HOW TO CHOOSE A TSCM FIRM
How to Choose the Right Professional.
First you must decide at what level you wish to sweep before choosing a TSCM firm. If your requirement is for a simple domestic level sweep, then you might want to consider hiring an amateur. They can frequently do an adequate job and can be a lot cheaper. Check more than one out before you choose and also compare the cost of the amateur’s best job with a professional’s lowest level job. If there is not a great difference in cost, you’d be further ahead to have hired the pro. If price is a consideration, shop around but always require proof of competency because professionals normally charge 50% - 100% of the cost of a sweep up front if you have not established a payment history with them. Once you’ve paid and then don’t like what you see, it’s too late.
Competence and experience are extremely important but can be faked and lied about. If you have a technical background you will have little difficulty separating the pros from the amateurs. There is one way for a non technical person to tell whether they are looking at a true pro or a savvy salesman who knows the industry jargon. Ask for a list of equipment that will be brought to your sight for the sweep. How much capital outlay a TSCM firm has invested into their business will, more than any other non-technical test, tell you how serious they are about TSCM. Only North Carolina and Nevada require TSCM techs to be licensed. (We have that license because we opened an office in Nevada under the name “Advanced Counter Surveillance”). If you are in any other state, TSCM is not regulated, there are no tests for competency and the industry is not licensed. Its buyer beware! Also there are no industry standard price guidelines. It’s whatever the market will bear and many amateurs charge outrageously for their services hoping that price will make them seem professional to an unsuspecting client.
If you have decided to hire a professional sweep team,
once again, do your homework. Real professionals don’t mind you digging
and asking questions. In fact we encourage it. An informed client is much
more likely to hire us than one which can be bamboozled by a good sales pitch.
Again, the equipment is an excellent non-technical way to separate the professionals
from amateurs. We at Off Duty Security are very proud of our equipment suite
and are willing to bring all of it to every corporate sweep. We do this for
two reasons. First, it’s at your sight for your personal inspection
and review. Our capital outlay in equipment is huge (over $250,000.00). We
are very serious when we advertise that we have the largest, most complete
and most updated suite of advanced electronic equipment in the Midwest. The
second reason we bring all our gear to every corporate account is that sweeps
by their nature are always dynamic, never static. We can never know when we
will need something that we didn’t anticipate. Also, if an equipment
breakdown occurs on the job (yes, Murphy’s Law also applies to our tradecraft)
we have backup pieces.
