question about burglar alarm dispute (San Francisco Bay Area)

[Bob Worthy]

Most phone booth's I see these days have no phones in em

Superman is a bit older now and needs the extra room as all you old farts
can probably relate too.

 

[Tantalust]

Superman is a bit older now and needs the extra room as all you old farts
can probably relate too.

Good place to let one loose, too. (>L<)


- -
"If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they
went."
-Will Rogers

 

[Doug]

--

Good place to let one loose, too. (>L<)


- -
"If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they
went."
-Will Rogers

From a dispute over phone charges to cutting the cheese in a phone both, is
it just me or has this thread lost its way somewhat ?

Doug

 

[Bob Worthy]

--



From a dispute over phone charges to cutting the cheese in a phone both, is
it just me or has this thread lost its way somewhat ?

Doug

You mean sorta like the cold coffee and stale bagel in another thread? ]

 

[Jim]

--






From a dispute over phone charges to cutting the cheese in a phone both, is
it just me or has this thread lost its way somewhat ?

Doug

What was the question?

 

[Doug]

--



From a dispute over phone charges to cutting the cheese in a phone both, is
it just me or has this thread lost its way somewhat ?

Doug

You mean sorta like the cold coffee and stale bagel in another thread? ]

No, I mean like the cold coffee & stale bagel in this thread

Doug

 

[Bob Worthy]

--


Superman is a bit older now and needs the extra room as all you old farts
can probably relate too.

Good place to let one loose, too. (>L<)


- -
"If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they
went."
-Will Rogers


From a dispute over phone charges to cutting the cheese in a phone

both,
is

it just me or has this thread lost its way somewhat ?

Doug

You mean sorta like the cold coffee and stale bagel in another thread? ]

No, I mean like the cold coffee & stale bagel in this thread

Doug

Cold coffee and a stale bagel is bad no matter what thread.

 

[Petem]

--



From a dispute over phone charges to cutting the cheese in a phone both,
is it just me or has this thread lost its way somewhat ?

Doug

Aint that the only thing a thread can do in ASA?

 

[Tantalust]

From a dispute over phone charges to cutting the cheese in a phone both,
is it just me or has this thread lost its way somewhat ?
Doug

Certainly not, I was having a dispute over phone charges at the time.

 

[I brive a dus]

What are payphones? <

The things you use to crank call hookers and old black people.
"hello Mrs. George Washington please. Hello Mrs. Washington, this is
Jim Jacobs with Publishers Clearing House. We are pleased to announce
that you have won our 3rd place prize of brand new kitchen appliances
but Mrs. Washington we do need you to do one thing first in order to
receive your gift. Mrs. Washington, we will ask you 1 question and you
will have 3 seconds to give us the correct answer. Are you ready, Mrs.
Washington? OK here's the question. Who was the first President of the
United States? One, two, Sorry time is up, Mrs. Washington."

 

[[email protected]]

Doug (and all), thanks so much for your reply! It seems that you are a
expert in this field!

For our case, the weekly timer set to go off every Thursday at 1:40pm.
It was working fine for 16 years until November 2007. On 12/27/07 for
example, the alarm system dialed the central station from 1:40pm until
10:18am the following morning of 12/28/07, with one call per minute.
Despite 21 hours, or 1260 called to the central station, the alarm
company did not receive this test signal until 10:15am on 12/28/07.

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?

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

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

Thanks again!

 

[[email protected]]

Now that said... at a rough guess I'd say the alarm company may have
changed their contact number and missed switching over a few panels,
since others seem to have had the same problem. I don't see what the
age of the modem would have to do with anything; the only possible issue
I could see is if the system is dialing a 7-digit number when the
monitoring station has changed area codes, but from the sound of it, it
IS dialing a different area code than you're in, and still, the number
should be controlled by the panel, not the modem.

Actually where I have run across this type of problem is when the customer
has added DSL service to their home or business phone line without bothering
to notify the alarm company. What usually happens is either the CS receiver
can't hear the signals over the DSL carrier OR more often the panel can't
hear the kissof signal from the CS so it sends the signal again.

Since all of my panels dial my toll free lines I just eat the toll cost when
it happens, and charge the customer for a DSL filter specific to alarm
panels.

NOW! Technically it is the customer's fault, or the DSL providers fault in
this case. I recently did a DSL self install in my house, and the
instruction clearly said that if you have an alarm panel notify your alarm
company. I have also had clients call me and tell me their self install
instructions for their new DSL modem said the same thing. If these
instruction are well enough known to be documented for self installers there
is absolutely no excuse for a proffessional DSL installer to make this
mistake either.

In this case we can't say who is at fault until we actually discover the
problem for this run-a-way repeat signal attempt, but addition of DSL to the
line can cause almost exactly these symptoms.

Of course we have over looked an underlying problem which could be makling
things worse. AT&T. If they have the customer on a carrier where they are
compressing to many phone lines over the available bandwidth they could be
distorting the signal enroute. Usually the kissof signal is the one that
suffers. Most of the time you can hear a little echo or tin can sound to
the lines on a voice call when this is the case, but not always. The fact
that the customer's panel is dialing the local ANI terminated line rather
than the alarm companies toll free line says that whatever the customer's
toll provider does is what the alarm panel has to deal with. Another reason
to own your own lines, and pick your own carrier that caters to alarm
companies, and have your own toll free lines. Then rarely is the alarm
panel subject to the substandard service of the customer's toll provider.
Yes it costs you a few ¢ per signal, but the level of service is better.
Why this is the case for this customer is unknown. Maybe they have been on
the same service for 50 years and have never had anything upgraded ever, and
now its coming back to bite them.

Hi Bob, we have two phone lines, and added DSL on "the other" phone
line since 3 years ago. The phone line that was billed for over $300
does not have any DSL services nor did we added any other extra
services to this phone line recently...Thanks again for your help..

 

[Frank Olson]

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.

 

[[email protected]]

Dear Frank, thanks so much for your reply. I just gave you a 5-star
rating on google groups. Thanks again for the great information!

 

[G. Morgan]

You don't know Frank very well then

Or Google.

 

[Nomen Nescio]

For our case, the weekly timer set to go off every Thursday at 1:40pm.

It was working fine for 16 years until November 2007. On 12/27/07 for
example, the alarm system dialed the central station from 1:40pm until
10:18am the following morning of 12/28/07, with one call per minute.
Despite 21 hours, or 1260 called to the central station, the alarm
company did not receive this test signal until 10:15am on 12/28/07.

Most alarm systems have a programmable limit on the number of dialing
attempts. Although the FCC has rules on this, I believe alarm dialers are
exempt. Current UL standards for alarm control panels call for a maximum
of ten dialing attempts, I believe, however those standards are not legal
requirements. Older systems, such as yours, often had an option for
unlimited dialing attempts. Generally, there's no real benefit to doing
that, because if an alarm signal is delayed an hour or two it is no longer
of much value, and it ties up people's phones.

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?

How test signals are monitored is a matter of the contract between the
customer and the alarm company. Whether the keypad beeps or lights a light
for a fail to communicate condition depends on the type of control panel
that is being used. Different manufacturers handle it differently.
Personally, I view a missed timer test as a not-particularly-urgent trouble
indication, something that needs to be investigated, but not with the same
urgency as an alarm signal. On a missed weekly timer test, for example,
the problem could have occurred several days before the missed timer test.

In your case, even an immediate follow-up by your alarm company wouldn't
have helped. If they had called you to investigate the missed signal, your
phone would have been busy due to all those dialing attempts. The alarm
company wouldn't know if you were just having a long conversation.

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

I don't see that you have anything to complain to regulators about. If the
alarm company owns the control panel, then maybe they have a duty to keep
it in good working order. On the other hand, if you own the equipment,
your warranty expired about fifteen years ago. That situation would be
rather similar to your water heater springing a leak and flooding your
house: if the plumber installed it fifteen years ago, the leak is not his
fault -- it's your bad luck, and you get to pay for it.

Ideally, your system should dial a toll-free number, should have a limit on
the number of dialing attempts, and should provide some sort of indication
at the keypad when it fails to communicate. Your present system may or may
not be able to do all that.

- badenov

 

[Spudz]

That and the

poor quality of the video prevents them from being able to identify the
culprit that took the camera down, even when he stands in front of the
camera waves at the camera mockingly before he drags it down.

theys gets what theys pays for.

I'd post that
picture on a Disney site because it looks pretty Mickey Mouse to me. Which
is worse, to put up a junky installation like that or to be too stupid to
know your installation is pure crap and embarrass yourself by actually
posting it to your web site? Is this another company that has no business
being in the business.
As for this guy's complaint about the toll charges?
Toss in the fact that they used a toll number instead of an 800 number for
the central station phone number.

not unusual for the back up report to go to a toll number if the the main is
toll free.

Then setting a residential test timer for
daytime testing?

whats wrong with that? as long as it not at opening and closing times.

 

[Doug]

I have a complaint. Who decided that was a good installation of an outdoor
camera? This is a joke, right? Am I seeing things or is the drip loop
actually above the camera? And why on earth would one post that picture to
a
web site for "Commercial Security Solutions" when that would be a very
poor
even for a residential installation? Is that really the best they have?

As for this guy's complaint about the toll charges?
Toss in the fact that they used a toll number instead of an 800 number for
the central station phone number. Then setting a residential test timer
for
daytime testing?
And let's be honest here folks, most modern central stations would have
had
caller ID for that many signals and put the account on run away. The on
call
tech would have been getting a page about every 15 minutes to take care of
the problem. This company doesn't deserve any benefit of the doubt in my
opinion. Pay this man NOW! These guys level of service for this account
was
way below substandard as I see it.

You're seeing things, the drip loop is below the camera, its still not a
great installation in my opinion since I would prefer either liquid tight
flex or a mount that passes the cable through without there being any
exposed cable.

Putting the account on run away won't stop the panel making a toll call to
the CS, and since it wasn't calling a toll free number its possible or even
likely that the caller ID was blocked as many residence's block caller ID,
so what's the alarm company to do? block all unidentified incoming calls
from their receivers? Wasn't it you that threw a strop when you claimed a CS
stopped signals from one of your accounts?

A timer test mid afternoon is probably not a good idea on a residential
account, and on the face of it the alarm company should have flagged a no
timer test if the customer contracted for a weekly timer test, but since it
eventually came in it may have just flagged it as late. I'd be disappointed
if it was one of my accounts and we didn't flag it but we really don't know
the circumstances.

Who knows what caused the problem, the customer may have added something to
their phone service such as DSL, the alarm panel may have simply developed a
fault or the CS may have done something to cause the problem.


Doug

 

[alarman]

You're seeing things, the drip loop is below the camera, its still
not a great installation in my opinion since I would prefer either
liquid tight flex or a mount that passes the cable through without
there being any exposed cable.

Putting the account on run away won't stop the panel making a toll
call to the CS, and since it wasn't calling a toll free number its
possible or even likely that the caller ID was blocked as many
residence's block caller ID, so what's the alarm company to do? block all
unidentified incoming calls from their receivers? Wasn't it
you that threw a strop when you claimed a CS stopped signals from one
of your accounts?
A timer test mid afternoon is probably not a good idea on a
residential account, and on the face of it the alarm company should
have flagged a no timer test if the customer contracted for a weekly
timer test, but since it eventually came in it may have just flagged
it as late. I'd be disappointed if it was one of my accounts and we
didn't flag it but we really don't know the circumstances.

Who knows what caused the problem, the customer may have added
something to their phone service such as DSL, the alarm panel may
have simply developed a fault or the CS may have done something to
cause the problem.

Doug

threw a strop?

 

[Doug]

threw a strop?

Strop: Sulk, tantrum, mood.
Strop Noun. A bad mood, a fit of fury. E.g."I got in a strop after that
bloke knocked over my pint of beer."
Stroppy Adj. Bad tempered. {Informal}
Strop: Someone who is easily agitated, throws a wobley then goes into a
sulk.
She got annoyed then threw a strop
yeh bob was in a right strop, he really threw his rattle out the
pram

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Strop

Doug