Before you sign with an alarm company: the questions that separate good ones from bad

The short version

Before you sign anything, find out five things: whether the company and its installers are licensed in Texas, whether someone will walk your property before quoting, how the system communicates with the monitoring center, exactly what the contract commits you to, and who comes out when something breaks. A company that answers all five clearly, in writing, is usually a safe choice. A company that dodges any of them, or pushes you to sign today, is telling you how the next several years will go.

We at Foresight Security have installed and monitored alarm and camera systems for homes and small businesses for ten years. One reviewer told us he had been dreading alarm shopping because it felt like car shopping. This guide is the list I would give a friend so it does not have to feel that way.

Is the company licensed, and are the installers?

In Texas, the Department of Public Safety's Private Security Program regulates alarm system installers and monitoring companies, and it offers a public license search through its online licensing system. Ask for the company's license number and the name it is filed under, then look it up. The FTC gives the same advice in its warning about door-to-door alarm sales: get the contractor's name, address, phone number and license number before anyone comes inside.

Then ask who will actually be in your house. Some companies sell the system and send a subcontractor you have never heard of. Ask whether the installers are the company's own licensed technicians, and whether the same company will service the system later. At Foresight, our own licensed technicians install, set up the app and train you before they leave.

A license does not prove a company is good, but its absence proves something is wrong. It also gives you somewhere to turn if a problem comes up, because the state program investigates complaints against the people it licenses. Thirty seconds on a search page is cheap insurance before you hand someone the codes to your house.

Will you see my property before you quote?

A quote given over the phone, before anyone has seen the house, is a guess. A proper quote comes from a walkthrough: the entry points, the hidden doors and windows, where cameras need to go, where cable can run, how the household lives and what worries you. Ask what the visit includes and whether the quote will list every device, the installation and the monitoring separately.

Pay attention to what the person asks you during the visit. Good designers ask who comes and goes, whether you have pets, whether you want to arm the system at night while you sleep, and what happened that made you call. Someone who spends the visit selling features without asking how you live is designing a system for a commission, not for your house. If you want a sense of what a fair quote contains, our guide to what drives the cost of a security system breaks it down.

How does the system talk to the monitoring center?

This is the technical question most people skip, and it matters most when something actually happens. A system can reach the monitoring center through a landline, your home internet or a cellular connection. Landlines can be cut. Internet goes down when the power or the router does. Our systems use built-in cellular communication, so they keep reporting during a power outage or if a phone line is cut.

Follow up with questions about the monitoring center itself. Is it staffed around the clock by trained operators? What do they do when an alarm comes in: call you first, call a list of contacts, dispatch right away? Can they talk to you through the keypad? Can they see your cameras during an alarm? The answers tell you what will happen at 3 a.m. when a door sensor trips.

• Cellular, internet or landline, and what happens if each fails
• A central station staffed 24 hours a day by trained operators
• The call and dispatch order when an alarm comes in
• Two-way voice through the keypad
• Whether operators can view camera video during an alarm

What exactly am I signing?

Read the agreement before the installer arrives, not on the tablet after the work is done. Find the length of the monitoring term, the monthly amount, whether it can rise during the term, what happens at renewal, and what it costs to cancel early. Ask what happens if you sell the house or move the business. Ask who owns the equipment once it is installed.

The FTC's warning about home security sales lists the classic red flags: pressure to act now on a limited-time offer, free equipment offered to get you to sign a long monitoring contract, scare tactics about recent burglaries, and phony upgrades from someone claiming your current company went out of business. The FTC also recommends getting every verbal promise in writing. If something was said in your kitchen, it should be on paper.

• Length of the monitoring term and the monthly amount
• Whether the monthly amount can rise during the term
• Automatic renewal terms and the notice needed to stop them
• Early cancellation cost, and what happens if you move or sell
• Who owns the equipment after installation
• Every promise the salesperson made, written into the agreement

Know your right to cancel a sale made at your door

If a salesperson knocks on your door and you sign in your home, federal law may give you time to change your mind. The FTC's Cooling-Off Rule generally gives you until midnight of the third business day after the sale to cancel certain sales made at your home for a full refund. Saturdays count as business days; Sundays and federal holidays do not. There are exceptions, so read the FTC's page on the rule if it applies to you.

Better still, do not sign at the door at all. Take the paperwork, look the company up, check its license, and call two others. A good company will still be there in three days.

Who fixes it in year three?

Every system eventually needs something: a sensor battery, a camera that got knocked out of alignment, a new code for a new employee, a keypad that stopped responding. Ask how you request service, how long it usually takes someone to come out, and whether service calls cost extra. Ask whether the company maintains, inspects and repairs what it installs, or whether it hands you a phone number for a national call center.

Also ask how easy it is to change the system as your life changes. Adding a camera, a smart lock or a second keypad should be a simple visit, not a new contract. If the system runs on a widely used platform with a good app, changes are usually easier. Our systems are powered by Alarm.com and controlled from iOS and Android apps.

For a business, ask one more thing: how quickly can a former employee's access be removed? With user codes and app-managed access control, removing someone should take minutes from your phone, not a locksmith visit. For a family, ask whether each person gets an individual code and whether the app shows who armed and disarmed the system and when. Those small features are what people end up using every week.

Questions about cameras specifically

Cameras are where vague promises hide most easily, so be specific. Ask whether the cameras are wired or wireless, what resolution they record at, whether they work at night, where video is stored and for how long, and whether you can view live and recorded video from your phone and the keypad. Ask how many cameras the company recommends and what each one is for. A camera without a clear job is money spent on watching a wall.

• Wired or Wi-Fi, and why for each location
• Day and night image quality
• Where footage is stored, and for how long
• Live and recorded viewing on the app and keypad
• Motion alerts and short video clips sent to your phone
• What each camera is meant to capture

The answers that should make you walk away

Walk away from anyone who cannot give you a license number, will not put the contract terms in writing, insists you decide today, or claims your current provider is gone without letting you call to confirm. Be cautious about a company that cannot tell you how the system communicates or who answers the alarm. And ask about local rules: the FTC suggests asking whether your police and fire departments require you to register the system. In the City of Dallas, an alarm permit is required, and we explain how that works in our guide to Dallas alarm permits and false alarm fees.

If you already have an older system and a company is pushing you to replace it, our guide on when an old alarm system needs to be replaced helps you judge whether that is true.

How we answer these questions

When you call Foresight Security, we schedule a visit to your home or business anywhere in our Dallas-Fort Worth service area. We walk the property with you, answer every question on this list, and give you a written quote with the equipment, installation and monitoring spelled out. Nobody will ask you to sign that day.

If you go ahead, our licensed technicians install and test the system, set up the app on your phone and show everyone in the house how to use it. Monitoring starts right away, and when you need a change or a repair later, you call the same local company that put it in.

Questions people ask me