I've been working in the Electronic Security Industry since 1974 and have seen many changes in business practices, technology and marketing since then. The electronic security market is a completely different landscape in terms of installing companies and products offered. It seems to me that the original purpose of regulating this industry was to keep dishonest and unreputal individual(s) from doing business in our industry so that consumers would not be harmed. As a result some good regulations have been put into place. Unfortunatley like many government programs, a myriad of rules and requirements have been created to try to solve a problem, but instead the reality is that they have burdened reputable and honest individuals and companies with higher costs due to self audits, multiple compliance agents, redundant training requirements for separate classifications.

The training classes in many cases have no real relevance to the actual work the employee is responsible for conducting and offers no assurance that consumers have any additional protection. It seems to me that if a background check is completed when an individual enters the industry and is issued a DCJS registration, that would eliminate the majority of any potential fraud from occuring. The second is to actually FOLLOW UP, INVESTIGATE & TAKE ACTION when a complaint about a company and/or licensed individual is reported. Those two step alone can resolve the majority of the intention of regulation. Everything else is an excercise a lot of paper work, additional costs, time wasted and the end result is that the consumer has no additional protection. As a matter of fact a company can come into Virginia and begin a summer sales blitz with van loads of sales reps without the need of a DCJS registration for 90 days. What kind of protection does that provide. I would suggest if there is to be REAL regulation that is helpful to the industry and consumers, it be simple, straight forward and have real teeth in terms of handling legitimate complaints.