Dear Editor,
There are many reasons available for blaming the crime situation, and many people are investing their hard earned money for some sort of protection. One of the most comforting means for them is security cameras. Now, a lot of unscrupulous people are obtaining outdated/condemned CCTV systems from overseas and selling them to people at exorbitant fees, and these systems do not provide the expected proper service. Some of these dishonest people are using footage from other systems, and even from what makes the news, and promoting themselves on social media as if the system they are selling is responsible. Whilst they cannot be charged for false promotion, the unsuspecting victims’ money is being wasted, because they eventually have to buy new systems because they are not getting the service they expected from the waste they purchased.
Quite a few people have been scammed, and l bluntly told them so after I was asked to look at their system when they encountered problems.
A while back, I penned a series of letters advising on the type of system and camera they should look for, and setting for their system to help get better footage.
Editor, a woman’s shop at Zeelugt was recently twice broken into. This happened one Wednesday night, and again on the following Saturday night. A few weeks after, thieves again broke into the shop. On each of those occasions, she suffered great losses. Now she has a security system installed, but when she could not locate the footage on the DVR, she called me after the first two times. I went, and was able to locate the footage, which showed four boys committing the crime. The footage could not identify any of the criminals properly, so no one was charged. That was because the cameras were not properly set, and the lighting was bad. On my advice, she rearranged the cameras and lights, and was quite pleased with the results after. The footage was hard to locate because the CMOS battery had gone bad in the DVR, thus every time the DVR is switched off or there is a blackout, the DVR goes back to the manufacturing timing and starts recording. So, what you have is a DVR with multiple footage of same dates and timings all over the hard drive.
One way to eradicate that problem is: if you notice your DVR timing/date going back to the default settings or DVR malfunctioning, chances are the CMOS battery is bad and should be changed immediately, because definitely you would encounter problems when you try to retrieve footage.
These are simple problems, but apparently many so-called experts cannot solve those minor problems. Many are setting cameras in such a way that it would be impossible to capture an intruder’s face properly if that person is wearing a cap. Criminals are becoming wary of cameras, and people should explore the possibility of installing cameras in concealed places. Security system installation has many issues, but as I have stated, these are some of the main issues. I hope people would have their security apparatus fixed, so they could get help from them.
Sincerely,
Sahadeo Bates
