I had an interesting experience with a customer earlier today, that unfortunately, does happen from time to time. The customer called in complaining that the monitoring station operator would not cancel his alarm. He stated that he had forgot his password, but was trying to convey to the operator that he was indeed the owner of the property. He was quite insistent that she cancel the alarm dispatch, which she did not. Was she right to dispatch?
Yes, absolutely. Whenever an alarm signal comes into the monitoring station, their job is to call back to the site to ensure that the alarm is not a false alarm. But if you cannot provide the proper password, the operator has no way of knowing if it is really you. In this day of identity theft and online hackers, it is easy for the criminal minds in society to get all the personal information about you that they want. If the operator were to just “take your word for it” over the phone, what good would alarm monitoring be?
If you set up a password with the alarm company that only you know, then the bad guy cannot get that by swiping a personal file about you. Try not to use the same password that you use on your computer.
Make sure that your alarm password is something that everyone who has access can remember easily. Should you forget your password, most alarm companies will simply mail you a letter back to reveal your password.
Keep in mind though, that should you forget your password, and the operator dispatches the local authorities, that they are indeed doing their job properly.
