This week, we're on the trail of Direct Response Security Systems Ltd of Sutton Coldfield. The company doesn't just sell burglar alarms, they claim to sell you a direct link to the police.
Katie Gall was one customer who heard Direct Response's unbelievable offers after being visited by one of their salesman in January this year. Katie, a teacher from Epsom, Surrey quickly became wary of the salesman's claims...
"They were offering a free security system which would monitor my house to make sure that if someone broke in, if there was a fire then it would notify the emergency services for me very quickly. It would take higher priority than me calling 999, it was going to be very, very reliable. So reliable that the police would definitely respond because they recommended it as a system".
Alarm bells were already ringing with Katie, and quite rightly too. As Direct Response do not have control over the police they cannot make any promises about response.
It didn't end there. After an hour of sales chat, Katie finally learnt just how much her 'free' alarm would cost her. "It was only at that point that he said there was a monitoring charge of £58 per month," she told us.
What's more Katie would only qualify for this special offer if she signed up for a contract - meaning she could end up paying a total of £3,400.
Katie didn't take up the alarm system offer, and was concerned enough by the salesman's promises that she researched the company on the internet later and found out they'd been reprimanded in the past for their sales practices.
In July 2009, the bosses of Direct Response Security Systems were pulled up by the Office of Fair Trading and asked to give undertakings that they'd clean up their act. They promised they would not guarantee a response by the police or describe their product as free without mentioning any ongoing fees.
Something's Not Ringing True...
We decide to put Direct Response's sales practices to the test. We found a house in Surrey, filled it with hidden cameras and used an actress to play householder. We also asked alarm expert Graeme Dow - who has 30 years experience in the security alarm business - to review the footage. What will he make of Direct Response's sales tactics?
The salesman arrives and introduces himself as Christopher Hook. He was not the salesman who visited Katie. He's keen to show off his credentials with lots of bits of paper to verify who he is. But they are not all quite as they seem. Christopher Hook claims to have a police identity card, Scotland Yard security clearance and verification from a Surrey Police Community Support Officer. The problem is, he doesn't have a police identity card or Scotland Yard security clearance at all, he just has a criminal records check dating back to 2006. As for the PCSO, we'll come onto what Surrey Police think about that later.
On with the Sales Pitch...
Christopher Hook tells our actress that if she signs up their contract he will give her £1000 worth of alarm equipment for free - tempting. We since phoned around, however, and found similar kit from other companies can be purchased for around half the price.
So what was the rest of the pitch like? Chris Hook tells our actress that in South East England alone there are 20,000 burglaries every week. But these figures are totally inaccurate. Home Office figures released in January this year, gave a much lower figure of 5,400 domestic burglaries a week and that's across the whole of England and Wales.
Our actress has told the salesman that she was worried about crime which is the reason why she's interested in purchasing a burglar alarm. Mr Hook uses this opportunity to prey on those fears and starts telling tales of how burglaries have destroyed the lives of people he has met.
"People have taken their lives as a result of burglary, people have got divorced as a result of burglary, it's one of the most devastating things. A gentleman said to me, 'I've no idea, you know, what a sexual rape feels like' he said 'but my wife feels absolutely soiled as a result'".
Graeme Dow is not impressed so far and thinks Christopher Hook is using scare techniques to win himself a sale.
"None of these have anything to do with burglar alarms, so it's quite a disgraceful approach to try and sell by fear".
But then Mr Hook makes an extraordinary claim. He says Direct Response is in "constant link and connection with the nearest police car to your home at the instant the incident occurs" and says they don't even have to call through to the police station. Graeme begs to differ.
"Absolute and utter tripe. All phone calls go through to the alarm receiving centre to the police control room. The police control room contact the police car. There is no way under the sun, that this could ever be remotely true. Blatant lies".
Blatant lies maybe, but Christopher Hook carries on making even more outrageous claims by claiming that they even have the power to deploy off-duty police officers and that by owning this alarm system the homeowner will get a 'priority response' from the police force. Not only that, he tells our actress that the police are under a 'binding contract' to attend an alarm call as that's what the customer pays for.
It seems Chris Hook thinks a registration fee you pay to set up the alarm is a financial agreement with the police, when really it's just an admin fee. Graeme Dow says these claims are extremely worrying.
We have since spoken to The Association of Chief Police Officers and they've also said that there is no alarm company should say their alarm guarantees a response from the police as it's against their guidelines.
Ring any bells?
We decided to take our findings to Surrey Police, not only regarding the claims Christopher Hook was making, but also the way he was using one of their PCSO officer's business cards by way of reassuring potential clients. Chief Superintendent Gavin Stephens was concerned by this particular practice.
"Well that's not something he should do. Police Community Support Officers do a great job helping out the elderly and vulnerable. Clearly they need identification and calling cards so they can verify their identity. They would never give permission to someone else to use their card to verify their own identity".
Further to this Ch. Supt. Stephens wasn't impressed with Hook's claims that the police would respond quicker with a Direct Response security alarm.
"No, that's just not correct. We don't enter into any special agreements or contracts with any special service".
In fact, Ch. Supt. Stephens said Chris Hook's promises about patching calls straight through to police officers were all rubbish. And as for his line about calling out off duty policemen, he it dismissed it as 'nonsense'.
We wrote to Christopher Hook with our allegations. He admitted he may have got his crime statistics wrong, but that was about all. He didn't address points about his scaremongering, or his lies about the system so Matt decided to make a surprise visit during a rigged sales appointment.
He isn't particularly surprised to see Matt when he finally pops out to say hello, nor is he in any hurry to answer the questions we put to him again instead reminding us he has put it in the hands of his lawyers.
We offer to go through the list of questions we believe he hasn't answered, but he says he does not want be filmed, and decides to leave.
Time to meet the boss...
As we have received other complaints about the company and about other salesmen, we head to Direct Response's HQ in Sutton Coldfield. We have already written to director David Price however we did not receive an adequate response so we want to see if we can get better answers face to face.
David Price says salespeople for his company don't say customers receive a direct or guaranteed response from the police. He says his sales staff say customers "get a guaranteed response from the monitoring station, who then phone the police."
David Price goes onto say his company makes thousands of visits every year and get lots of positive feedback. He says they investigate every complaint they receive thoroughly, and they're not doing anything institutionally wrong. He also denies being forced to sign the undertakings given by the Office of Fair Trading and he was merely "complying with the law which he is more than happy to do".
He tells us that Christopher Hook has been given a final warning, but is still employed.
Direct Response Security Systems Ltd has since written to us, and told us they think neither Chris Hook nor the company have done anything wrong.
The company that sets alarm bells ringing...
Katie Gall was one customer who heard Direct Response's unbelievable offers after being visited by one of their salesman in January this year. Katie, a teacher from Epsom, Surrey quickly became wary of the salesman's claims...
"They were offering a free security system which would monitor my house to make sure that if someone broke in, if there was a fire then it would notify the emergency services for me very quickly. It would take higher priority than me calling 999, it was going to be very, very reliable. So reliable that the police would definitely respond because they recommended it as a system".
Alarm bells were already ringing with Katie, and quite rightly too. As Direct Response do not have control over the police they cannot make any promises about response.
It didn't end there. After an hour of sales chat, Katie finally learnt just how much her 'free' alarm would cost her. "It was only at that point that he said there was a monitoring charge of £58 per month," she told us.
What's more Katie would only qualify for this special offer if she signed up for a contract - meaning she could end up paying a total of £3,400.
Katie didn't take up the alarm system offer, and was concerned enough by the salesman's promises that she researched the company on the internet later and found out they'd been reprimanded in the past for their sales practices.
In July 2009, the bosses of Direct Response Security Systems were pulled up by the Office of Fair Trading and asked to give undertakings that they'd clean up their act. They promised they would not guarantee a response by the police or describe their product as free without mentioning any ongoing fees.
Something's Not Ringing True...
We decide to put Direct Response's sales practices to the test. We found a house in Surrey, filled it with hidden cameras and used an actress to play householder. We also asked alarm expert Graeme Dow - who has 30 years experience in the security alarm business - to review the footage. What will he make of Direct Response's sales tactics?
The salesman arrives and introduces himself as Christopher Hook. He was not the salesman who visited Katie. He's keen to show off his credentials with lots of bits of paper to verify who he is. But they are not all quite as they seem. Christopher Hook claims to have a police identity card, Scotland Yard security clearance and verification from a Surrey Police Community Support Officer. The problem is, he doesn't have a police identity card or Scotland Yard security clearance at all, he just has a criminal records check dating back to 2006. As for the PCSO, we'll come onto what Surrey Police think about that later.
On with the Sales Pitch...
Christopher Hook tells our actress that if she signs up their contract he will give her £1000 worth of alarm equipment for free - tempting. We since phoned around, however, and found similar kit from other companies can be purchased for around half the price.
So what was the rest of the pitch like? Chris Hook tells our actress that in South East England alone there are 20,000 burglaries every week. But these figures are totally inaccurate. Home Office figures released in January this year, gave a much lower figure of 5,400 domestic burglaries a week and that's across the whole of England and Wales.
Our actress has told the salesman that she was worried about crime which is the reason why she's interested in purchasing a burglar alarm. Mr Hook uses this opportunity to prey on those fears and starts telling tales of how burglaries have destroyed the lives of people he has met.
"People have taken their lives as a result of burglary, people have got divorced as a result of burglary, it's one of the most devastating things. A gentleman said to me, 'I've no idea, you know, what a sexual rape feels like' he said 'but my wife feels absolutely soiled as a result'".
Graeme Dow is not impressed so far and thinks Christopher Hook is using scare techniques to win himself a sale.
"None of these have anything to do with burglar alarms, so it's quite a disgraceful approach to try and sell by fear".
But then Mr Hook makes an extraordinary claim. He says Direct Response is in "constant link and connection with the nearest police car to your home at the instant the incident occurs" and says they don't even have to call through to the police station. Graeme begs to differ.
"Absolute and utter tripe. All phone calls go through to the alarm receiving centre to the police control room. The police control room contact the police car. There is no way under the sun, that this could ever be remotely true. Blatant lies".
Blatant lies maybe, but Christopher Hook carries on making even more outrageous claims by claiming that they even have the power to deploy off-duty police officers and that by owning this alarm system the homeowner will get a 'priority response' from the police force. Not only that, he tells our actress that the police are under a 'binding contract' to attend an alarm call as that's what the customer pays for.
It seems Chris Hook thinks a registration fee you pay to set up the alarm is a financial agreement with the police, when really it's just an admin fee. Graeme Dow says these claims are extremely worrying.
We have since spoken to The Association of Chief Police Officers and they've also said that there is no alarm company should say their alarm guarantees a response from the police as it's against their guidelines.
Ring any bells?
We decided to take our findings to Surrey Police, not only regarding the claims Christopher Hook was making, but also the way he was using one of their PCSO officer's business cards by way of reassuring potential clients. Chief Superintendent Gavin Stephens was concerned by this particular practice.
"Well that's not something he should do. Police Community Support Officers do a great job helping out the elderly and vulnerable. Clearly they need identification and calling cards so they can verify their identity. They would never give permission to someone else to use their card to verify their own identity".
Further to this Ch. Supt. Stephens wasn't impressed with Hook's claims that the police would respond quicker with a Direct Response security alarm.
"No, that's just not correct. We don't enter into any special agreements or contracts with any special service".
In fact, Ch. Supt. Stephens said Chris Hook's promises about patching calls straight through to police officers were all rubbish. And as for his line about calling out off duty policemen, he it dismissed it as 'nonsense'.
We wrote to Christopher Hook with our allegations. He admitted he may have got his crime statistics wrong, but that was about all. He didn't address points about his scaremongering, or his lies about the system so Matt decided to make a surprise visit during a rigged sales appointment.
He isn't particularly surprised to see Matt when he finally pops out to say hello, nor is he in any hurry to answer the questions we put to him again instead reminding us he has put it in the hands of his lawyers.
We offer to go through the list of questions we believe he hasn't answered, but he says he does not want be filmed, and decides to leave.
Time to meet the boss...
As we have received other complaints about the company and about other salesmen, we head to Direct Response's HQ in Sutton Coldfield. We have already written to director David Price however we did not receive an adequate response so we want to see if we can get better answers face to face.
David Price says salespeople for his company don't say customers receive a direct or guaranteed response from the police. He says his sales staff say customers "get a guaranteed response from the monitoring station, who then phone the police."
David Price goes onto say his company makes thousands of visits every year and get lots of positive feedback. He says they investigate every complaint they receive thoroughly, and they're not doing anything institutionally wrong. He also denies being forced to sign the undertakings given by the Office of Fair Trading and he was merely "complying with the law which he is more than happy to do".
He tells us that Christopher Hook has been given a final warning, but is still employed.
Direct Response Security Systems Ltd has since written to us, and told us they think neither Chris Hook nor the company have done anything wrong.
The company that sets alarm bells ringing...