House Alarm and Internet Provider change

OpinionRequired

So, my house alarm company has been taken over by Churches Fire and Security. The previous company charged a fix fee for a maintenance and service contract while Churches charge the same fee for an annual service and then charges for visits on top.

I recently changed my internet provider as per MSE advice to shop around and saved £4 a month. However my alarm has stopped working thus invalidating my house insurance. I phoned Churches and asked for advice, I was told if it resulted in a visit it would be chargeable. The engineer rang me back- I knew him as he previously worked for the old company. He explained that the system has to be reconnected and this required a visit. He came today unscrewed a panel, switched a switch to reactive the system and then typed in my internet provider details into a hand held device. I have been charged £144 for this and feel very irritated!!

I have queried the charge with the company and am awaiting a reply. I can reset my TV, computer etc myself so why not my alarm? It has now cost me money to change my internet provider so wasn't worth it. Has anyone else had this problem? I changed from Plusnet to BRSK.

I couldn't find a category for house alarm so thought consumer rights was the best of the others.

Thanks

Rosie

littleboo

Presumably the alarm connects via WiFi, you can avoid the problem by changing your new ISPs router to use the same name and password as the old one. That will save reconfiguring all your devices.

eskbanker

littleboo said:

Presumably the alarm connects via WiFi, you can avoid the problem by changing your new ISPs router to use the same name and password as the old one. That will save reconfiguring all your devices.

I don't think that can just be stated as universal fact, and believe that much depends on exactly how the devices connect - I've certainly found when trying to do what you suggest that many don't simply reconnect to a new router with the same name and code.

Aylesbury_Duck

OpinionRequired said:

So, my house alarm company has been taken over by Churches Fire and Security. The previous company charged a fix fee for a maintenance and service contract while Churches charge the same fee for an annual service and then charges for visits on top.

I recently changed my internet provider as per MSE advice to shop around and saved £4 a month. However my alarm has stopped working thus invalidating my house insurance. I phoned Churches and asked for advice, I was told if it resulted in a visit it would be chargeable. The engineer rang me back- I knew him as he previously worked for the old company. He explained that the system has to be reconnected and this required a visit. He came today unscrewed a panel, switched a switch to reactive the system and then typed in my internet provider details into a hand held device. I have been charged £144 for this and feel very irritated!!

I have queried the charge with the company and am awaiting a reply. I can reset my TV, computer etc myself so why not my alarm? It has now cost me money to change my internet provider so wasn't worth it. Has anyone else had this problem? I changed from Plusnet to BRSK.

I couldn't find a category for house alarm so thought consumer rights was the best of the others.

Thanks

Rosie

This is one of those cases where you're not paying for what seems a trivial task, you're paying for someone to spend time and fuel travelling to visit you amd more crucially, knowing exactly what to do to solve the problem.

Did you have the option to cancel the contract when the new provider took over, seeing as the terms had changed? Were the new terms properly explained? Did you agree to the new contract and therefore the callout fee structure?  That will determine your consumer rights.

Jenni_D

eskbanker said:

littleboo said:

Presumably the alarm connects via WiFi, you can avoid the problem by changing your new ISPs router to use the same name and password as the old one. That will save reconfiguring all your devices.

I don't think that can just be stated as universal fact, and believe that much depends on exactly how the devices connect - I've certainly found when trying to do what you suggest that many don't simply reconnect to a new router with the same name and code.

I disagree*, and agree with @littleboo. In fact I've recently changed providers and did exactly that - set up the new router to have the same SSID and password as the old one. All devices (including the alarm box) reconnected to the new router without issue.

* The only time this can be an issue is if the old router had different SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5GHz networks and the new router doesn't support separate networks. Thus any device that previously connected to one of the old SSIDs that is now defunct would need updating to the new SSID.

DullGreyGuy

OpinionRequired said:

So, my house alarm company has been taken over by Churches Fire and Security. The previous company charged a fix fee for a maintenance and service contract while Churches charge the same fee for an annual service and then charges for visits on top.

I recently changed my internet provider as per MSE advice to shop around and saved £4 a month. However my alarm has stopped working thus invalidating my house insurance. I phoned Churches and asked for advice, I was told if it resulted in a visit it would be chargeable. The engineer rang me back- I knew him as he previously worked for the old company. He explained that the system has to be reconnected and this required a visit. He came today unscrewed a panel, switched a switch to reactive the system and then typed in my internet provider details into a hand held device. I have been charged £144 for this and feel very irritated!!

I have queried the charge with the company and am awaiting a reply. I can reset my TV, computer etc myself so why not my alarm? It has now cost me money to change my internet provider so wasn't worth it. Has anyone else had this problem? I changed from Plusnet to BRSK.

I couldn't find a category for house alarm so thought consumer rights was the best of the others.

Did you get a new router from your new ISP or are you still using the same one?

Did you maintain the same SSID and password or not?

If it connects to wifi then it's likely all you needed to do was to go into the Router's control panel and change the SSID and password back to what it was on the old router. If you had done that you wouldn't need to reset any of your devices, unless the old router had finer controls than the new one. 

In principle it could be there is more to it than that and they need to know more details of your ISP to reduce the risk of spoofing but that wouldn't require a site visit to deal with it. Most the cost is going to have been travel rather than actually being on site. 

Ultimately many people are either tech or practically challenged and prefer to pay someone than do it themselves. Plenty are happy to provide such services and probably make a decent profit from it. 

As to insurance... do your insurers demand an alarm or have you simply declared you have on so the insurer has added a condition it must be on/working/maintained? Have you dont quotes without an alarm? Most insurers won't have an issue with you saying you dont have an alarm when you do, almost all insurer will add an alarm endorsement if you say you have an alarm. Alarms dont automatically reduce premiums, in particular ones that arent monitored, so all you are doing is adding cost and risk to your policy. It's a very different matter if you have £100k of jewlery and your insurers state you must have an alarm as result. 

OpinionRequired

Thank you everyone- unfortunately I am not very technical literate. The company have replied and are insistent that I pay. It was a different router with different passwords,

I did query the new contract when they took over, but was told this was their contract. I guess I need to vote with my feet and change.

No I haven't quoted without the alarm, but I live in a city so suspect it will be high.

The engineer lives locally and  was in the house for 10-15 minutes.

£144 is a lot to pay.