KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ
ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE
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What’s needed for customer to cancel / Happy and Healthy New Year
December 27, 2024
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Happy and Healthy New Year to you and those you care about
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What’s needed for customer to cancel
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Ken,
What do I need from a customer in order for them to cancel their account? Is an email sufficient for a customer to cancel their account? If not, what would be a valid method?
Sincerely
Bob
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Response
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This answer isn’t quite as easy to give as one might think. First of all, it depends on why the notice is being given. For example, is a subscriber communicating to:
· Object to an invoice
· Object to an increase
· Requesting service or inspection
· Notify you of a failed alarm and a loss suffered by the subscriber
· A cancellation under the 3 day [or other] statutory notice provision
· Cancelling an automatic renewal
· Terminating the contract
Some cancellation notices are prescribed by statute, so there should be no debate on how notice is to be given because the law tells you exactly how notice is to be given. Often the law will prescribe that the notice be given the same way as the contract was executed, so that a contract over the phone or over the internet or mail should permit notice that same way.
If there is no law then the contract terms will apply, if there are any such terms. The K&K contracts generally requires Regular Mail. That means US Postal Service, First Class Mail, postage prepaid [I’m not even sure you can mail and require the post office to collect on the recipient’s end]. That means that certified mail, return receipt or not, is not a proper method of notice. If Fed X or UPS is prescribed then US Post Office is not permitted. If personal service by a process server is required then that’s how it has to be done. It’s important that you remember that if the method is prescribed then it would be a mistake to try and “reason it out” or come up with a better method or idea or improvise.
It’s possible to alter the terms of the contract or the outcome of a dispute by adopting a practice that ignores the statutory or contractual notice requirements, and you do that by routinely accepting an alternate method of communication so that your subscriber has come to rely on the effectiveness of that method of communicating with you.
Finally, how or when a communication is made becomes an issue only when the method of communication is challenged. You may permit a subscriber to miss a deadline or request something in a way not necessarily permitted; if you do that you’re both on the same page.
Some central stations are very strict about termination in a timely way before an automatic renewal kicks in, and the central stations automatic renewal is general not month to month, like your subscriber contracts; so don’t miss the deadline.
You should also keep in mind that it’s hard enough holding a subscriber to a renewal terms [other than month to month] and the longer the renewal the harder it will be to get enforcement, so a late or imperfect notice not to renew may end up being sufficient. Why? Because the judge says so and if you don’t like to appeal, which is too often the same as telling you to “go fish”.
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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
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