Honeywell LYNXR-EN Expansion?

That expired over a year ago. But I appreciate you raising that point.

I also appreciate what tourman has suggested. I'll look into other options.

When you do, come-on back and let us know what you're being offered. Maybe we can offer some advice.

All of the above said does not eliminate the possiblility of getting a case of the "gottchas" from a smaller company also.

I will... I'm always grateful for the advice that's offered here. Thank you.

Perhaps because many times those more "user friendly" small companies that you appear to think walk on water are more likely to go out of business

RHC: Yeah, and that sounds like standard ADT internal corporate propaganda! At least if the client is the customer of one of the smaller guys, he has a better chance of not being locked into one of the big company contracts with all their atrocious money grubbing, restrictive, and limiting terms of service, he can shop elsewhere for monitoring services. Size has nothing to do with longjevity; even the dinosaurs eventually went extinct. Hopefully ADT, Brinks and others of their kind will too.....but likely not before they screw another few million unwary consumers.

More likely than ..... what?

A larger company being bought out by another even larger company?

Granted, just like any trade or industry, small start up companys go out of business pretty often.

I think Robert would be referring to a smaller company who's been around for some years. Who would you refer someone to? Any large company or a smaller company that's been in business for 10, 15, 20 years?

Some people are highly satisfied with ADT or Brinks or whoever. Simply because they don't know that they could get/have better and are not inclined ( for whatever reason) to seek more. It's only when something occurs that makes them realize that they're getting the mega-company shuffle that the might aspire to obtain better service. Would you suggest that they go to another mega- company or a smaller well established company to obtain more personalized service? Or do you think that the risk of a smaller well establised company going out of business is so great that they should continue to endure the mega- company service or lack thereof?

RHC: Speaking from my own experience, when I started, I used a small company in town here for my monitoring services, called VSN. They quickly got bought out by SecurityLink, who then got bought out by ADT. So by default, I ended up being an ADT dealer myself. Well, I got out of that as quickly as I could, but still now use the services of another large company. So even a "small dealer" can end up using the facilities of a mega company. The difference, and your success or failure, is how you treat the client as the dealer.

It's sad but the mega companies have all the resources at their disposal to really be the very best in this business, except they continually forget one thing in the search for more revenue - service quality ! Up here, Rogers Communication is reportedly going into the alarm business, since they have massive penetration into the residential marketplace with cable service. But they too will fail, just as the phone company did years ago, because they don't have the experience of running an alarm company, and forget the service aspect of it. It's so simple really, but with all their intellectual and business resources at their disposal, they still don't get it !!! Their cable service is terrible really, so how do they expect to also run a security business.

With all the inter-relatedness of our business, sometimes it can be a strange place to work....

Not at all, look at all the alarm companies in a local phone book and compare them to what was around 15 years ago, I did that a couple of years ago and could only find 2 or 3 out of 50

The large companies don't go extinct, they get bought by larger companies. Small companies as well, I used to inspect accounts from a ton of small companies selling out and quitting the business. And I've seen the same "restrictive" contracts by small companies.

Your hatred of the big guys is becoming irrational.

To me there isn't much difference, as far as service goes that's many times handled by smaller companies who may have installed the panel in the first place or independent contractors who deal with just about everything on a day to day basis. Monitoring is usually better with the big boys, I've seen a lot of crap by local companies who contract the monitoring to small stations.

And simply because ADT, Brinks and whoever provide good monitoring.

Name a company other than ADT who covers the outside of a customer's house with an electronic field of 1's and 0's? HUH? Emergency 24 doesn't do that!

Companies that specialize in communication have historically done terrible in the alarm business, (AT&T) same with utility companies (Westar, Edison Select). Some do well for a while if the parent company leaves them alone (Westinghouse). Face it Robert, you have good and bad qualities with large and small companies, you are a small company so you have your own biases and I have mine on the other side of the street.

In my opinion most of the anger from the small companies is because they can't charge the high prices for equipment and monitoring that they used to, I used to get a ton of takeovers from people who spent several thousand dollars with a $60-%70 a month monitoring contract for a basic security system installed by companies here in Dallas, like Jim says often they didn't know what else was out there.

RHC: Irrational ? Not hardly ! Facts speak for themselves !!

Let me tell you my latest horror story from just this week. Lady lived in Toronto....all her neighbours got their "free" ADT systems. She called in to corporate but no "freebees" that day....$1600 for a new system was the best they could do, so she took it (nothing like treating everyone equally)...Two years later she moved to Ottawa....they wouldn't reinstall a new system for her...her only option was to buy out the contract for megabucks. To make a long story short, I sold and installed her new system this week for LESS than the extortion buyout fee from ADT, and I'm giving her monitoring, service and warranty for HALF of their monthly rate. Notwithstanding the stupidity of anyone signing a contract like this, I didn't have to sign anything anywhere nearly as onerous to lease even an expensive vehicle

Like I said, I don't "hate" ADT, I just hate all companies large and small that rip off consumers, giving them poor service and exhorbitant pricing, and then gouging them for no fault of their own when they move (even cell phone contracts have a reasonable buyout; alarm contracts never do) . ADT and their ilk just happen to be better at it than most......

RHC: I beg to differ ! ADT's monitoring sucks big time. Why do you think I originally moved all my accounts off their station ? It wasn't because I hate ADT, or any of the "big guys"for that matter ! It was because I had endless complaints from customers to the point where it threatened my business. If I hated the big companies in some sort of irrational fashion, do you think I would be using one of the biggest companies in Canada now for all my monitoring AND billing ? I originally paid double for monitoring services from this company as compared to ADT's price, but the service is SO much better from day one that there is no comparison. Now I get customer calling me with compliments believe it or not...

It's all about business with me - not "hatred"; without good monitoring from my provider, my alarm business would go down the drain.....

If you want to see a company that provides extremely lousy service and inflated monitoring rates (39-200+ a month), look no further than Slomins...They have that Slomin Shield BS thingy. A bunch of Napco P800's mostly with 3 doors and a motion, and a 5 year contract to boot. I download those panels maybe 5-10 times a week. They still use 3x1 format, even on the higher end P3200 & P9600 panels. Their monitoring center is still using Ademco 660 receivers...OUCH!

Jim Rojas Technical Manuals Online!

They are in my area. Every once in awhile I'll get a call from someone who wants to leave them. I don't even consider using their equipment. I will only up grade the system to a perimiter at the minimum and install nothing less than a Napco 1632. If they don't want that, I wont take over just a basic two door an a motion detector installation. I tell them to get someone who is willing to put their customers and their reputation at risk by monitoring a completely inadequate system. Some do ..... and some don't. Those who don't would never appreciate what I do for my clients anyway.

Here's my experience on that subject. Some of the larger "dealers" fall into the same category as the mega companys. That is, both service and installation is a production line process. Installs consist of a "package" and amount to lick and stick type installation. If the install is a "full" alarm system, then the "full system crew" is dispatched while the customer pays about half again as much as they would buying their system from a local "non-associated" type dealer. Sometimes these dealers will "raid" an area trying to take accounts away from other alarm companys. They use their "association" with a well advertised or well known alarm company, using a low leader monitoring fee to entice the end user. This is approach is mostly to the small commercial businesses. If the end user is enticed enough to switch, many times the end user either has forgotten or doesn't realize that they are in contract with their present alarm company and now they've signed TWO contracts that they're obligated to. The raiding company never mentions that possibility to the customer.

In my experience regarding the "smaller" megacompany dealers, they are usually the people who can't make it on their own (for various reasons but mostly for the same reason most small companys can't make it, they're installers, not businessmen) and think that by associating with a nationally known brand name, they'll defy the odds and be able to make money, in spite of the fact that the dealership game is fixed in favor of the mega company. Now, it follows that if they can't make it on their own, they're most likely to not be able to make it in a dealership for the very same reasons. But they, for some reason, can't see that. It seems that, ( speculation on my part) because they're associated with a large company that somehow they're "protected" and craftmanship, customer relations, flexability, customer relations, is not an important part of what they're supposed to be doing. The quantity of installations is the motivation (because of the buy-back process) not necessarily the long term satisfaction of the customer. This is traditionally where the "successful and established" smaller companys leap ahead of the mega companies.

As far as "smaller" central stations, I place them in the same category as "smaller" dealers. The quantifier is "well established" Of course I use myself as an example. The length of time that I've been in business is what gets me the jobs over the small, short term small companies. What looses me jobs is the fact that I wont compromise my prices. When a prospect tells me that the previous sales guy will give it to them cheaper I tell them that "He's the only one who knows what the value of his work is. During all my time in this trade, seeing the work of many of my competitors, I also know what the value of my work is in comparison the them." If the prospect is swayed by only the price and doesn't consider what my length of time in the trade and experience is worth, that's his problem.

You certainly can't say that from what you've seen end users have said here about the slow, lackidasical, not at all response that they've experienced. . So I have to presume that since you work for a large monitoring company that you associate it from that point of view. Which I can understand ...... in the same way that I associate from a small dealer perspective. We've all heard the war stories that fortify our respective points of view. And I can also understand that certainly we've never or not at all often seen end users come to this group lauding smaller or larger alarm companies or central stations. People only come here complaing about their bad experiences.

So it amounts to Large companys are unpersonal and small companys are more personal. There are good and bad experiences in both. However, my personal opinion is that even when choosing someone for services in my personal life, I'll look for a smaller well establised company before I'd ever use a giant company. I just think it makes sense because you can investigate a smaller companys history but not a larger company and because the smaller company has a personal stake in making their customers happy vesus a hired mega companys sales person who's working on commission.

I tried that but the customer didn't like the color I used and do you realize how long it takes to do that with a magic marker in the middle of the night?