Negotiating burglar alarm contract?

belfastgirl23

I have an intruder alarm. I pay a maintenance charge of £84.87 PA and a monitoring charge of £84.87, a total with VAT of nearly £200. We've only ever needed the once a year annual maintenance check and I don't think we've ever had to use the monitoring part of the contract at all.

I'm wondering if it's possible to negotiate the costs on this basis - we did this recently with the AA when they looked back at their records, saw we didn't have any callouts with them and reduced the cost. Has anyone done this with burglar alarm maintenance? Did it work? I'd be very grateful to hear about your experiences

ChasingButterflies

I have a funny feeling that this is going to sound really daft...

I thought that the "monitoring part" was when you set the code it let the call centre know that your alarm was "active". So if the was an activation they could contact the keyholders and/or police...

btw check your phone bill our dials a 087 number everytime I set it - need to arrange an engineer to come out as it doesn't "have" to - just complies with quality assurance :rolleyes:

eta - you could try "shopping around" with other providers - just watch out that they don't feel the need to upgrade your system before they take it on.

debbie42

I have a basic annual maintenance charge of under £60, all in. This includes an annual check and preferential emergency callout.

ssedd

The monitoring charge is unlikely to change this will probably be a set charge for the system being connected to the monitoring station. As for the maintenance charge when you say you have only used it once does that mean the system has not been having an annual check by an engineer? If so that is wrong the system should be checked every six months by the maintenance company if it is monitored. The detection and especially the backup battery should be checked.

Alias_Omega

Police response times are poor, people ignore house alarms these days.

Cancel alarm cover, Increase house insurance cover, and relax.

PS = You can check it yourself..

1. Set alarm and set it off in each zone
2. Kill power to alarm and ensure it works..

hey presto..

belfastgirl23

Sorry I wasn't clear. The maintenance end does include a yearly checkup and I make a point of getting this done for insurance purposes. I have been wondering a few things really - whether to continue the monitoring contract or not or whether to see if I could negotiate a lower total price given that there haven't been any callouts on the monitoring side.

Our alarm currently links to the monitoring station which (allegedly) would call DBIL and DSIL who live five minutes away. But to balance that I do have a couple of very good neighbours who would also def check if they heard it. I am debating it though because we are away a bit and because we live in South Belfast which is probably amongst the worst areas in NI for burglaries, and we were burgled just after we moved in 2 yrs ago. At the same time, £200 is a lot of cash!

hander

I pay something similar to the OP. And really, I think it's a bit of a joke. recently our alarm went off (mistakenly) and I - the primary person to contact - was not contacted. During the recent service, the guy left a glue gun, plugged in and v.hot in my living room. I didn't see it until two days later and have a two-year-old in the house. He must have realised ... and didn't bother calling back.

Anyone got any suggestions of good companies? I'm in London.