Honeywell Galaxy 520 with PO 26 TA04 -remote alarm breach

[Beverley Lavin]

Hi there I inherited this system in a property I have bought for holiday rental. I know that the previous owner monitored the alarm and other systems at the property with remote GPRS and was very keen for me to take out a very expensive annual maintenance contract on the systems with his brother in the security business who installed the system when I bought the property. I declined until I knew what I was doing and he didnt pass on any engineer/manager codes or security keys other than the main code. The personal attack alarms have been triggered by guests twice now and at the first go the system seemed to reset itself. The system is redcare monitored and I have been alerted to all triggers which at the time we put down to false alarms (about 6 in three months). The second time it has come up with engineer reset needed on the key pad. When I press the a button to see the alarm triggers I recognise a couple of the alarm triggers but there are a number for flood alert, heat sensor and PA alarms with a message remote alarm breach. I appreciate this could mean anything and I do plan to call someone in to reset the system as I dont have the code but it is possible hypothetically for someone to be logging in remotely with the appropriate access set up and triggering these alarms remotely maybe to persuade me to call them out or that I do need the annual contract after all or is that sci fi stuff?

A general opinion from an expert and some advice on the next course of action would be very much appreciated.

 

[sparkymarka]

So how much are you paying per year at the moment ?

 

[Beverley Lavin]

I'm not paying anything to anyone at the moment. I'm happy to pay for what I need from a professional but the reason for posting on the forum was to ask if it is possible for someone with remote access to my system to trigger false alarms on the system and is that why I have remote alarm breach as a message on my key pad maybe and a number of what appear to be false alarms. If I am on the right track then I will ask someone to come out and put me right and over ride the access

 

[sparkymarka]

So you don't have redcare ..... As you have to pay for this service each year , it's not free so how and who alerts you to the false alarms ?

 

[Beverley Lavin]

I bought the property two months ago from a guy whos brother has a security firm (ex ADT) and had installed the very over the top system in the small holiday property. The previous owner (or maybe his brother) had the redcare contract and they paid the annual fee which I believe was £156 in July before the completion of the property deal took place. When we completed his brother the security firm owner contacted me asked for phone contact details for alarm calls and then quoted me a fee for annual maintenance. I said I would get back to him when I was ready. I wanted time to suss out what I actually had and maybe an independent assessment of the system. He changed the redcare contact phone details to me and mine but I have signed nothing with redcare and pay them nothing yet. I assume it is redcare who call me when one of the alarms trigger but I'm not sure. The number that calls me is 0844 879 1719. I have had two personal attack triggers in 5 days and prior to that 2 flood alerts and a heat sensor in the kitchen in a property that was unoccupied at the time and the alarm was off (although I know the PA alarms are always alive). I now have engineer reset required on my alarm pad and when I scroll through the triggers it tells me that a series of them were remote breaches whatever that means. And that was my question to the forum ...can someone give me a clue what might be going on?

 

[sparkymarka]

Well it's not on redcare at £156 probably a digi at that price ...it s a monitoring station that phones you ! Looks like custodian ! Galaxy guy is probably the person on here to answer your problems on Galaxy panels

 

[Beverley Lavin]

and thats all well and good. The sticker on the windows say redcare and the custodian web site which is the number who phones me (google) says they are a partner of redcare. I dont care actually. I'm not paying them and they are very responsive and very efficient. I'm grateful for your time but we seem to have gone off subject. Thanks anyway. I just need to know what the is message means on my key pad and if as I suspect someone is pulling my strings to get me to sign up by triggering false alarms remotely with them for a contract as they have the engineer and manager codes for the system. I dont like being held to ransom. No problem paying someone to do a job, just need to know what job!!

 

[M1Chanical]

"is possible hypothetically for someone to be logging in remotely with the appropriate access set up and triggering these alarms remotely maybe to persuade me to call them out or that I do need the annual contract after all or is that sci fi stuff?"

Highly unlikely, I wouldn't be possible for someone to trigger false alarms via a remote connection.

If you don't want a monitored system ask the company who istalled/ maintained it to decommissioning the monitoring and default your user/ engineer code. Are able to post pictures of your keypad log, I've never come across. I've never heard of the term "remote breach"

 

[GalaxyGuy]

Yes, if the panel is set for remote access, then accessing with an incorrect RSS password more times than the programmed threshold will result in a remote access tamper.

I would need to review the full log to determine the root cause.