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WARNING: The following may be crude, harsh and unkind; not be suitable for everyone.  It's intended for "mature" audience.  What follows is an actual letter I received and the prompt response I gave.  Hopefully what follows has no relevance for you.  But, if the shoe fits, wear it.
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No License - No Records Many Problems
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Ken 
    A few questions. first off I was a dealer for a company in a state that requires an alarm license.  I was not licensed. we only did takeovers. the owner knowing this made me a dealer regardless. he said we could work under his license which i now know is bogus. Especially since they are not even licensed in this state
where many of the accounts he bought reside. i sold him about few hundred accounts over several years. we had a falling out and that is when the problems
started. I was told I can decide to keep as many accounts as I want and he will do the billing for us.  i did receive invoices of my accounts and i was paid for them quarterly. they called them shared accounts which never sat well with me as i could never get a
satisfactory answer as to why they are called shared if they are my accounts. anyway every account i signed up had to be with their paperwork. so naturally when we had the falling out i learned  they stole all of my shared accounts. stupid me realized i used their contracts. very sneaky move allowing them to steal them and make me look insane to the clients.  i do however have emails from them proving they were mine! (funding
receipts) Every quarter on my funding sheet emailed to me i would see shared accounts with the amounts received which they did in fact pay every dime
to me.  
    Thats the least of my problems with them. They still owe me over $20,000 in hold back money and the owner told me SUE ME . that was about 2 years ago. Problem is although i do have a somewhat accurate list of all accounts they bought from me  i do NOT have exact numbers on the hold back money or each customer or the dates they were bought. I kept all my emails from them which included funding reports weekly in my yahoo account.
    Unfortunately when i tried to save them and move them to a folder somehow almost all got deleted.  they never provided any records as to what i was
paid for or charged back. they did in fact pay a small part of it around Christmas time but without any detailed explanation. 
    Are you able to get them to provide details of my hold back money and what was paid? many are over 2 years over due. am i entitled to interest? or penalties? What are my chances of winning in your opinion ken?
    I worked alone. I was paid by bank wire mostly into my relative's bank account. They have had many problems with the State Attorney generals office. I also would like to know if me being unlicensed and doing the physical takeover
and programming at each customers home would make the contracts not valid. I have another issue but for now i would like to know my options. they purchased the accounts and took my hold back money. i cant see how they can steal it. please let me know what to do .you can also give me a call after 1pm
today. thank you Ken. you are a god send for many people.
name withheld
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RESPONSE
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    You have conducted yourself in an appalling manner.  I dont know why you decided to work without a license, for people without license, without records, using their contracts, on and on. 
    If you'd like to straighten out and do things the right way I am willing to work with you.  I'll require a retainer to meet with you and get you on the right path.  If you don't have the where with all to meet with me then I suggest you seek a job with a licensed alarm company and get on your feet that way.
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Service Call Issue
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Ken,
    First I wanted to say thank you for the Alarm Exchange – I find the information very helpful and look forward to reading it every day.
    I have a client that we signed up about a year ago.  The gentleman that signed my agreement is no longer with the organization but we did offer them a service plan.  He said he would have to ask the board to approve the additional fee – everything else was filled out correctly, signed, dated, etc... and the customer was given his copy of the agreement.  A day or two later the customer called and said the board didn’t want to pay the monthly fee for the service agreement, so the box was selected that said time and material.
    The new person that took over called because they needed a service call - one of the smoke detectors had failed and the parts are no longer under warranty (this is a take over from another company).  When we told them there would be a charge to come out we were told to hold off because the board would have to approve the fee’s.  About a week later we get a call asking for a copy of their agreement which we gladly supplied, and then a letter from their attorney saying we falsified the documentation because we check the box that said time and material and it was not selected on their sheet (remember the EU had to check with the board) the letter than goes on to say how the customer can’t use the system, they are prepared to litigate this matter, blah blah blah.
    I then sent their attorney a letter back letting him know that it wasn’t working because the EU still had not approved the fee’s for the service call, along with 1.5 years of periodic test, alarms, etc… from central station where the system had been working, along with invoice copies showing where the EU had NEVER paid for a service agreement and an explanation of why the time and material box was selected.  About a week after that letter the system has stopped checking in – so my question is what should we do?
    As you indicated before we can’t just “stop” monitoring them because they are under an agreement still, we’ve not been approved to come onsite for any service work, and all correspondence is supposed to go through their attorney but they have also not contacted me or responded to my attempts to contact them.
I appreciate your time
TC
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RESPONSE
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    All business people do it; me too.  We want the work so we rush, we accept a relationship we know we haven't documented sufficiently and start and sometimes get well into the job.  That's what happened here.  The Board didn't approve some work, then don't do it.  Let them know they have no protection while they delay their action to approve the contract.  Think you're a nice guy if you do the work anyway?  nice guys finish last.  
    Sounds like you have a service call at issue and you have to straighten out the contract issue.  I don't know that your contract to monitor is any more clear than the service provision.  
    Also, you cannot make changes to a written contract once signed without getting approval in writing from the sub.  I am not suggesting that's what happened here, but there appears to be a discrepancy between the original contract and what the sub has.  
    Work it out with the attorney or let me work it out for you.  The sub may yet be salvageable.  We don't want it to become another "take over".
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