you.
Bob C
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ANSWER:
You are doing just about everything wrong. It's no wonder you don't know how to go about terminating service, you have no agreement. Your thought about putting something in your sales contract makes no sense; that contract doesn't provide for monitoring.
You should be using a Sales contract to cover the design, installation and sale. You should be using a monitoring contract for monitoring. Not the central station's contract, which is a three party contract [you, the subscriber and the central station], and you should be using a service contract. Add to that the Disclaimer Notice. Get them all at www.alarmcontract.com
The monitoring contract will permit termination for non payment. Notice can be by any method, or no notice at all. You don't have to go to extraordinary measures to tell your subscriber you are canceling service for non payment. Your contract will specify what notice is necessary, if necessary.
The central station's three party contract cannot be used as your monitoring contract. It protects the central; it usually has no money terms; it doesn't have the provisions you need; you won't be able to sell it when selling your written alarm contracts and therefore it adds no value to the equity of your business.
The service contract is necessary for non warranty work. It has the protective provisions in it and it can be used for recurring revenue or per call service.