Salesmen Sound the Burglar Alarm

First came the fear. Armed bandits slipped through an open bedroom window in the night and attacked her neighbors with a stun gun, stealing jewelry, cash and the family car.

Next morning the telephone calls started. Then came knocks on the door.

Already terrified by a recent wave of home robberies, Mrs. J. and her husband hunkered down for the siege of burglar alarm peddlers.

“You’re just so plagued with telephone calls,” said the elderly Villa Park homemaker, who asked that her name not be used. “It was a bit of pressure. Scare tactics. They started after us.” Her husband fielded calls from 10 different firms the first day. More followed in the week after.

Home and commercial security systems are a booming $7-billion industry in this country, with an estimated 10% to 15% of the business concentrated in California, according to industry trade groups. Orange County, an affluent area for the most part, is a good market for alarm systems, said Dick Beunk, president of the Western Burglar and Fire Alarm Assn.

But one aspect of the business--hustling for clients in neighborhoods suffering a crime wave--raises questions of ethical conduct.

Although many of Orange County’s more than 140 security alarm companies acknowledge that such aggressive sales practices are not uncommon, the tactics generally are frowned upon as bad for business. Crime waves are rare and an industry that relies on word of mouth for most of its business only harms itself by leaving bad impressions with potential customers, company representatives say.

Still, the practice continues. Sales people learn of a crime from radio scanners, police blotters, neighborhood word of mouth and, most often, through press accounts.

When the “stun-gun bandits” recently terrorized Villa Park and Lemon Heights, scores of security firms were quickly on the telephones and walking the streets. One company owner living in Villa Park

was ringing doorbells within 12 hours of one robbery. Traumatized residents in the upscale area were inundated by solicitors hawking home security systems that average about $2,500 and can run as much as $5,000.

“We will nail areas, if you want to call it that,” said Greg Rankin, marketing manager for Westec Security Inc. in Irvine. “We go into areas that have had a crime. Frankly, it’s an opportunity--a heightened level of fear among people looking for a way to protect themselves.”

Janet Adams, who lives next door to one of the Villa Park victims, said she felt safe during the crime spree because she already had an alarm system.

‘A Lot of Calls’

She found the telephone solicitations “hysterical” at first.

“We got a lot of calls at the time,” Adams said. “The neighborhood joke was that (one alarm company) hired the robbers because he got so much business here. Within a week, he had done four or five houses on this block.”

The pitch over the telephone invariably began: “I’ve heard you had some disturbing problems in your neighborhood and I’d like to help you,” Adams said. “It was comical.”

But after awhile, “the calls did bother me,” she said. “I thought of mortuary companies calling you after there has been a death in the family.”

Indeed, much like funeral parlors and even insurance, the security industry is something most people probably prefer not to think about.

“Unfortunately, the business we’re in benefits from crime,” said Barry Brideau, president of Anaheim-based Beam Alarm Corp. “But if there’s more opportunity in an area, you’re crazy not to check it out. It is a market opportunity.

“We saw that with the Night Stalker,” he said. “That was a bonanza.”

Area Saturated

Brideau said he made several solicitation calls to Villa Park when the bandits first struck but gave up when he found the area saturated by his competitors.

“They infested it like a plague,” Brideau said. “I look at this business as doing a service, like insurance. But if people have been contacted 15 times, that’s a nuisance. At that point, I don’t think I’m doing them a service.”

Home protection systems vary in complexity from a dead bolt on the front door to alarms that connect to the security firm’s headquarters or to the local police. Typically, the triggers are door mats, light sensors or electrical connections broken when a door or window is opened.

In California, alarm system companies are licensed by the state and their conduct is bound by the Business and Professions Code. Unhappy customers can lodge complaints with the state Department of Consumer Affairs, although selling security systems in the midst of a crime wave is not forbidden by the code, a department spokeswoman said.

But people purchasing a system can contact the department’s Bureau of Collection and Investigative Services in Sacramento to find out whether a firm has complaints lodged against it, Noreene DeKoning said.

Rankin, Brideau and other industry officials emphasize that most security alarm business comes from referrals. Happy clients tell their friends about the firm. Reputable companies, whose livelihood rests in large part on their reputations, secure little business from trolling neighborhoods that have been hit by criminals, industry officials said. After all, there aren’t that many crime waves to capitalize on.

Only 8% to 10% of American homes have burglar alarms, said Donna Gentry, executive director of the Security Equipment Industry Assn., an industry wholesale trade group. That leaves a wide-open market, she said.

“If you’re looking at 90% of the market as available and then wait for areas having a crime problem, then you’re not going after the market,” she said. “Most of the companies we deal with are professionals and wouldn’t do that.”

In any case, many residents of crime-stricken neighborhoods are grateful to hear from security companies.

“We were inundated,” said Carl Odiam, whose neighbor down the street was robbed by the stun-gun bandits. “Almost under siege. But they were professional. They were just letting everybody know they were there.”

Said one homeowner who bought a new alarm system: “I’m very happy with the one I have. If you’re happy and feel secure, it’s worth the money you pay.”

But the woman, who asked not to be identified, said she has bitter memories of one pesky salesman.

“He started going through the house, and I didn’t even know who he was,” she said.

Salesman Returned

Later, after she and her husband bought a different alarm system, the salesman visited again and said, “Too bad you’re going with another company because you won’t be safe anyway,” the woman recalled. “I finally asked him to be professional and leave.”

The National Burglar and Fire Alarm Assn., an industry retail trade group, requires its 3,000 member firms to abide by an eight-point code of ethics. The code does not explicitly address what one salesman candidly described as “our version of ambulance chasing.” It does, however, call on members to “maintain a wholly professional attitude towards those we serve.”

Asked whether that code provision would restrict its members from soliciting freshly robbed clients, association spokeswoman Pamela DeSanto in Washington paused and said, “I don’t know the answer to that.” After reflecting for a moment on the practice, she said, “That sounds sort of tough.”

Some industry experts are more blunt about why salesmen work crime-stricken areas: “Once (a neighborhood has been) burned, they’d certainly be good prospects,” said Debbie Omara, associate editor of Security Distributing & Marketing, a Des Plaines, Ill.-based industry magazine.

Probably one of the most horrific scares in recent Orange County memory came 3 years ago when the Night Stalker struck a home in Mission Viejo. A 29-year-old man was shot several times in the head and survived. His fiancee was raped.

Guardian Angels

The neighborhood was in an uproar. Even the Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime patrol group founded in New York, made an appearance and prowled the area. But the burglar alarm peddlers were there even before the Angels.

“Oh, I remember the calls,” recalled one woman who lives on the street where the Night Stalker hit. “We were deluged. But it wasn’t harassment. It was just business.”

Another neighbor said she tried for 2 weeks to buy dead bolts and locks for her windows at the time but all the hardware stores had been cleaned out. She said that she was grateful that the alarm people called her but that the $2,500 price tag for a security system was too high.

Richard Ramirez, a drifter from Texas, is now on trial in Los Angeles in connection with the string of Night Stalker murders.

And last month, Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrested three suspects in the five stun-gun robberies in Villa Park and Lemon Heights.

“We like to think one of the best alarm systems there is is the telephone and 911,” said Richard J. Olson, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department. “But our basic feeling is that when someone puts in a security system, that is a step in the right direction. Anything like that that people can do in this day and age to protect their family and property, we would encourage.”

SHOPPING FOR A HOME SECURITY ALARM

Find a reputable alarm company. The best references are usually from friends and business acquaintances. Call the state Department of Consumer Affairs at (213) 620-5901 to check a firm’s record.

Shop around until you find a company that can match a security system to your needs and budget.

Set up an appointment with a company representative at your home when all decision-making members of your family can be present.

Check local laws on alarms. There may be rules governing the types of alarms allowed, the length of time an alarm can sound and whether there are any penalties for false-alarm calls to your local police or sheriff’s department.

Study the contract. Once a company representative has visited and appraised your security needs, ask for a written proposal and a copy of the contract you will have to sign. Take time to look it over. Never sign a contract that does not list the points of protection and does not itemize the equipment to be installed.

There is no such thing as an absolutely burglar-proof system. Don’t believe a salesperson who tells you so.

Source: National Burglar & Fire Alarm Assn., Inc., police