Looking for New Monitoring Company -- Problem with Next Alarm

[Jack]

I have been a satisfied Nextalarm customer for several years, but just
recently they have told me that false alarms for panic alerts have to be
dispatched immediately to the police. This has caused me to have to pay
over the past two months a total of 328.00 to my local city because of
false alarms.

The most frequent false alarm I have is when the keyfob is accidentally
actuated and this creates a panic alert. Up to 6 months ago, they would
call my house first to confirm it was a false alarm and that would be
the end of it. No police would be dispatched. However, during the past 6
months I have had 3 false alarms and the city only gives you two false
alarms and anything over two will generate a 100.00 charge.

Just this Monday on my way out the door with my two suitcases, I
accidentally hit my keyfob panic button and got a call within 30 seconds
from Nextalarm. My wife confirmed that it was a false alarm and that
there was no need to dispatch the police. Well 5 minutes later the
police are rolling up to my address and I had to explain that it was a
false alarm. Two days later I get a letter from the city for another
100.00.

I obviously can't continue with this existing setup. My contact sheet
specifically states to call my house number, my wife's cell and then my
cell phone number BEFORE any police are dispatched and this setup has
worked successfully for the past several years. However, Nextalarm says
their policy has been changed to mandate contacting the police for any
panic alarms, regardless to whether it was a false alarm.

The guy I've been working with wants to convert my panic alarm signals
to a burglar type and this may get around the mandate of contacting the
police. Can someone recommend a monitoring company for the Ademco Lynx-R
panel that will allow my panic alarms to be triaged (by calling my
contact list) BEFORE the police department is called? I have a phone
line directly connected to the panel.

[tourman]

RHC: Sir, it seems to me rather than abandoning your existing dealer,
why don't you work with him further to solve the problem. There is
something basically wrong with a panic pendant design wise that can be
so easily triggered. I don't know the particular Ademco panic device
in question, but some other makes I am familiar with are shielded from
accidental activation, and most devices take a 3 second push of the
button in order to activate - pretty hard to do accidentally.

As I know it, most monitoring companies take pretty much the same
approach to manual panic alarms; these can be life threatening
situations and and are normally handled as such. Why do you wish to
totally abandon this company when the problem is in the panic alarm,
not the response, and perhaps not the alarm company either.

Don't " throw the baby out with the bathwater" so to speak; fix the
problem !!

[JoeRaisin]

I was thinking the same thing, in regards to the panic button.

Could be an older design and he just needs to get a newer fob.

Back in my Marine days, I was stationed for a while at a reserve center
that had an armory within it. The armorer wore a panic button on his
belt that was a little larger than a pack of cigarettes and had a button
that stuck out almost half an inch.

No delay and it didn't take much to activate it.

Since we were an anti-tank unit we had, in addition the the TOW missile
launchers, M2 50 caliber machine guns, MK-19 automatic grenade launchers
(my favorite weapon, ever) a butt load of M-16's and quite a few 9mm
hand guns. When the panic was bumped accidentally (about 4 time in the
three years I was there) we would find ourselves surrounded by at least
a dozen police cars including locals, county and state. For obvious
reasons the cops had a pucker factor of 12 out of 10 when they rolled up
and as it was a silent panic we usually didn't know they were out there
until someone went outside. We all had to go out and lay down until
they could verify who we were and that it wasn't the local chapter of
the Latin Kings who were about to unleash holy hell upon the good folks
of Springfield, MA.

Just thought I'd relate one of my favorite "panic button" stories.

[tourman]

RHC: Yeah, that's got to rate right up there with the best....:))

There are several solutions to this gentleman's problem. The obvious
is just that...obvious...get a different kind of panic button. Or the
client could get a panic in a pendant / non pendant format, that is
coupled to a specific new zone indicating a panic situation but with
special instructions at the station. This would get around his
station's natural inclination to treat panics as such (legitimately,
since there are obvious liabilities here...), yet give the customer
some control over the instructions on response to that specific panic
Zone.

I have one client with MS and she can barely reach the medical panic
around her neck (it goes to wireless Zone 9 on a DSC 1616). But when
she does trigger it, the station has specific and detailed
instructions not to call but to dispatch an ambulance, who know in
advance what the problem might be, since this has all been set up with
station.

I'm a bit surprised his alarmco didn't take a more proactive approach
to handling what is really a fairly simply problem.

[Jack]

I have a standard 5804 Ademco keyfob. I have four in the house. I
recognize that the panic alarm did not trip itself. I have no one to
blame but myself. There in lies the problem. There can be false alerts
to a panic alarm and as a consequence the customer should have an option
to NOT dispatch the police.

If the alarm companies want me to sign a waiver indemnifying them of any
liability, then I am willing to sign such a document. I should have the
option to give my password when the dispatch center calls. If I don't
give the right password then the police should be dispatched. This is
not rocket science.

[mleuck]

LOL my feelings exactly!

[tourman]

RHC: As an aside to this thread, I am absolutely astounded how little
loyalty many customers feel towards their dealer, even when they've
been treated superbly.

I recently has a long time client abandon me to another predatory
company. He had called me about VoIP and I told him that I won't hook
up on VoIp, and that I had cellular service available. Sometime later
I get a call from him for my installer code, because he went with
another company that enticed him to switch over to GSM radio and leave
me during a recent home show. Well, he didn't get the installer code
needless to say, but by this time he'd signed another long term
contract and was hooked. I lost a client, and bottom line he's paying
much more for his services than before, AND locked in needlessly.

Normally, if an active client from another company comes to me, I give
the company a call and a "heads up" of what's going on, to give them a
chance to save the account. Most of the smaller dealers do the same
hereabouts, since we all know and respect each other. I have a long
memory, and the day will come when payback time will also come for
this company, and he's now been "blacklisted" locally.....:((

I can only hope that one day he will try to bring me a load of boards
to be unlocked ! AND, he won't be getting any advance calls from me or
others in our informal group about his accounts !!

Prick !!!! (sorry about the rant, but I feel better now.....)

[E DAWSON]

"Jack" <count...@nym.mixmin.net> wrote in message
news:4F9C9435...@nym.mixmin.net...

You could ask your alarm company to reprogram your keyfob zone definition to
a burglary, but then again it would not be a 'panic' alarm. I certainly
would not want to give one of those to my wife. A panic alarm is meant as an
instant dispatch; for the likes of me, I am surprised that your present
company just figured out now that they needed to dispatch immediately.

Additionally, your present alarm company could alter the contact id coding
at the central station so that when that signal comes in at that particular
zone, it would override to specific instructions. Not hard to do if you know
what you are doing. As a guy, I do have a keyfob with a panic button, but it
stays in my ashtray in my vehicle. I use it only to turn my system on and
off. Also, there are aftermarket keyfobs that are much more sophisticated
that the ademco. We use Secure Wireless where you have to actually press 2
buttons at once to activate a panic alarm. They do work with ademco
Honeywell panels such as vista panels, not with a Lynx system. We also do
not use Lynx or any other similar system; we do not consider a
self-contained system to be a true security system. One good whack to the
system with a hammer during the entrance time and voila, no communication,
no siren, and no dispatch. And no, I am not trying to get you as a customer;
just trying to give you some information.