Security Industry News >> EMERgency24 Inc.

WI Task Force Addresses False Alarms, Door-to-Door Scams

Thinking of buying a burglar alarm for your home? Think again. Wisconsin requires no more security training for a licensed alarm installer than a banana salesman. And even after the alarm is installed, there’s no guarantee Milwaukee police will respond.

Wisconsin is one of 12 states that still lack an accreditation process for the operators who install and monitor the systems meant to alert police or firefighters to break-ins or fires, according to Christopher Utter, president of the Wisconsin Electronic Security Association (WESA).

He’s sitting with another industry representative and city officials on the Private Alarm System Task Force, where he has promoted adding training to the city’s Private Alarm Business license requirements.

Ald. Robert Puente, vice-chair of the Common Council’s public safety committee and a retired Milwaukee police captain, chairs the panel. It’s reviewing complaints from consumers who say they were duped into buying security systems and considering ways to fine out-of-state companies for violating the city’s unverified alarm ordinance.

The Common Council voted in January to create the task force “to review the regulation of the private alarm service business” and “study sales and servicing of private alarm systems.” The council’s resolution hints of complaints like those Puente has heard. City regulations, it says, “may be improved to protect consumers from coercive or undesirable sales practices.”

A common complaint, according to Puente, is door-to-door salesmen who claim their security systems will provide a direct link to the police. Such a link implies that if a burglary or intentional trigger by the homeowner sets off the alarm, the police come. But that’s not always true under a controversial policy created by Chief Nannette Hegerty and later written into law by the Council in 2004. The ordinance was intended to prevent police from responding to numerous false alarms.

WESA never liked the ordinance and fought it hard, but 13 out of 15 aldermen pushed ahead, also killing an earlier proposal to convene a task force before codifying Hegerty’s policy. It requires a security guard or other third party, possibly a neighbor or other 911 caller, to substantiate a burglar alarm before an officer will respond.

But Utter speaks of the ordinance like a dead issue: “I’m not on the task force to get that changed.”

There’s money in false alarms
A counter-proposal by Ald. Tony Zielinski, who voted against 2004’s unverified alarm ordinance, sits in legislative limbo. Zielinski says he’ll push it again if he thinks there’s enough support. In 2004, there wasn’t, and the Council filed it away without a vote.

His proposal, he says, “could bring in, literally, millions of dollars.” It would resume police service to unverified alarms but charge the alarm provider the cost of the police department’s response if officers determine, upon arrival, that the alarm is false. Penalties intensify for repeat offenders. An alternate version of the plan, which would charge alarm users a yearly fee of $70, was predicted to bring in about $3.5 million a year.

Hegerty stopped officers from responding to unverified alarms since the vast majority turn out to be false, she argued, and waste time. Puente still agrees with the policy and says police testimony in the public safety committee indicates it’s working well.

He wants the task force to figure out how to fine out-of-state companies for violating the unverified alarm ordinance. Hundreds of fines are possible, he says, but impractical because police must serve the delinquent companies in-person. Puente doesn’t favor suspending or revoking their licenses because it kills customers’ alarm service.

Utter says the problems lie with a new wave of fly-by-night companies that sell alarm systems door-to-door nationwide. “There’s kind of been a new wave of companies that have come into our industry,” he says, and the wave hit Wisconsin sometime in the past year after raising concerns elsewhere.

Utter insists there are ways to bring down false alarms in Milwaukee, including educational outreach to businesses that trigger frequent false alarms, a strategy that succeeded in Eau Claire and Appleton.

Most false triggers happen as employees are leaving or entering a business, he says, and can be prevented. WESA members have already signed a pledge to increase the calls they make, including ones to building owner cell phones, to weed out false alerts.