KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE You can read all of our articles on our website. Having trouble getting our emails? Change your spam controls and white list ken@kirschenbaumesq.com ************************************ Another comment on leasing / Comments on suing company poaching your accounts January 30, 2020 ******************** Another comment on leasing from article on January 18, 2020 ******************** Ken Mr. Groff is expressing a point of view about leasing that is out of date and contrary to the facts in the security industry. Millions of people lease cars every year and for very good reasons. Not everybody has $50,000 sitting around to buy a car and if they do why spend it on a depreciating asset. Moreover why would you want to own the same car beyond the initial 4 years (of a lease) when maintenance costs rise considerably? My guess is that there are almost as many cars leased as owned in Canada. It is likely that a smaller percentage lease their residential alarm system than their cars; still in my experience there are thousands of leased systems out there in the market. There are 2 types of alarm leases - leases to own where the monitoring rate could drop at the cost of the equipment has been covered and ongoing leases that go on forever. I have seen lots of both. In fact many residential customers probably don’t realize that they are leasing their alarm system when in fact they are. ADT in Canada used to lease their systems in Canada and most of their customers did not realize it Why lease an alarm system for your home. From the customer’s point of view, 2 good reasons are the system then comes completely maintenance cost free and usually with no large upfront fee. Looking at it another way, why does anybody need to own their security system? Do they own their Internet modem or cable box? Most of the time not, at least in Canada. From the installer’s point of view, leasing can bring you more business( no big up-front fee) and can deter customers from switching or cancelling their service - You threaten to come in and take the equipment out. My guess is leasing will always have its place in the residential alarm industry. Victor Harding Harding Security Services Inc ********************** Response ********************** Stay away from the lease to own model unless your contracts have been drafted to comply with Truth and Lending Laws and other consumer laws. Use the straight lease model instead. ********************** Comments on should you sue company poaching your accounts from January 17, 2020 ********************** Ken Having been sued for this TWICE; may I add that ‘prevailing’ is Not their strategy. Bullying the competition into submission is the goal. When they have big$ for attorneys and the ‘competitor’ does not; then they can bully you. If you cannot afford to contest the suit defend yourself at your own expense then YOU LOSE. I had to settle one ( I had to ‘cease and desist from directly soliciting their customers”) the other took a default judgement ( they erred in who they named as a defendant so I was able to stay in the game and solicit their customers and switch them; after a pause to where I could get to a point where I could hire legal counsel to defeat them in a 2nd round ( which I hired and we did on a summary judgment motion, still cost me $8000 back in 1994) B ************************* Response ************************* OK, I didn’t expect to hear from a company who engaged in the poaching. I didn’t intend the topic apply to taking another’s account by accident, inadvertently, or even reluctantly. By using the word “poaching” I meant a systematic and planned effort to induce another company’s accounts to switch to your company using any means necessary, including what could only be considered wrong, offensive, defamatory or deceptive conduct. ******************** Ken, No we don't sue a company that poached an account, which rarely happens anyway. What we do, is remember who did it. So far we only have two (AFA & Cross Fire). If we are bidding against them we use "special pricing" to get the job; payback can be a bitch. Because of their tactics we have only lost one or two accounts to each of them, but, over the years they have lost a lot more to us. Working together is much more beneficial, if we are called by someone and they say they are not happy with the company they are currently using, I call that company and let them know. Typically there are issues on both sides, so if it’s not a problem with our competitor we will proceed and take the account. J *********************** Response ********************** I think that’s a reasonable approach, calling the other alarm company and letting them know their account is reaching out to you. But that’s not poaching the account. You soliciting the account and disparaging the existing company or outright lying about something [like they are no longer in business or servicing this area] is poaching. Some alarm markets are tighter than others, and in the tight markets it’s not uncommon to bump heads with other companies, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Under bidding jobs is not wrong, though it may be costly. ********************* another comment ********************* Ken I had a simple answer to this problem of someone stealing my accounts. I let the owner know that anytime you steal one of my accounts, I WILL get two of yours. If it was a Big Corporation, I would let them know every time they stole one of my customers I would get on Link-in and offer 4 of their employees a better job. The bottom line is if you take good care of your Customers 99% will not leave you. Dennis Riley Life Safety USA ********************* Response ********************* Well, no company wants to lose 1% of its accounts to its competitor. ********************* another comment ********************* Ken To quote Rodney Dangerfield in Back To School: “you left out a whole lot of stuff”. Your legal analysis may be correct but the real world business implications of whether or not (and how to) to go after the “thief” were not adequately addressed in your response. Robert Kleinman ********************** Response ********************** My “legal analysis may be correct …” Geez, that must have been painful to type. And I “left out a whole lot …” That’s because the article was about what I wrote, not what I didn’t. The topic of “whether or not (and how to) go after the thief” is, I know, a treatise you are chumping at the bit to write. I’ll be happy to circulate it. For those who may be in the dark, Robert is astute chief house counsel to the venerable AFA Protective Systems and one of his favorite passions is suing AFA subscribers and any company that interferes with AFA property, equipment or accounts; and, he is good at it. Another of his favorite past times is pointing out the error of my ways, though he’s less adept at that. ************************ To order up to date Standard Form Alarm / Security / Fire and related Agreements, click here:www.alarmcontracts.com ************************* CONCIERGE LAWYER SERVICE PROGRAM FOR THE ALARM INDUSTRY You can check out the program and sign up here: https://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/concierge or contact our Program Coordinator Stacy Spector, Esq at 516 747 6700 x 304. *********************** NOTICE: You can always read our Articles on our website at ww.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/alarm-articles *********************** THE ALARM EXCHANGE
This area is reserved for alarm classifieds, alarm company announcements, solicitations, offers, etc. There is no charge to post a listing here.Include your contact information, phone, email and web site. If you would like to submit a post, please send an email to ken@kirschenbaumesq.com. To create a reciprocal link to our website, click here. ************************************************ Getting on our Email List / Email Articles archived: Many of you are forwarding these emails to friends or asking that others be added to the list. Sign up for our daily newsletter here: Sign Up. You can read articles and order alarm contracts on our web site www.alarmcontracts.com ************************** Ken Kirschenbaum,Esq Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum PC Attorneys at Law 200 Garden City Plaza Garden City, NY 11530 516 747 6700 x 301 ken@kirschenbaumesq.com www.KirschenbaumEsq.com
