This false alarm this evening will now be the second time in my new house that an alarm operator has disregarded without password verification. I know I was told last time it was probably because they recieved an abort but I was previously told in this form when this happened the last time I moved that per surety policy for all your customers that all central station interactions are supposed to require password verification? Any idea why this is happening?
For reference here is the previous thread that I mentioned.
CS not responding appropriately - Support - Surety Support Forum (suretyhome.com)
Also I just tested WITHOUT aborting and again was not required to provide a password to disregard the alarm (which is a safety concern since if I was in danger I would have had to chance to provide a verbal durress code). It sounds like when I had you guys update the emergency information (ie keybox and pet information) on my account when I moved this time that the same thing has happened as last time.
To aid in your troubleshooting nothing has changed in system manager other than the address when I moved and the emergency notes. I have also not turned video verification back on since we turned it off in the linked thread.
Please help! Thank you in advance!
Oddly enough, I recently had an operator disregard an alarm without verifying my name, which wouldn’t be a big deal except the password used is tied to my name.
It seems like AG’s quality and speed went down a little bit recently. I wonder if it has anything to do with the massive amount of expansion they’ve had over the past year or so.
Happy to look into it for you, we’ll check with the monitoring team and see about what might have caused this in these events.
I know there was a large back end software update at AvantGuard recently, which may play a part. We’ll investigate whether this may be impacting the special rules.
Industry standards evolve, and AVG’s default practice is not requiring passwords on cell phone contacts, as a false dispatch reduction effort. Most users prefer this, and I believe it is being considered internally as a default procedure for our accounts in the future.
Hey Jason,
I appreciate you looking into it however I fail to see the logic in not requiring a passcode on cellphone contacts. I understand for accounts that have two way voice any on prem contact would occur that way and I am assuming they would prompt for a passcode but for accounts like mine that have two way disablesd (mine is broken on my panel) and that dont have a landline (because who does anymore?) the only contact is on cellphone at which point an intruder or agressor could answer the phone in my name and disreagard an alarm. I think that is a horrible idea that if many people thought about would not make logical sense. If possible while correcting this issue please add a note on my account to require password verification for all central station contacts. if there is no passcode verification that kind of defeats the purpose of having an alarm at all or at lease paying for monitoring. I dont mean to sound rude at all but I hope that makes sense where I am coming from. I fail to see how that is industry standard when I just called 3 national companies and several local mom and pop companies and ALL of them require password verification for any alarm that comes in aborted or not to disregard over the phone.
Hey Jason,
After I thought about it, could i simply move my cellphone to the premise phone area in systems manager and then it require password verification since it would appear as a permise number since I use my cellphone as my home phone as well?
I appreciate you looking into it however I fail to see the logic in not requiring a passcode on cellphone contacts.
At the risk of turning this into a debate thread, I’ll try to address this as best I can.
The logic behind it is ( I believe ) based on a few truths:
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If I remember right, the basic statistic on phone usage is something like 95 % of people have their smartphone either physically on their person or within like 5 feet at all times of day. On average phones are used about every 10 minutes.
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A very large percentage of false dispatches occur because of incorrect passwords.
I’m not sure I fully agree with the stance, there are drawbacks in certain scenarios to consider, and as I said, I think it is being considered as a default procedure in the future, but it is not the current default procedure for our users.
If implemented, similar to 2FA, AVG would be making the assumption that the phone will be with the owner. You can still state a duress word if needed, or enter a duress code at the panel to disarm.
Yes, you could enter the number as a premise number and it would be dialed per the premise number default procedures first.
Feedback is always appreciated, and if any changes are made in the future, users would have the opportunity to opt out and keep current defaults.
Feedback is always appreciated, and if any changes are made in the future, users would have the opportunity to opt out and keep current defaults.
Thank you jason that option makes me feel much better. Just so a scenario that I can bring to you guys attention when surety is considering that change please see the below lifesaver video from ADT. In this scenario had a password not been requested on a cell phone, a woman in washington would have lost her life. Please take scenarios like this into consideration (as surety as a whole that is) when making a decision like no cell phone password verification on a cell phone call as in this scenario the ex- husband(agressor) was impersonating the subscriber on the cell phone and if no password had been required this woman may have bled out and died. I know this is not a decision that you personally are making but as you mentioned please pass this feedback along as it could save someones life in the future.
ADT Lifesaver Video Spokane, WA
As for my issue, I will test with my cell phone being entered as the premise number this evening when I arrive home and let you know if that works as expected. Thank you for your help with my issue and again I apologize if I seemed rude or debative regarding this issue I was just frustrated that things were not working as expected but as always you guys have had amazing service to resolve any issue.
AvantGuard looked into this and ran through the action plan software, and I’ve been told the issue is due to how the No Disregard per Abort special rule is implemented.
Essentially operators are seeing conflicting instructions due to that, and AVG is fixing it now.
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Thank you Jason! I did test moving the cell number to the landline field in systems manager and it worked as a landline where they asked for my name and password before any information like they did on my cell before. Thank you for assisting as always!