"Conn. home security company investigated" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff July 23, 2016
Michael Currie installed a home monitoring system from Connecticut-based Safe Home Security Inc. in 2005looking for some peace of mind. What he didn’t count on was the headache of trying to remove it when he moved.
When Currie, a major in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, tried to end his $45 monthly contract for the home security system because he was leaving his Winchendon house, he ran into a convoluted cancellation system. When he was finally able to get out of the contract, the company continued to withdraw money from his bank account.
“I kept paying for a service that was not even connected,” Currie said. He eventually got his bank to block the deductions by Safe Home Security.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says Currie’s problems aren’t unique.
Healey’s office has launched an investigation into the Cromwell, Conn., home security company, which has been the target of hundreds of consumer complaints about faulty equipment and unfair billing and collection practices.
Why hasn't the Connecticut AG done anything?
Safe Home Security Inc. provides home and business security monitoring services to more than 17,000 customers in Massachusetts. Healey’s office has received more than 250 complaints about the firm.
Officials with Healey’s office declined to comment on the investigation, saying it was ongoing, but court documents indicate investigators were focused on “unfair or deceptive conduct” in its collection practices.
Safe Home Security has been in business for 20 years, and David Russman, a Boston attorney representing the company in the investigation, said it is cooperating.
Safe Home is committed to customer service, he said in a statement.
“Every customer concern is reviewed thoroughly in order to provide the appropriate solution according to the customer’s individual contract,” he said.
But Leonora Lamothe, a Chicopee retiree, said she had repeated problems with her Safe Home Security system. She installed it in her house in 2010, but a few years later alarms started going off in the middle of the night. She tried multiple times to get the company to fix it.
At one point, the alarm went off while she was on vacation. Lamothe said she was notified on her phone app that the system had been triggered. But the police weren’t called, which was supposed to happen. Instead, Lamothe said she asked a relative to check on her house.
It took numerous calls with multiple people in the company to finally cancel her service.
Now, she just has cameras around her property that she monitors herself.
“I’m not trusting another security system or alarm system again,” Lamothe said.
Safe Home Security has had similar problems in the past. The Better Business Bureau has received more than 1,000 complaints about the company in the past three years.
In 2007, the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office filed a complaint against Safe Home Security and its owner David Roman, alleging violations of the state’s unfair trade practices act. The agency alleged that the company’s automatic contract renewal provisions and its billing and debt collection practices were illegal.
The case took seven years to resolve, and in 2014, the Connecticut Superior Court required the company to pay the state $100,000 and barred it from employing unfair trade practices, such as knowingly selling items that don’t work or are defective; failing to honor warranties; collecting or charging consumers fees when an account was inactive or terminated; and harassing customers to collect payments, according to the court judgment.
Who were they trying to keep $afe?
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office has expressed similar concerns about the company and has asked Safe Home Security to provide documents dating back to 2012 detailing its marketing and contracts, as well as how it tracks consumer complaints and assigns accounts to collection agencies, according to Suffolk Superior Court documents.
What took them so long?
Safe Home Security has argued that some of Healey’s requests for documents are too broad and could take months to produce. Safe Home is asking a judge to a limit how much information it has to provide Healey.
Russman, Safe Home’s attorney, said the company is trying to work with investigators.
“Safe Home’s first priority has always been and will continue to be the protection of its clients’ safety, security and privacy,” he said in a statement.
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Related:
State AG's Office
Did Healey’s gun ban backfire?
Always does.
So what else has she been up to?
"Those free trips that lawmakers have been taking to Israel — paid for by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, a pro-Israeli lobbying group — are still haunting Beacon Hill.
In both the state House and the Senate, a lawmaker offered, then quietly withdrew, amendments to the nearly $1 billion economic development bill last week that would crack down on companies that participate in boycotts of Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.
The amendments — by state Senator Cynthia Creem , a Newton Democrat, and state Representative Paul McMurtry, a Dedham Democrat — would have prohibited the state from contracting with any company that boycotted Israel.
At least we know who on Beacon Hill is running point for the Zionists in this state.
JCRC, a registered lobbying group which has pushed the antiboycott issue on Beacon Hill, has over the years squired state lawmakers for 10-day trips to Israel, paying between $4,000 and $6,000 for each member. Last December, 10 state senators participated in the tour, and the year before, a House contingent was treated to a similar junket.
Those are U.S. taxpayer aid payments kicked back this way.
Why do you think there are still newspapers?
Even Attorney General Maura Healey, whose office could be drawn in to adjudicate the legal issues of the debate, took a free trip this spring — funded by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the American-Israel Friendship League.
That has raised the ire of peace activists who have called on the State Ethics Commission to crack down on what they see as a serious conflict of interest.
Those who advocate for the boycott argue the legislation is an attempt to stifle a nonviolent economic protest. They say the boycott is a legitimate exercise of free speech, much like the effort in the 1980s against apartheid in South Africa.
That was them, this is, you know.
“Senator Creem’s amendment is not about stopping discrimination,” said Cole Harrison, executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action in a press release. “It’s about impeding our constitutionally protected right to engage in boycotts as a form of speech.”
Creem, who as a senator has not taken a free trip to Israel, said she withdrew her amendment because she felt the controversial issue needed a full public airing, which it would not get as budget rider.
“It deserves to be talked about and debated,’’ she said."
What, our state government being under the control of Israel?
"Mass. Senate president, colleagues to go to Israel" by Joshua Miller Globe Staff October 21, 2015
Goodbye, Beacon Hill. Hello, Jerusalem.
Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg and about 10 of his Senate colleagues plan to travel to Israel in early December for what’s being billed as an economic development, cultural engagement, and government-to-government mission aimed at strengthening ties and forging relationships.
The more than weeklong journey — which could include one-quarter of the 40-seat body — is poised to take the legislators from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to Haifa to areas under Palestinian Authority control, such as Bethlehem.
News of the legislators’ journey came as Governor Charlie Baker this week raised the prospect of his own trip to Israel.
He's following the yellow brick road.
The country does not rank as one of the state’s top trading partners. By dollar value in 2014, Massachusetts exported more goods to 26 other countries than to Israel and imported more goods from 17 countries than from Israel, according to data the state’s economic development office provided to the Globe.
But Rosenberg, who said the trip is being paid for by private funds and without taxpayer dollars, emphasized that there is a huge amount of economic interaction between Massachusetts and Israel and underscored the importance of “citizen diplomacy.”
“We have a lot of companies here that have outposts in Israel and vice-versa, particularly around technology,” the Senate’s first Jewish leader said in a State House interview Wednesday. “There’s lots of businesses and lots of jobs and lots of economic activity — less so on the trade side.”
The trip is being organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, a network of 42 Jewish organizations.
Jeremy Burton, executive director of the group, said the point of the trip is “for Massachusetts leaders to deepen their understanding of Israel’s politics and culture and to examine the business and economic ties that bring Israel and Massachusetts together.”
Israel is a top foreign destination for both state and federal lawmakers that usually carries little political risk. A Gallup poll early this year found 70 percent of American adults view Israel favorably, and 62 percent said they sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians in the conflict in the Middle East.
Burton said that the December visit is being paid with a grant from the nonprofit Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston and that lawmakers would pay a “very nominal registration fee” for the trip.
Rosenberg, who said the trip will be his third to Israel, indicated his portion of the cost would come from his campaign account.
Jason Tait, a spokesman for the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance, said that using campaign funds for travel is permitted if it “enhances the political future of the candidate and is not primarily personal” in nature.
Burton said the trip is set to include a mix of visits to businesses; meetings with government officials such as members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament; lectures with academics; and travel to key sites.
Baker, a Republican, has also floated the idea of a gubernatorial trip to Israel.
“I haven’t really put much thought into overseas activities,” Baker said Monday, according to the State House News Service. “The only thing I’ve talked at all about is at some point taking a trip to Israel, primarily because of the unbelievable amount tech transfer that’s going on between that country and Massachusetts in particular.”
It’s unclear if or when Baker, who took office in January, might take flight to Tel Aviv. He attended a conference of New England governors and eastern Canadian premiers in Canada over the summer and has made trips to Washington, D.C., but has mostly stayed in Massachusetts.
Yehuda Yaakov, consul general of Israel to New England, told the Globe that since Baker was elected, “his side has indicated that he will be going to Israel sooner rather than later, and we’re hopeful that that’s going to happen.”
He will go there before the Republican convention!
Economic development trips have faced backlash, framed as being junkets that deliver few direct results for Massachusetts.
Deval Patrick took 10 missions spanning 15 countries during his time as governor, spurring criticism that he was neglecting his duties back home with little impact abroad. Patrick defended the missions as key for economic development.
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Just wondering what the carbon footprint is on those.
Related: Legislature to hold rare weekend sessions
They better finish up so they can get ready for the next vacation and hoist a few.
What's wrong with that?
"Hefner recently returned from a Senate trip to Israel, on which he accompanied Rosenberg."
Talk about tabloid; doesn't that complicate things for Rosenberg?
Senate president’s fiance will not run for legislative seat
He's got another position for him:
Senate president increases already large press staff
The annual salary of $100,000, and Rosenberg’s four press staffers earned about a combined $225,000 in 2015
Six-figure state employees increase by nearly 25 percent
All in a state budget with a billion-dollar hole in it.
Squirrel triggers outage at State House
He's now on the state’s most wanted list.
If I see anything else I let you know.
NDUs:
Support grows among Americans for stricter gun laws
After a steady drumbeat of shootings in recent months, the lying agenda-pushing paper tells me.
Gun rights activists rally against curb on copycat assault rifles
They were joined by about two dozen state legislators, and the crowd erupted in chants several times, from “Blue Lives Matter” to “Charlie! Charlie!” calling on Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, to join the rally. When he did not appear, the chant changed to “Coward! Coward!”
And right on cue....
Related:
"Authorities have identified the man who was found dead along with an off-duty police officer inside a Connecticut home. State police on Friday said 39-year-old James Stuart died from multiple gunshot wounds. His death has been ruled a homicide. Police were called to the Waterbury home Wednesday morning for a reported disturbance. Police say the officer, 37-year-old Hollock Yocher, died of a single gunshot wound. Police have ruled his death a suicide. Police say the men were acquainted but they haven’t elaborated on their relationship or the circumstances surrounding their deaths....."
FURTHER UPDATES:
Shooting at Fla. nightclub leaves 2 teenagers dead
OMG!
If at first you don't succeed, false flag script again!
The solution is simple: as with the guns, it's time to ban nightclubs.
Gunman, ‘Pokemon Go’ player exchange shots
Solution: ban Pokemon Go!
Of course, that would cost some people some money and the CIA a spying platform, but.... the world hangs in the balance and only Pokemon can save it!
Texas police officer killed in apparent burglary attempt
#BlueLivesMatterMore
Meanwhile, Californians are blaming the fires on ISIS.
Third man arrested in shooting of teen near Dorchester school
Deported child rape suspect held on $100,000 cash bail
Why would anyone hurt a child?
I guess I'm done walking this beat.
Fair Plan wrongly canceled policies, AG says
"Massachusetts will share in $60 million to help residents who lost homes to foreclosure during the housing crisis as part of national settlement with the London bank, HSBC Holdings PLC. In addition, HSBC will pay the state $750,000 under a separate settlement. The money will be used to provide loan modifications and resolve title issues resulting from unlawful foreclosures, Attorney General Maura Healey said. HSBC will pay $470 million to federal and state governments to end probes into allegations of abuses that may have deprived struggling borrowers of opportunities to keep their homes. The settlement paves the way for smoother loan modifications. The bank will also be required to reform its practices, and an independent monitor will be installed to oversee the changes, according to the statement. Kathy Madison, chief executive officer at HSBC Finance Corp., said the bank viewed foreclosures as a last resort throughout the market downturn. “This agreement affirms our commitment to assisting customers who are facing financial difficulties,” Madison said."
Meaning the state gets a kickback and will send you your chump change check after the bank fraudulently seized your home and upended your world.
You can't get that back, but here is some chump change while she checks your security system.
Foreclosure starts jump in Massachusetts
Home prices climb double the rate of incomes
