How do you justify this engineer lock-out?

Intruder alarm installers and others working within the industry are frequently talking about intruder alarm servicing and maintenance and, most importantly, how to retain customers.

I am proud to admit that I have devised a (nearly) failsafe plan which ensures that installers retain their customers now and into the future. Being of a generous nature I have decided to let others know of my cunning idea.

My simple, but clever, idea is that when installing an alarm panel or taking over a system you drill a neat hole through the panel lid and back box which you then secure together with a padlock.

The really clever bit is you retain both keys to the lock and only offer to supply the customer with a key if they pay you £30 or so and are willing to wait for you to deliver the key in person.

What do you think? Well, let me take a guess. You are probably thinking along the lines of “I hope I never bump into this man at IFSEC...” or “He’s one brick short of a load”.

But am I really barking mad or am I just reflecting upon a common practice called “Engineer code locking”?

I am sure that many others within the trade are aware of this facility, where the engineer’s code can be locked into a panel ... and an NVM wipe will not clear it.

Only a person with the engineer’s code or returning the panel to the manufacturer (for a fee) will enable another engineer to program or take over a system.

My personal experience was trying to take over a customer’s system and having to wait an unpaid forty five minutes (looking slightly incompetent) for a rival to clear his locked engineer’s code.

On this occasion I did point out to the customer that he could sue for illegal retention (future maintenance and servicing) of rights, as the system was sold in its entirety and no retention of any kind was explained to the end user or mentioned within a contract.

But to be realistic, this was not a case for Perry Mason and the forty five minute wait together with the £30 fee was as much as my customer wanted to spend on this matter.

The engineer from the established alarm company who unset the panel explained that it was simply a “coincidence” that their engineers’ number started with the digit which causes the code to lock.

I have since spoken to the panel manufacturer who could offer only one explanation for this facility, which was: “It is a facility which some of our users require and does not have to be used”.

The technical support engineer I spoke to did agree with me that their offer of re-setting the panel if it were returned to them was a bit like a carpet cleaning firm that did not make house calls!

The truth of the matter is that if an end user decides to try a different installer for routine servicing or a minor fault, they are hardly likely to appreciate having to wait for a rival company to attend and pay £30 or so on top of the original service call charge.

The facility allows unscrupulous installers to retain future work by an illegal method which they are and will continue to get away with.

Your readers’ views of this practice and, in particular, any justification for it would be of interest to both myself and others who have had to deal with this problem.