Every day Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel put their lives on the line in order to help the public. This coming week kicks off National EMS Week (May 20-26) and their theme this year is "EMS: More Than A Job. A Calling".  EMS personnel are comprised of Emergency Physicians, Emergency Nurses, Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics, Firefighters and Educators. EMS personnel truly have a calling to do what they do when it comes to acting as medicine's "Front Line" and providing their lifesaving services 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. While most communities have full time EMS personnel who have chosen this as their career, their are still many communities where these services are provided by volunteers. Their primary job is to provide quality medical care to those who experience sudden illness or injury in order to dramatically improve the survival and recovery rate of those that they help. We at Dial One Security see this first hand through the calls that come into our monitoring central station and through the dedication of one of our own employees, Rob Singer, who serves on the City of Reading, Ohio's fire department and provides these services daily.

None of us really know when we will be in need of EMS services, but we all can be assured that they will be there for us in our time of need. It is because of their dedication and passion to help others, we should all go out of our way to thank an EMS worker next week!

On the night of Monday January 23rd, a client of Dial One Security had the waste oil from their car dealership stolen. The theft occurred around 2 am in the morning and involved a large tanker truck that pulled into their lot. Waste oil is sold for about 50 cents a gallon in bulk.

This is part of a new rash of crimes that not only target used waste oil from vehicles, but also waste vegetable oil (WVO) from restaurants, also refered to as "Yellow Grease". The cooking oil is used in the production of biodiesel fuel and can sell for $0.44 per pound. WVO weighs about 7.5 pounds per gallon, which equates to $3.30 per gallon.

As commodity prices continue to rise, anything of value  becomes a more likely target of theft.

Dial One Security was recently recognized for their outstanding efforts in giving back to the community, their contribution to the life saftey of those in the community and furthering the our business by promoting the First Alert and Honeywell brands. We received the 2011 Community Service Award for the eight consecutive year for the work we do in and around the Madisonville community. The Circle of Excellence Award was given to us for our contributions, and quality of service, in the residential and commercial sercurity market.

 Dennis Toon was recognized for being a top sales leader of the year in the first Alert Professional Dealer Network. 

We also received awards recognizing the critical work our central station does in protecting the life safety of our clients and for our marketing excellence in promoting Honeywell products.

Dial One Security received these awards at the International First Alert Professional / Honeywell convention in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The owner of an apartment complex in New Richmond was shocked to find his apartment complex that he had recently purchased and renovated, destroyed by copper thieves. The thieves ripped out drywall and appliances to get to the copper, and caused an estimated $200,000 in damage according to the report on Local12 news. Not only was the copper removed, but the AC Units and baseboard heaters were stolen as well. To see the full report, visit the Local12 website at http://www.local12.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=3106840.

During the summer months many homeowners in the area will be approached by door to door security salesman from out of state offering security systems at an attractive price and same day installation. While this may seem to be a great deal, many people do not read and understand the contract they sign and get stuck paying high monitoring fees and get locked into long term contracts.

The tactics that these salesmen use have caused numerous reports with the Better Business Bureau. It has been reported that the salesmen falsely identify themselves as representatives of other companies, inform the consumer that your existing security system is outdated even though your system is less than 2 years old, provide the consumer with an agreement which contains provisions that were not mentioned in the salesman's verbal presentation, install the security system the same day to make it difficult to remove the system should they decide to cancel prior to the expiration of the three-day cancellation period and many people find it hard to get the salesman out of their house without signing up for a security system.

Our words of advise would be "Buyer Beware", never let someone in your house that you don't know or were not expecting, and take the time to fully understand the contract that you are signing. Buy from people you know and trust, and buy local.

We at Dial One Security wish you a safe summer!