Know what you are purchasing when trying to decide which alarm system or alarm company is right for you. Buyer beware of “Proprietary Equipment”.

       Allot of the big national companies we all know who there are sell you or in most cases you are lead to believe that you own the equipment but the system that you are purchasing they neglect to tell you that your alarm system has proprietary programming in it and it belongs to only that company. Even some alarm panels being sold by smaller companies are the same way such as those being manufactured by First Alert®.

  What this means to you:

       Proprietary Equipment or programming means that if you decide to move your system to a new location or you decide to switch alarm companies and monitoring that the control panel, control station and  sometimes even the devices that you paid hard earned money for can not be used by any other company than the one you purchased them from originally. This deceptive business practice strips away your right to decide what happens with YOUR alarm system.

     Another situation that consistently happens is in regards to monitoring agreements. You as a consumer are entitled to receive a copy of EVERYTHING that you sign, if your company does not provide it to you stay away it is a warning sign and they will at times change the length of the contract on you. In saying that you have no way of knowing when your agreement is going to expire in order for you to “Opt Out” or change companies giving them the opportunity to renew the contract on you sometimes for an even longer term without you even knowing it until it is to late and if you are currently paying over the overall standard of $ 18.00 per month for your alarm monitoring your really paying to much.

      Are you being monitored locally ? Or in Florida, California or other far off locations ?

     Allot of companies monitor their systems at large wholesale monitoring houses with thousands upon thousands of others like yourself  and they have no concept of the local area , our weather or local emergency services. Your just a number with them and they have no personal interest or commitment to you the client.

     Another important reason to consider is by not monitoring locally especially in these hard economic times is that your money is being sent to other states which does not support the local economy or workforce. Plus your at a higher risk of loosing your crucial link to the monitoring station during storms, outages or emergencies because of the great distance between your location and theirs.

     Lastly residential clients, know your rights when purchasing an alarm system for your home, as a consumer you have a 3 day right to cancel and the company that you are purchasing the system from should leave information with you on how to “opt out” of the contract.

     We hope that this information is of help to you, ERT Security has a strong commitment to it's clients based upon honesty, integrity and surpassing our clients expectations. If you should have any questions please feel free to contact us.