The Hidden World

I was reading an article by an agent concerning “hidden” bonds yesterday and immediately thought of the first case I was offered from a particular bonding company. I was wondering how often ya’ll have run across this (and no, I haven’t done a search on the board for this subject; I’m lazy, slovenly, and generally useless ).

I was contacted by a bondsman awhile back and offered a $500 fee on only a $1,000 bond. That kind of raised my suspicion. After a quick check of court records I found that the bondsman was into 4 or 5 other bonds on the same guy for about $7,500 total.

PLUS, the guy had skipped on a $1,000 bond from another bondsman.

Needless to say, after I informed the bondsman of what I had found he agreed to pay for all of the outstanding bonds he was on the hook for. In his behalf though, he did pay me immediately and in full once the guy was in jail.

I was wondering how common this is with bonding companies that ya’ll have worked with. I’m sure that it is pretty prevalent, especially with an investigator that the bonding company hasn’t used before.

Su Amigo,

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Mike Hedrick
Simon Investigations, L.L.C.
Texas License #A14171
P.O. Box 6425
Paris, Texas 75461
903.784.2617

To answer your question, Yes it is common. You have to remember, it's all about money with bondsmen. If they can get exonerated on all of thier bonds per individual for the lowest fee available, why wouldn't they ? It's only good business sense:

Minimize expenses, maximize profits.

Fundamental of all business enterprises...even for us as recovery agents. I can't tell you how many times I have gone in the hole on cases when I was first starting out just to prove myself and establish a reputation.

Another issue, at least in my area, the bondsmen have agreed to refuse to pay reasonable fees. One of them told the others that if anyone of them ever started paying 10-15% on bonds, it would screw it up for the rest of them.

They write bonds anywhere form $5k to 100K, but refuse to pay standard fees. If the fugitive is local, they consider it a "porch pick up" and will only pay $150-200 for the apprehension, regardless of the amount of the bond.

To aggravate this situation, there is no shortage of "wannabe" bounty hunter's in my area. As it was explained to me, you don't like our pay scale, we'll use someone else.....

They come to me when no one else can find thier skips. Everytime we enter to the fee negotiation part, I hear the same thing, I charge too much, I'm not affordable, I'm too expensive, etc.

In the last 2 weeks, I have exonerated 16 bonds for 1 client, and not even been paid a third of what I should have been. But, that's the market here. I ask for what I feel to be fair compensation, they bluff n argue, and somewhere in the middle we come to terms. But I still end up being cheated every time.

They fail to realise the overhead: Labor, databses, cell phone bills, transportation costs, business licenses/insurance, etc. They are used to part timers who have full time jobs and do this on the side for beer money...good ol boy's. I run it as a professional business, full time, 24/7.

They don't factor all of that into thier fee schedules. Not thier problem.

Anyway, just some things to consider and understand before you get too involved in this business.

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River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

the only "hidden" bonds I have run across were the defendant having more than one bondsman that he fta'd on. I usually would just go by the office of the discovered bondsman and introduce myself, leave a card and let them know their guy was in custody. I have gotten some return work from those scenarios.

Play the same game back on them, always negotiate from a position of power, like when the skip is in your back seat!

Same problem everywhere Ruffin. You need to start working for the MGA or the Insurance companies directly. With your skills, you are an asset to them. If that doesn't work out, move up to where I am and you can work for me running that portion of the business.

Scott

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R.E. "Scott" MacLean III

"Leaders are like Eagles, you never see them in a flock, but one at a time"

Chesapeake Group Investigations, Inc.
Chesapeake Bail Bonds
877-574-0500
301-392-1100 (fax)
301-392-1900 (Office)

My experience has been more in line with Ruffin's. I have had bondsmen tell me that paying the bond is a tax write-off, so they would rather pay the full amount instead of 10% to a BEA for making the apprehension. Also being a bondsman, if I do all the investigation and legwork, and just need someone to do the pickup, I want to pay less. My thoughts are that I can call LE who (IF they do their job) will do it at no cost to me, or I can pay a BEA to do it.

But, on the BE side, we have put in a lot of time and work that we haven't been paid a reasonable amount for. We have had them only tell us about one bond when they had several on the same defendant, and only pay a small amount because they charged way less than the state maximum to write the bond, or because they had supposedly paid other in-house agents' expenses for travel or their own investigations and come up empty. In some instances we got the info to make the apprehensions because of others with sources that I don't have. Those sources come from forums such as this, and I just happened to call the right person to get the right information.

Our fees are negotiated, and should be settled before any work is done. If the bondsman has good info and all we have to do is knock on a door, the defendant is there and gives us no problem, I can see paying a lesser price. If we have to do all the research and incur the costs to do so, we should make more.

As we have been both paid and screwed in the past, I can see both sides. I have paid BEA's for their research and info, even if they didn't make the actual apprehension or didn't try to charge me for it. One thing that bondsmen will really screw you on is your information. They will demand that you tell you everything you know, then use that info (that you worked hard for and/or paid for) to screw you. If I'm on salary for a bondsman then all of my work belongs to them. If I'm working independently, my work belongs to me, and if the bondsman wants it, they will pay me to get it, BEFORE I give it to them. This was a lesson hard learned, and I only hope that I can help others by it.

My state allows us to charge up to 15% premium to write a bond. My cost to my insurance is higher than many, but that's my problem. The main reason that we hear for the bondsman not being able to pay us a fair amount is because they didn't charge enough premium to be able to pay us. Once again, that isn't MY problem. If they chose to write a bond for 5% with no real collateral to draw from, they have the choice to pay the full bond, or the BEA's who get the job done and save them the bond. We're willing to negotiate, but we either get paid or we don't do the work.

Once again, if it is an easy pickup, we don't expect as much. If it is a lot of work and cost, yeah we expect to get paid a reasonable amount for our work.

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Kathy Blackshear
Blackshear Investigations
Blackshear Bail Bonds
Sales Associate, Prepaid Legal Services, Inc.
Walsenburg, CO

Proud Member of the AB Reject Club