Re: Call setup... does it have to go to a monitoring company?

Dave wrote:
On Feb 18, 11:17 am, Jim <alarmi...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

And your concerned only about when your home. So what? When the alarm
goes off and doesn't alert anyone else, you're going to do exactly
what? Shoot it out with the bad guys?

So if an intruder comes in, hears the alarm and decides to stay, I
should just cross my fingers and "hope for the best" while ADT/Brinks
calls the police? Do you really think I have 5 minutes to spare while
I wait for the police? It's better to be prepared and have the guts
to face the intruder if they come after you. The Brinks/ADT
commercials are nice and all, but reality is much harsher. There will
always be a few minutes that you're on your own, regardless of whether
or not you're monitored.

Secondly, when the alarm goes off, the police will be alerted... by
us! Last I checked, police still take calls from private citizens.
We're lucky in that we live in a town where 911 calls go straight to
the dispatcher.

Do you work in the industry? It sounds like you have beef against
people that are willing to do it themselves..?


Dave

A 'beef' against you? I wouldn't put it that way.

But, some of us do take it a little personally. We make our living selling peace of mind and we truly believe in the products and services we provide.

We believe in monitoring because we have seen it work to help catch thieves, save property from fire or frozen water lines and even, from time to time, save lives.

Because we understand the gravity of what is at stake, the industry has spent a lot of time and money on technology that ensures we are there when you need us there, can notify the appropriate responders quickly and with as much information as we possibly can.

When you claim that you can do the same thing with your cell phone it really discounts what we do, and shows (at least in our opinion) that you don't fully understand the difference between what we provide and what you would be able to do.

I'll provide a quick compare/contrast. Granted it poses an extreme example, but Murphy has a tendency to pay close attention to things like this and loves to take advantage.

You are meeting a client (or a friend, group of buddies, whatever) at a restaurant for an evening. Wife and kids are home.

Furnace takes a dump, starts filling the house with carbon monoxide.

You go in the restaurant and accidentally leave your cell phone plugged into the charger in your car.

The CO detector trips, siren goes off but everyone is muggy from the gas because the installer disagreed with my opinion of where the detector should be mounted and it was too high/low. They aren't able to respond intelligently to the siren and smoke detectors screaming all over the house. They're awake but either flopping around on the bed or couch, or wandering around totally confused.

This is where the situations diverge:

1) the panel calls the central station who notifies the fire department that your address is full of Carbon Monoxide and they roll the appropriate rescue and medical response.

2) the panel calls your cell phone. It stays on the line a long time waiting to get the handshake so the static does manage to leave a voice mail... ten times.

1) the central station calls you cell phone to notify you of the situation. You come out after dinner (or whatever) and get the message from central station. You call home and Deputy Rogers answers the phone as he has been left to watch over the premises after the fire department smashed in the front door (you know how they love to do that). He tells you that they got there just in time and gives you name of the hospital that your family has been taken to. He reminds that your furnace does not work and the windows are all open so it might be a good idea to call your heating guy after you get to the hospital.

2) You come out after dinner (or whatever) and get the messages (static) from your home phone number. You're pretty quick on the draw so you have figured it out by the beginning of the third hissy message. You call 911 and tell them your alarm went off thirty five minutes ago. They ask if it is a fire alarm or a burglar alarm. You don't know. They tell you that they will send a cruiser by. Did you know they probably won't respond with lights and siren? You head for home as quickly as you can knowing that you don't want to risk the delay of a ticket (or having to explain to the officer before he lets you go)

1) You get to the hospital where your wife is already fully recovered and sitting with the kids who are still on oxygen, but awake. They will be ready to go home in a couple hours. You call Jimmy (your furnace guy) who is glad to hear that everyone is all right and is more than happy to head over to your house and check your furnace out.

2) You get to your house to find a few police cars, a couple fire trucks and an ambulance. A police officer stops you at the driveway and tells you to talk to that fire captain over there before you try to enter your home which is now known as, "the scene of the incident."

1) You get to your house, which has already warming up, Jimmy is just packing up his tools. He greets you and your family saying how glad he is to see everyone's doing so well. The furnace is fixed and in light of the situation he is only charging you for parts.

I told you it was gonna be an extreme example. No furnace guy is only going to charge for parts, but everyone forgets their cell phone once in a great while.

Kidding aside, I tell you this from personal experience and in all sincerity -

You do NOT want to find yourself sitting at a funeral KNOWING you could have prevented it if only you had...

.

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