The truth about your home’s alarm system and how Brits are left with a huge secret bill for making a crisis call

If you’re one of the tens of thousands of people in Britain paying for a personal alarm system, there’s a good chance you won’t be aware of a secret charge being added to your account.

Customers faced with emergencies and false alarms are provided with premium numbers to call in the event of a crisis.

Ten of Britain’s biggest personal alarm companies use 084 numbers that charge customers a super high rate of almost £1 per minute when they call.

And if someone’s alarm system is activated, in many cases the control room is alerted via a 084 number, for which a customer also charges costs.

This is because the alarm system software is linked to your telephone line, which when activated contacts the emergency response centers, who assess the emergency and then call to check on you.

A joint investigation with the Fair Telecoms Campaign (FTC) has revealed that eleven security companies offering alarm monitoring services openly advertise 084 numbers on their websites, invariably so that customers can call for emergency calls.

According to the Fair Telecom Campaign (FTC), this means customers could pay almost £1 per minute for a call from a mobile phone, or almost £35p per minute from a landline.

But according to industry insiders, many personal alarm systems are set up using 084 numbers, meaning that when they are activated you are liable for the paid call.

It is estimated that up to 40 percent of British households have personal alarm systems, but not all of these are monitored.

The FTC points out that elderly and vulnerable people who rely on personal alarms and emergency response centers are particularly at risk because they are often unaware that they are calling expensive numbers.

One of the companies is Telecare 24, endorsed by Dr Hilary Jones, which claims ‘affordable personal alarms for the elderly’.

Installing a personal alarm system in your home can cost between €600 and €1200, excluding VAT, and it can cost around €30 per month for the alarm monitoring service.

Custodian, part of the vast Chubb Fire and Security empire, is one of the country’s largest alarm monitoring companies and uses 084 numbers on its website.

Many websites do not clearly indicate the costs involved in calling a 084 number, even though they are legally obliged to do so.

Consumer regulations, introduced in 2013, make it clear that 084 numbers may not be used for existing customers for services or products they have already purchased.

Existing customers should be charged a ‘basic’ rate, which is a ‘normal’ telephone call rate.

The FTC’s David Hickson believes that these alarm companies’ use of these numbers violates consumer regulations because they must instead charge a “basic rate,” which is the cost of a normal phone call.

To make matters even more complicated, the majority of the costs on these 084 numbers do not go to the security companies, but to your telephone network provider.

Hickson believes that if trading standards were to crack down on security companies, they would be in breach of consumer rights protections.

He said: ‘Alarm monitoring companies have long been known as some of the worst offenders. This is made worse by the fact that many calls are made automatically when alarm systems are activated, so victims only notice this when they check their phone bill and understand what is happening.

‘This is most concerning with personal alarms, which by their nature are used by vulnerable people.

‘Any organization now using 084 or 087 numbers to contact contracted consumers has, in our view, breached the regulations implementing the Consumer Rights Directive since their introduction in 2014.’

Julian Shersby, 61, has campaigned against premium rate numbers for 20 years, so when 084 lit up on his mobile phone, alarm bells started ringing.

The retired financial data analyst was called by the Custodian because his personal alarm was accidentally activated.

After having an expensive new alarm system from Southern Fire Security (SFS) installed in his Surrey apartment in October, Shersby realized there was more insult to come.

He said: ‘My mother has been dead for seven years now but I remember discovering around 2015 that her alarm system had an 084 number in the auto-dialer so she was charged an increased rate.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? Many people who purchase these alarm monitoring services would think that a 084 number is a normal number and just part of their calling plan. They wouldn’t realize this is not the case until they look at their phone bill.

‘I have been campaigning for these numbers to be stopped since 2004. In 2014 we even had consumer rights regulations that should have stopped this kind of thing, but here I am 20 years later and this is still going on.”

Shersby’s experience illustrates how complex the picture is. Although his alarm was installed by Southern Fire & Security and contracts with SFS, it is monitored by Custodian, one of the largest companies in Britain.

Shersby said: “At Custodian they want you to use 084 in every interaction and they even want you to use it for the sales number. If people see nothing ethically wrong with 084 numbers, they seem to use them at every opportunity.

‘Nowhere on the contact page does it indicate that access or service charges will be charged to any of these numbers. These companies claim they don’t make any money from these songs, but they wouldn’t use them unless there was a financial benefit.”

The complications don’t stop there. Even the term premium is a minefield. Although you pay a premium rate for calling 084, Ofcom limits the term to 09, 118 and 087 numbers.

These offer premium services such as adult entertainment, directory information, competitions and mobile games.

Although you pay the same access rate to your provider for 084 and premium-rate numbers, the service costs for a 09 number can amount to €3.60 per minute.

Since 2015, there have been two separate rates for calling these numbers, with a service rate going to the recipient, in this case the emergency reporting service, and an access rate to the telephone provider.

For access charges, BT landlines currently charge 28.18 pence per minute, but for EE mobiles this is 89 pence per minute, according to the FTC. For comparison: the service costs, which are paid by the recipient, amount to a maximum of 7 cents per minute.

David Hickson, of the Fair Telecoms Campaign, calculates that for a five-minute call to an 084 number, on an EE mobile, an access charge of £4.45 (£3.71 to EE + 74p VAT) and a 35p service charge (29p to the alarm company + 6p VAT).

A spokesperson for the Department of Business and Trade said: ‘If the trader uses a telephone line for consumers to contact them about an existing contract, the consumer should not be charged more than the basic rate for that call.’

The Mail has contacted the companies involved. EE declined to comment. O2 says it is transparent about network costs, and it is up to the companies which numbers they use. Vodafone did not respond.

Andrew Gordon of ABS Alarms said they were just an installation company outsourcing alarm monitoring to Custodian, and were not responsible for the 084 numbers.

Cornerstone Group said they “do not make any money from people calling this number” but declined to answer further questions.

AIM Alarms indicates that they are only a provider of alarm monitoring for installation companies and offer alternative numbers at basic rates.

J&D Security said they were just an installation company using another company for alarm monitoring and had since removed the premium number from their website. They declined to comment on whether they had removed this song because of our approach.

Custodian, AMCO, Chubb, SFS, APS, Clymac, EMCS, Abel and Telecare24 did not respond.