Who qualifies to make a bail bond?
This is going to be an ongoing list of stories of actual customers who started out their conversations with us with the question “What are your qualifications?”
As you scroll down through our blog you will find other interesting reading but I decided to start this story telling process because we do get a lot of people who need help and have been unable to find it. In most cases we did help them and in these specific stories we helped all of these folks.
I received a phone call at 1:00 AM, please keep in mind that I get a lot of late night calls and we do not have any employees. The work load is shared between my son and I. We have been doing this for years and years so we are used to it and we want to help, but on this particular occasion I had already been up for about 3 days straight and since I’m no longer a spring chicken my less than super human abilities were beginning to show. Please do not take this statement to mean you may get better service elsewhere. Because we have no staff or overhead we have the ability to make better deals than anybody.
The conversation and my private thoughts went like this:
Caller: “Yes sir can you please tell me what are your qualifications?”
(Honestly folks I was tired and I wanted to say, “Do you own an oil well?” but I didn’t.)
Me: “It really just depends, there are lots of ways to make bail bonds, is someone in jail?”
Caller: “Sir I have called one bail bondsman in Houston after the other and nobody wants to help me because I am from New Orleans, so I need to know what are your qualifications?”
(This is where my super human abilities first began to crumble.)
Me: “Well Ma’am, you are asking me to give you information and like I just said it all depends on each individual circumstance.”
(Now keep in mind that she just told me that the person I’m on the phone with doesn’t even live in Texas. It is late and I am tired, so my mind is telling me that I am probably wasting my time. This isn’t the way I normally think but it’s been three days of no sleep!)
Me: “Is someone in jail?”
Caller: “I just want to know if you are going to be able to help me because I am from New Orleans and I have been up all day and night and don’t want to waste my time answering all kinds of questions if you are just going to tell me no.”
Me: “Yes Ma’am, I understand, so is someone in jail?”
Caller: “Of course someone is in jail that’s why I’m calling.”
(Then I heard her say from the distance as she was hanging up the phone)
Caller: “This is ridiculous,”
(And the phone went dead.)
( To be honest, at that moment I didn’t care, in fact I was a little ticked off myself, I had asked her three times to give me the name of the person in jail and three times she ignored my question and asked me what were my qualifications.)
(So off to bed I went and I didn’t give it another thought.)
My phone rang again at 1:30AM
Caller: “Yes sir can you please tell me what are your qualifications?”
(Immediately my thoughts were ,(NO WAY), there’s no possible way this woman hung up on me in the middle of the night and is now calling to wake me up again.)
(And this is where the normal super human strength of a Houston Bail Bonds, MAN, able to stay on the phone with bloodshot eyes with the Sheriff’s Dept. or the Houston Police Department that puts you on hold for 30 minutes and then hangs up on you so that you can start all over again, stand in lines for hours at a time wearing house slippers because (who cares at this hour), more powerful than a gambler on a three day binge!)
(This is where my kryptonite overpowered me.)
Me: “Ma’am you just called and hung up on me 30 minutes ago, apparently you do not want my help, Good Night”
(And I hung up the phone, quite satisfied with having the last hang up, and I snuggled back into my pillow.) My phone rang again at 1:35AM
(And I really was already asleep again.)
Caller: “If this is the person that just hung up in my face I would like to get your name”
(At this point, I am determined to find out what I want to know in order to explain to this woman why it is that nobody wants to help her!)
Me: “Look Ma’am, I will try to help you if I can, and it doesn’t do you one bit of good getting my name, which is Jack by the way, because I am the boss and I’m not about to consider firing myself. You called me earlier and hung the phone up on me when all I was trying to do was help you. We do not have any employees, this place is owned by my brother and we run it together, I have been up for three days straight and I am tired too, but if you will just answer a few questions I will be happy to tell you if I can help or not. Otherwise please just hang up the phone and we can both get some rest.
Caller: “All I asked you was what are your qualifications and you hung up in my face, you’re rude and unprofessional and I wouldn’t do business with you ever.”
Me: ” Look Ma’am, you can hang up if you want to, I apologize for being rude, lets start over, all I can tell you is that you called me at 1AM looking for help and then hung the phone up on me without finding out if I can help you. I understand this is frustrating for you and you may not be able to find any help because you are from New Orleans. I make lots of bonds other bonding companies do not make, and maybe I can help you, but you have to answer some questions. I would be lying to you if I told you that I can help you without asking questions, that is the only way I can find out anything about you, about the person in jail, and if there is anything I can do to help you.”
Caller: “I don’t understand, what do people in Texas have against people from New Orleans?”
Me: “It doesn’t have anything to do with New Orleans Mam, it wouldn’t matter if you were calling me from Indiana, Alabama, or Louisiana, if you are not from here then the bond is considered to be a much higher risk, if for no other reason than because of the expense that a person will have to go through traveling back and forth to Texas to make court dates. So as I keep saying, if you will allow me to ask a few questions I will try to give you some answers.”
Caller: “What would you like to know?”
Me” “Who is in jail, and why are they in jail?” Caller: “My brother is in jail for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”
(The problem with making bail bonds for people charged with aggravated offenses is that the penalty if found guilty is more severe than if not aggravated, part of the reason for an offense being aggravated is the fact that a deadly weapon is alleged to have been used. The problem gets much worse for a Houston bail bondsman when the defendant lives out of state.)
Me: “Ok, Ma’am, so that you understand, that is a very serious charge and it is difficult enough to get someone out of jail on a charge like that for someone who lives here in Houston and has lived here all of their life and has all of their family living here. It becomes much more difficult to make bonds like this when the person in jail doesn’t live here, and has no family here.”
Caller: “So you can’t help me either then.”
Me: “I didn’t say that, I said it’s more difficult; I’m assuming the problem you have been having is that everyone you call wants collateral.”
Caller: “Yes sir”
Me: “Tell me why your brother has been charged with this, everything you know; and tell me who is willing to help get him out of jail.”
(After a brief explanation of what allegedly happened and who wanted to help, I told the girl that we were probably not going to be able to help, but to have her mother call me, since the mother was willing to help. I truly didn’t think we were going to be able to make the bail bond for them, it was just too risky, the bond was to large, and everyone lived in New Orleans.)
(The mother called, we were on the phone for less than 5 minutes, after talking with the mother it became very apparent to me that I was dealing with a very good family. I asked questions about her, the defendants background and about her other children. I told her that getting her son out of jail would be no problem. She drove to Houston the next morning and her son was released from jail that evening. Who qualifies to make a bail bond often times has more to do with taking the time to speak with a bail bondsman than anything else so don’t get in a hurry.