August 15, 2011
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Comments
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Ken,
In response to Zeke Lay's post about the fact the no business would dump a customer at the end of their agreement. An example that has ties to our industry is the insurance industry. I wonder what Zeke's outlook is on his car insurance? If the policy (another term for agreement or contract) expires yet he continues to drive and he gets in a car accident a week later, what exactly is his expectations for coverage from the insurance company that no longer has a policy (agreement/contract) with him? Some people that don't understand asset protection just don't get it. Do they really think that the payment of $20/$25 dollars a month is what the contract is all about? Really? Do people think all that other language, past the payment terms section, is just there for kicks and giggles? Maybe Zeke should seek out ANON as a customer and when ANON, even though Zeke is a great guy, sues Zeke over an incident and takes everything Zeke has is when he will realize the worth of a contract. Oh, wait! ANON's sister had some things stolen from ANON's house during the incident as well, so she also files suit against Zeke. Zeke, realizing that this has now become a real problem and tries to turn the table by saying ANON has no case because there is no expectation of service since there was no contract. ANON checks with his homeowners insurance company who has been giving him a discount for having a monitored system but ANON didn't tell them the contract expired and didn't get it renewed. Wonder how that will shake out? It is a fact that customers don't read, are not prudent about tracking expiration dates, etc. etc. We all know that. If the conspiracy theorists want to say that companies depend on that to continue to collect that $20/$25 per month, so be it. When I have a customer that does not have an auto renewal clause in their agreement and reaches the expiration date without resigning, they are turned off. There is no expectation that I should have to provide service past that date. I call it asset protect.
Bob Worthy CPP
President
Secur Technologies, Inc.
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Ken
The chance of getting sued is based on your location. In a small town where everyone knows your alarm went of, the chance may be smaller than in big city where lawyers put up billboards to urge people to sue whoever they can. You do need some protection and your contract provides that. Don't let it expire.
Dusan
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To Zeke Lay:
You're obviously not in the alarm business. If my contract ends with a consumer, they WILL be shut off. I just proved this with 62 Wendy's fast food restaurants. The regional manager didn't "have the time" to meet with to put their new corporate name on new contracts (mine were with the franchisee that sold the locations).
He thought it was a money issue. Wrong.
I will never monitor without a contract. Period. The liability is too high. And the maintenance coats of a month-to- month contract are too high.
Maybe you want to jeopardize your family, business and staff but not me. There's a difference between being a consumer advocate and being a fool.
David L. Myers
Myers Protection Services
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Hi Ken
I read your articles daily , Really Appreciate them , Been in Business over 20 years , Completely understand why the responses to the answers to questions .
Contracts Protect Owners ,Clear Direction , Account for what was Said, agreed to ,Started.
Many Frustrations in industry as the length of contracts , ability to be released from a contract due to bad service,unresponsive service , non performance of service in a timely manor , and large companies setting up contracts for RMR & Forgetting the reasons for The contracts .
Many Large Companies have great contracts that basically engage the customer in a locked up situation where you pay what ever they want or else situation .
Proprietary Situation
Non Responsive in a timely manor situations
The laws should be such that any company that has a customer locked up in a contract over a year should be mandated to perform service on a 24/7 , with in 24 hour response situation . That way it allows the client or customer a option out .
Bad Performance should allow options out of contracts .
I have completed many Service calls on others systems over the years which the owners of the contract would not service or complete service in a timely manor.
What is your opinion on this matter as a Contract Attorney for the alarm industry.
Thanks
Cff/ppp
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Ken
Somebody complained:
"We should admit this isn't about monitoring, it's about a
payment plan that happens to use monitoring service as a part of the overall
product. Of course the actual reason that the system and monitoring are tied together
is because there is an up-front cost to install equipment which most customers
simply don't want to pay for."
When I went into the burglar alarm business 46 years ago customers DID pay
up-front for however much system they wanted to have and the monthly payment
covered the lease of the equipment and the normal maintenance (and we also
monitored the system.) The monthly payment was based upon the amount of
equipment we were expected to maintain and it had nothing to do with any
monitoring - basically the monitoring was just a free service we provided with
our systems.
Then along came the fly-by-night trunk slammers with their "security" system
packages and unlike a burglar alarm that typically would cover every possible
entry point and was expensive to install and maintain, these other guys
offered a mass-market alternative called the "security" system.
It doesn't cover all the possible entry points as was the standard industry
practice; these "security" systems typically "secure" the front door, back
door, one other door and employ a motion sensor to attempt to cover all the
other possible entry points that a burglar alarm would cover.
It's much faster and cheaper to install a "security" system because it doesn't
secure all the possible entry points but the trunk slammers still have to be
paid for whatever it is that they do so they push long term monitoring
agreements because they can sell that paper for big bucks and that's all that
matters to them... whatever equipment they can buy the cheapest is what they
buy and install because they have no concerns about anything except selling
their paper.
Sometimes this may make some sense in certain cases but in most cases the
"security" system provided is simply worthless junk and cannot possibly
"secure" the premises but that fact makes no difference to the person
installing it who is only interested in throwing something in and moving on to
the next sucker.
In many cases the customer doesn't care that the system provides no actual
"security" and/or doesn't understand that the system is worthless until
something bad happens to them.
So, we must have some sort of "paper" to allow us to collect for our box of
worthless junk and we must now make sure we "contract" away our liability
because anybody installing a box of worthless junks knows its worthless junk
NOT intended to perform any intended purpose and sometimes folks may get the
idea that some sort of "crookedness" may be involved. The contract will
protect against all that.
And gone are the days when a contract expired on the date it expires... now we
"automatically" start the contract over again so money will continue to come
in long after we are gone.
What a wonderful way the burglar alarm business went down the drain.
Now the only thing that matters is that long term contract.
Having trouble getting those contracts signed? Just sign them yourself...
that's what all the salesmen for those national firms do - nobody checks on it
because nobody cares as long as the customer sends in his check. When he
stops sending in the check you will be on your third or fourth new name and
won't know anything about anything.
Think you can compete with these guys? You can't.
One of those three letter national firms has illegal bandit signs posted on
every corner offering salesmen $700. a week to generate contracts for them -
why in the world would anyone who needs security do business with folks
posting illegal signs on every corner?
thesatguy1