Notice: I am going to be presenting a webinar on Quickbooks integrated with alarm company management and credit card processing. If you want to be a panelist contact me this week. This webinar will demonstrate how you can have software management for operating your RMR alarm business and credit card processing integration without signifcant investment. For those interested in attending the webinar there will be registration announcements within a week. Thanks for your patience.
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Question - Central Station's Dealer Agreement
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Ken,
Great Q&A here. I am recently going to move some of my alarm account over IP. The current monitor station I deal with does not have the proper equipment to support the equipment I use. I went to another CS and they have the technology to support my equipment. But, to enter an agreement with them they want me to sign a Dealers Agreement. Is this standard? Is their contract making me liable for anything? I do use your All in One contracts for my clients.
Saleh Mohamed
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Answer
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This topic comes up time to time. The CS is going to try and include various provisions that protects and enhances the deal from the CS's perspective, some of them unnecessarily seriously adversely affecting your business interests. Best that you read the CS's agreement carefully and seek counsel for those provisions you don't understand. As to those provisions you do understand, and don't like, don't agree to them and seek out other CSs that may be more accommodating. CS business is very competitive and some CSs simply better to do business with.
Unless the CS is giving you a monetary incentive to sign up with it, either in the form of a forgivable loan or significant discount on monitoring charges, there is no reason you should be locked into that CS for a long term agreement, and no reason you should be giving the CS a right to purchase your subscriber contracts either outright or with a right of first refusal.
You will be asked to indemnity the CS and that is OK provided you make sure you have the proper E&O protection that covers that indemnity. Naming the CS as an additional insured should cover you on the indemnity issue and you should replace indemnity with insurance procurement since it limits your expsosure to the insurance coverage.
Make sure you own your own telephone lines and IP addresses and that your CS will give you access to all electronix data for your subscriber accounts. Also make sure you get your CS's operational manual with alarm response policy so you can let your subscribers know what to expect when a signal is received by the CS.
If you're not satisfied with your CS or just want to see if you can get a better deal check out those listed in The Alarm Exchange [which I just updated on web page as well as below].
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Question - Bathroom Cameras
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Ken,
I always enjoy your column. I sell video equipment and some of it is covert. A customer from New York (I am in Chicago) ordered a hidden smoke detector camera with built in recorder. He tried to return it saying it did not work. Then upon testing we found video of a bathroom with the toilet plainly in sight. I called the customer and said not only the camera was working but that he was likely breaking the law by placing the camera in the bathroom. He said something about a safe being in the washroom and that his nephews were coming in and stealing. I called an attorney and a friend who was a state police detective. The detective said that I don't need to do anything since recording in his own home anywhere he chose was legal. The lawyer said not to bother with it. I am wondering what you would advise in this specific situation.
By the way, the customer told me to hold the camera and the money he spent on account and never asked for the refund or the equipment he paid for. I guess the theft he was investigating took a back seat to his possible criminal acts.
Perry Myers, CFE, President
U-Spy Enterprises, Inc. DBA ProVideoSecurity
Chicago, IL
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Answer
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I am surprised by the information you got from the cop and lawyer. Well, not so much the lawyer.
As far as I know cameras in smoke detectors are not permitted in NY; don't know about elsewhere. Regarding the bathroom camera in a home, I suppose if no one complains no one is the wiser. If you're the only one in your home and you want to put a camera in your bathroom, who's to complain. However the moment you invite anyone else in that house who uses the bathroom I believe you are breaking the law, in NY and most everywhere else. Of course how that data is used is the essential issue. If turned over to police because it records a theft from a bathroom safe you may not have questions raised. If it records what usually goes on in a private bathroom and it shows up on the Internet, you will have invaded someone's privacy and subjected yourself to civil and criminal liability.
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another bathroom camera question from Dec 28, 2013 article
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Ken
WIth regard to the public vs private area separation. If the actual area with the stalls were in one room and upon exiting the stall you have to go into a separate room where nothing improper could be expected to take place would that cover the question of separation of public vs private expectation??
Joel Kent
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Answer
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I think a better agrument can be made that no privacy should be expected in a public area of a bathroom. Take a movie theater with 10 stalls and urinals. Obviously there can't be cameras in those areas. But if there is an area with 10 sinks and several towel dispensors you might be able to get away with a camera, especially if its no covert. Again, what you do with that data, where it ends up, may make the difference.
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