Scruit

I would think that a lay person would believe that any employee of a company engaged in getting you to sign a contract is authorized to amend it. I agree that the lot lackeys coudl not be assumed to have that authority. I agree with your point about having their agent indicate acceptance of the change in writing. If they refuse then I just have to decide how important the contract is to me.

This morning eBay came back to me and asked if I had been contacted by the seller. Nope. They said; "Give us 48-72 hours to make a decision." 5 minutes later they emailed back with my refund. No explanation of how an auction can just "go away" once it is completed... Oh well, done deal. Got my dosh back, that's all I care about. That seller fell off the face of the planet (no auctions listed) but they are still getting masses of good feedback (even today) despite having disappeared a couple of weeks ago. Backlog of stuff actually shipped? I dunno. I don't care either.

How am I supposed to know who has authority to change the contract? Does the contract need to have a clause that states who can and cannot change it? Sure, it proves that I wrote stuff on the contract. There's lots of stuff written on the contract. And all of it is set in stone once the contract is signed and the signed contract is accepted by the commencement of performance by the company. If the company does not consent to the change then they should not commence performance, rigth? I mean I cannot just say; "I started using their phone but I didn't really consent to pay for it" The contract only exists as written. If the contract has been modified prior to the rental beginning (such that their copy has the modifications)then could it not be argued that them allowing the rental to commence is acceptance of the revised contract terms? If I sign up for a phone with Verizon, for example, and I cross out the early termination fee, and the agent concludes the transaction despite the changes, that I would argue those changes ar epart of the negitiation and have therefre become part of the contract. Can they then hold me accountable for a clause in a contract which is not the one I signed?

An adhesion contract is a contract drawn up by one party that is presented to the other party as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Phone contracts, loan agreements, rental car agreements etc. My question: Can you change the terms of an adhesion contract prior to signing it, if the agent asking you to sign the form does not object? Is the new contract binding upon the company? Example: I rented a u-haul trailer a few years back. The stickers on the side of the trailer said 55mph max speed, the contract said 45mph max speed and the guy behind the counter "said" I could go at 65mph. In fact he demanded I do 65 so I could return the trailer early and let him rent it out again that day. If I didn't agree to do 65mph on my journey then he wouldn't rent to me. When I went for the pre-rental inspection I took all the paperwork with me (even their copy, which I had not signed yet). After inspecting the trailer I crossed out the sentence with the 45mph speed limit and write "Both parties have agreed that this trailer is safe to operate and 65mph." before signing it it handing it back to the guy who hooked up the trailer (not the manager). He looked at what I wrote, chuckled, and shook his head, but did not object. As I was pulling out of the parking lot I saw the manager come running over to me. Too late, I was gone. I got a phone call a couple minutes later telling me that I didn't have to do 65mph, and that I could return the trailer as late as I wanted. So, was the change that I made the contract binding to them? ie If I crashed at 65mph due to a bad trailer they would normally point at the fine-print 45mph speed limit and disavow all responsibility. Would my modification have protected me?

Stories like this remind me why I have a dashcam on my bike as well as in my cars. Too may AHs. In fact I am going to add a rear-facing dashcam too.

I got tailgated by a semi one time in my cage. I did nothing to him except go the speed limit in the slow lane. He wanted to keep his momentum up and figured he could bully me out of the way. We were on the ramp from 71S to 270W on the north side, concrete barriers both sides so he could not get around me, so I slowed down, slowly, to zero. Complete halt. Once he was at a complete halt I floored it. My car goes 0-60 in 5.2 seconds. Never saw him again. I bet I was past sawmill before he was back up to speed.

My case is different because I can see what is going on at the house from anywhere. Plus it is about a 10-15 minute drive from the nearest police staion to my house and 99% of all alarm company calls turn out to be false alarms, so one minute won't make any difference at all. My cameras are more about tracking the thief down. A such, they are placed for maximum ID potential.

I only got one scammer when I sold my bike. He sent me a "interested in your bike" email with "But I want to make sure that this is the correct bike..." followed by a link to "nyc.craigslists.com" that I assumed was phishing. I just ignored it. Here's the discussion about that. http://ohioriders.net/showthread.php?t=78298&highlight=craigslist

I was thinking of hooking up the receive side of an rs232 line driver to the wires that run from the keypad to see if the communication was in a serial protocol I could sniff, like 2400 8-N-1 or something. That being the case I could sniff for the message that tells all the panels that the alarm is activated. Or I could hook into the pin that controls the "AWAY" element on the LCD panel. Or I could look on the main board and see if there is anything I can hook in to there. If this model has relay outputs then I guess I need ADT to program that for me, right? What is an Ademco 4204 relay module, and how do I install it? I don't want cameras running inside the house while were home.

I'd also be interested in hearing what other companies do to reduce false alarms. One feature I wish I had in my system was some kind of relay output that I could use to tell when the system was armed in "Away" mode. This would allow me to install and record cameras inside the house that would automatically activate when the alarm was set and nobody is at home. I don't want those cameras running all the time for obvious reasons, but if I could have them run only when nobody is supposed to be home then that would make it much easier to catch the bad guy.

Does the red X scare away the burglars??

Oh, the fine print on this "buy-safe" stuff. Right, fair enough.

What fine print?

If I was to duplicate my current system it'd be about $3k. Would hate to see how much it would cost to have someone else run the wires, though. Analog cameras running over cat5e with baluns. DVR is an Aver 5216+ hybrid so I just need to put rj45 ends on to make them run IP.

I knew you were going to be watching the video and figured you'd like a bit of man ass.

I have been with ADT for 10 years and haven't had any problems. The installers I have dealt with have been fine and the system has been great. I pay something like $37/mo. You have to consider the realities of whay an alarm system can do. There's going to be a delay between the alarm being triggered and you being contacted - or the police being contacted. It can take minutes before the police are even called - and an alarm signal with no confirmed burglar on site is not going to be a priority call to the police so it can be hours before they respond. A CCTV system that you can see over the internet will allow you to check to see if an alarm event was real and will make the police step up their response. Some CCTV systems allow you to hook up external sensor contacts (like a wireless driveway monitor) and email you a warning even before the bad guy gets to your house. You'll also see how many people just show up at your door for weird reasons that you'd otherwise never know about - or other strange stuff that happens outside your house... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzOqQLA_cqA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLHiDXYUf3c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTjX54ZfVm0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM5hR1dA8jA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aITo4iuhKFg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrhQI7Y4onQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgFfKiQz2Co

When welding a frame, cheap <> better.

I don't get to choose the browser on my work laptop.

Reviving this thread to add this... So the girl who shared her pizza with him left the camp soon after so my boy never got a chance to pay her back for the pizza. When he and I were talking about how nice the girl was in sharing her pizza, I told that I hoped he would do the same if the tables were turned. Well I just found out that during this week's Pizza day one kid forgot his money so my boy shared his pizza with that boy. Proud daddy right here.

You reset the counters at the top of a really big hill then coasted until you get an "avg" reading??

I have a scala teamset for my boy and I to talk while 2-up on the bike. When I'm on my own it's hooked up to my phone so i can stream pandora on my commutes. I have helmet speakers, distinctly different from headphones in that they don't block ambient sounds (not that I could hear much over the road/wind noise anyway. I did have to put a small amplifier in-line with the headphones (2-AA batteries) to bump the volume up a bit.

I'm not saying there wasn't a lesson to be learned here. To this day I read every word of a contract even if that means I'm sitting a the car rental counter for 20 minutes.

Depends on if they side with you. I had a gym membershp that expired and the gym called me to renew. I said; "no, can I cancel it please?" They said; "OK, it's cancelled". 3 mo later I notice they're still billing me. My CC company sides with them becuase the contract (that I'd signed 3 years before) states that unless cancellation is given in writing the contract goes month-to-month. I spoike with the owner and he admitted that his guy "should not have told you he could cancel the contract over the phone" and he would "train his staff better" but "a contract is contract, so you're not getting your money back." Of course I subsequently learned that this is a common tactic that shady gyms use to squeeze another couple of months of payments out of former customers. In fact the whole gym industry exists only to scam peple out of membership dues.