February 15, 2011

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Question

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Ken,

    Thank you for all of the information you provide us in the alarm industry every day with your emails.

    I have a question regarding a customer who has signed your Central Office Monitoring Agreement, Disclaimer & Notice of Cancellation forms with us.

    We installed a system in their home with a 1 year monitoring agreement renewing on a month to month term. At this time the customer is 3 ½ months into their 2nd year and said they were canceling. I informed them they needed to send a copy of the Cancellation form they have signed which we have not yet received.  

    We have made many attempts to reach them on their home & cell numbers which have all gone unanswered.   What do you recommend my next step be? Of course I don’t want them to cancel, but at this point I really don’t care what they do, I just want everything to be done “by the book” so to speak, this way if I have to take any actions to collect what is owed to me I can be sure I followed the proper procedures.

Thank you

Marc

Superior Security Systems, LLC

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Answer

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    Not much you can do with this subscriber.  You modified the Monitoring Contract by changing the 5 year term to one year, and that year is up.   If you had 45 months left on the contract the amount you would be pursuing would be quit different, along with the Agreed Value of the installed software and your legal fees.

    The cancellation form you refer to is probably the form that is used with the 3 day notice of cancellation; that is only for canceling the contract within 3 days of execution.  Any cancellation after that would not have to use that form [in many jurisdictions that form does not need to be used by the consumer either - any written notice will suffice].  Since you are in a month to month relationship the cancellation can be by any mode of communication.  Non payment may not be the best way to communicate that the relationship is over, but if the subscriber is no longer using the service and not sending any payment it might be enough. 

    You should send a letter, regular mail or fax if you have that number, or even an email, that you are terminating service.  Fix a specific date and time; couple of days notice is enough.  The notice should not invite payment or offer any conditions by which you would continue service.  It's a final shut off notice with no reprieve.  The be sure to cut off the service at that time.  Although not necessary, you can send another letter or communication letting the subscriber know that service has been terminated.  If you can remotely change the display on the keypad you can change it to monitoring terminated or something along those lines like "no monitoring service".

    Since only a few months are owed I don't think collection proceedings would be worth your time or effort.  Next time try and get a 5 year term.

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comment about Verizon

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    I had a customer that wanted to go with an on line "discount" monitoring center.  So here is the response that we all should unite behind.  "If you want to

go with Verizon that's fine.  But understand, I won't service a system I don't monitor.  I don't know of any alarm company that will.  You should make sure Verizon will  replace the system battery when it reaches its end of life and repair your system should it fail."  They checked and I kept the account.

    If they want you to install the system and have Verizon do the monitoring, tell them Verizon needs to do the installation.  When they come back to you with Verizon doesn't do installations, go with service statement above.  Odds are you will end up doing the installation.  If not, shame on the alarm company that

did the installation.

    One other thing, I use Verizon for my company phones.  I may switch vendors and tell them why.

Tony Barlow

Pres/CEO

North Coast Signal Inc.