At closing time in any store, you want to make sure that no one is hiding out inside, planning to pull off a heist once all of the employees have left. That never really happens, though, right? A man in suburban Maryland is accused of hiding in a Sears, then smashing jewelry display cases with a hammer and stealing their contents. [More]
alarms
ADT’s Nightly 1 A.M. Wakeup Alarm Is Getting Tiresome
By 11.6.12
Reader Skruff gets a wakeup call every day, and he really, really does not appreciate it. It’s not on his phone: oh, no. It’s his ADT alarm system. Every day, it goes off at 1 A.M. Could be worse: it was 2 A.M. before Daylight Savings Time began. [More]
Nobody Wins When You Play ETF Chicken With ADT
By 8.23.12
UPDATE: Matthew won. When Matthew signed up for home alarm system service from ADT, he was promised that he would have no problem moving his service to a new home when he moved. So he signed a two-year contract. No problem! Until at his new home, he had to deal with a new salesman. One who insisted that he would need all new equipment (of course) at the new place even though what he had at his old place is almost new. Months later, he’s playing chicken with ADT. If he stops paying his bill, he’ll be hit with an early termination fee and have to pay for the equipment. If ADT lets him install his existing equipment and actually use the service he’s paying for, the salesman will look weak or something. Nobody can win this game. [More]
Selling Alarm Systems After Murders: Helpful Or Opportunist?
By 11.4.09
About a month ago, a mother and daughter were chosen at random and brutally attacked in their home in small-town New Hampshire. The daughter survived, but the mother did not. And within days of this tragedy, ADT sales reps began going door-to-door to sell alarm systems.
By 2.19.08
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In response to consumer backlash, Verizon has decided to make it so alarms on its new phones don’t go off on its phones when you dial 911. This is so if you hide and call 911 when a prowler breaks in, you don’t give them a handy homing signal. [KOMO]
Items Affected By The Cellular Analog Network Shutdown
By 12.27.07
“In particular, check phones that are kept around as 911-only phones. Such phones, which don’t have a phone number and aren’t initialized with a carrier, were given out by some donation programs that collected old phones.” Less than 1% of cell phones currently in use are analog, but the article points out that that still counts for over a million devices. Anything less than 5 years old or that can text message isn’t analog.
Dialing 911 Could Be Dangerous
By 11.25.07
Dialing 911 sets off a loud alarm on newer Verizon phones, potentially putting customers in danger. Imagine dashing under your bed at the sound of an intruder breaking through the front door, only to wonder if you should call 911 from your cellphone because it would reveal your location. A Texas woman was forced to make a similar decision when she discovered that the security chain guarding her vacant property was missing.
She grabbed her new Casio G’zOne phone from Verizon Wireless, which to her horror made an audible alarm when she called 911.
Cell Phones Scream When You’re Mugged
By 10.4.06
Does society need more ear-piercing shrieks? The car alarm. The house alarm. The fire alarm. The unbearable sound of small, obnoxious children at play. And now, the stolen cellular phone alarm.
