Looking for New Monitoring Company -- Problem with Next Alarm

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.

Reply to
Jack
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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 !!

Reply to
tourman

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.

Reply to
JoeRaisin

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.

Reply to
tourman

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.

Reply to
Jack

LOL my feelings exactly!

Reply to
mleuck

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.....)

Reply to
tourman

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.

Reply to
E DAWSON

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