Re: question about burglar alarm dispute (San Francisco Bay Area)

[Frank Olson <use_the_email_links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hotister@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> The alarm company claim that they have no responsibility to monitor
> these timer tests, and according to them, if the timer tests failed,
> it is clients' responsibility as the alarm panel's LED light will be
> blinking or sound an alarm sound. However in our case even up to today
> the alarm panel never sounded or the LED light (the CMD indicator)
> never blinked. So according to industry standard, is the alarm company
> responsible to monitor these weekly timer tests? Or is it the client's
> responsibility?

I believe your keypad probably says "test system weekly".  That makes it
*your* responsibility.  As for the daily or monthly communicator test,
that's used by many alarmcos as a means of ensuring you haven't "bugged
out" (i.e. moved and had your telephone disconnected).

A "fail to test" report is generated by our station every 24 hours on
any panels that haven't checked in.  When our service department
receives this, a service ticket is generated which will result in one of
our customer service reps calling the premise.  Depending on the
response from the customer, the service ticket will get escalated to a
service work order which is then text messaged to the tech in the area.
  He'll then visit the premises and determine the reason for the fail to
test signal.  If it's determined that it was something the customer did
(i.e. cancel the phone line or update to a VOIP service), then the
customer is billed for the visit at our standard rate for service.  If
it's on "our end", then the service visit is not billable (to the
customer).  Our systems don't call an out of state monitoring agency so
no long distance charges would ever be incurred.  I'd have a serious
talk with your alarmco.  Most monitoring stations that handle "long
distance" monitoring service use toll free lines for system
communications.  You should never be billed.  I would determine what
number your system is calling and request (demand) your provider switch
to a station that utilizes "800" lines.


>
> Also if we are to file a complaint about this issue, to which
> regulatory agency of the alarm industry should we write to?

See what your alarm company will do for you first.  There's no point in
writing or calling a third party agency if they're prepared to deal with
an error that's on *their* part.  If they fail to satisfy you, then the
biggest "club" you can use is to write *them* a letter stating the
reason why you no longer wish to employ their services.  Find another
company that's a bit more responsive to customer service issues.


>
> The alarm company is AEC Alarms (http://www.aec-alarms.com).
>
> Thanks again!


You're welcome.