Bail Scams Rely on Fear – Protect Yourself with Facts
Few things trigger fear and anxiety as quickly as a phone call saying one of your loved ones has been arrested. But scammers’ most effective tactic is exploiting intense emotions. Bail scams try to trigger that reaction and convince you to pay before you think. But if you understand how these scams work, know how to verify facts, and know how genuine bail bondsmen operate, you can save yourself from falling for this often costly scam.
See Bail Bonds Scams with Julie Henderson for a complete transcript of the Easy Prey podcast episode.
Julie Henderson has been in the bail bondsman industry for over two decades and is the president of the North Carolina Bail Agents Association. She got into the industry unintentionally. At age twenty-four, she interviewed for a job with a state senator who needed a legislative assistant. During the interview, she discovered he was also a bail bondsman. She got the job and found herself fascinated by the industry. Not everybody who goes to jail is a bad person. They may have just made a mistake. Regardless, she likes being able to help people through such a difficult time.
The Bail System and Bail Scams
Not every state has a bail system, but most have some form of it. It can vary by jurisdiction, too. But places where it exists, it tends to work similarly. Julie works in North Carolina, so she’s most familiar with that system.
A bail bondsman’s job is to get people back to court. Whether they’re guilty or innocent is up to the court – the bondsman just gets them there. Say someone goes to jail on a low-level charge. They might be given a $1,000 bond. In North Carolina, a bail bondsman can charge up to 15% of that bond, $150 in this example. Getting this person released on bail would require someone to pay that $150 and sign for the person committing to helping them get back to court.
If the person doesn’t show up to court, they’ll get an arrest warrant for failure to appear. Their bail bondsman will also get a notice, and the bondsman will immediately start trying to work with the person to get the warrant dealt with. North Carolina bondsmen also have the authority to apprehend people who flee and put them back in jail. In the worst case scenario – the person doesn’t show up to court and the bondsman can’t find them – the bondsman will owe the court the full $1,000 bond. In North Carolina, that money goes into the school system.
To Julie, bail bondsmen benefit taxpayers. They get people out of jail so they’re not consuming state or county resources before going to court. They don’t use police officer time and salary looking for them if they run. And if they can’t find them to make them see their day in court, they pay the bond that then goes to the school system.
Common Bail Scams
Julie has been involved on the front end of bail scams – scammers have reached out to her clients and their loved ones while she’s trying to work with them on legitimate bail arrangements. She’s also heard about the aftermath from victims and other bail bondsmen. There are a lot of variations, and this scam has really taken off. Julie can’t name a single bondsman in North Carolina who hasn’t had this happen to a client in the past six to nine months. And it’s happening nationwide.
Most commonly, the targets are people who’ve actually had recent interaction with law enforcement or their loved ones. But Julie has also seen a variation where nobody is actually in jail and the whole situation is fake.
Bail scams are effective because a lot of people aren’t familiar with how bail actually works or the ins and outs of the justice system. Hearing that a loved one is in jail will cause a strong emotional response. The person calling usually pretends to be a police officer or bail bondsman, which adds an element of authority. And they push you to act fast. That’s all the key elements of an effective scam.
How Bail Scams Work
Put yourself in a parent’s position. You just got a call telling you that your son is in jail. His bail is set at $1,000, and you have to pay it soon. Otherwise, he’s going to have to be moved with the violent criminals and won’t be able to see a judge for four days. If you imagine yourself in that situation, of course you’re going to panic. That’s your child, and you don’t want him stuck in jail with violent criminals for four days. And everyone’s familiar with the idea of paying bail to get someone out of jail.
Scammers are very good at putting on the pressure and scaring people that they need to send money immediately. They’ll also pretend to be law enforcement sometimes. One of the stories they use is that the person needs an ankle monitor, and there’s some kind of fee or cost you have to pay in addition to the bail money. They know how to pressure you, spin a story that sounds real, and work these calls very effectively to convince you to send money.
Bail scams also target people who are actively working with genuine bail bondsmen. Julie had a case like this not too long ago. She was working with an older lady to get her son out of jail. She called Julie upset that she couldn’t get her son out that night. Julie was very confused, because everything was almost done on Julie’s end. But a scammer had convinced the woman that she had to get gift cards to pay for an ankle monitor. It took quite a bit of work for Julie to assure the woman that the son wasn’t getting an ankle monitor and would be out of jail in about twenty minutes.
How Real Bail Bondsmen Operate
If Julie is calling someone whose loved one is in jail, she gives them plenty of information up front. She includes her name, her agency and location, and what jail the person is in. She also explains how much the total bond is, how much of the bond the loved one will have to pay, that they’ll have to sign for the person, and offer to meet them at her office so she can go across the street and get their loved one from the jail immediately. And she’ll say where they can verify information online and the phone number for the jail. If they have questions or concerns or need to talk to someone else first, Julie leaves her number and encourages them to call back.
Scammers make bail scams into five-alarm fires that have to be dealt with right now. But a legitimate bail bondsman is the opposite. They’re calm, professional, and patient. They’re willing to answer questions. And they’re not going to keep calling and asking for money right now. It’s also not normal for law enforcement to contact loved ones – in most states it’s either the incarcerated person themselves or a bail bondsman.
Some states require bail bondsmen to have brick-and-mortar offices. Some, including North Carolina, don’t, so some bail bondsmen operate without an office and meet at the jail. Any legitimate bail bondsman should offer to meet you either at their office or at the jail. And most states have some sort of license or registry process for bail bondsmen, so you can look them up and verify them. You can also call your local jail or detention center. At the very least, they’ll be able to tell you if they’ve heard of that bondsman before or if you should dig a little deeper.
How to Verify a Bail Bondsman
It’s always good to operate from a place of “trust, but verify.” If you get a call from someone claiming to be a bail bondsman, verify them first. Online is the way of the world. Most states have an online directory or listing of licensed bail agents. In North Carolina, legitimate bondsmen are listed on the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts page and also the North Carolina Department of Insurance site.
Each individual defendant also gets a specific case number. You should be able to look that up as well. Julie has seen scammers give people fake case numbers, fake police officer badge numbers, and fake license numbers for bail bondsmen. That’s why it’s important to verify, even if you think it sounds real. You can even call the jail with a case ID and confirm if that person is really there. Depending on the size of the facility, that may or may not be easy – smaller jails obviously have a better idea of who’s there and who isn’t. But either way, they can verify it.
It’s crucial to verify everything to avoid bail scams. Taking a couple minutes to take a few deep breaths, calm down, and check out the story is always a good idea. To Julie’s knowledge, a few minutes has never made the difference in someone getting out of jail or not. And those few minutes can save a lot of hassle and loss down the road.
Five or 10 minutes of just taking a breath and doing a little bit of research has never made it or not in an instance of getting someone out [of jail].
Julie Henderson
Legitimate Bail Payment Methods
You don’t necessarily have to go through a bail bondsman to pay bail. In many states you can also take the payment directly to the magistrate. In North Carolina, to do that you have to take cash to the magistrate. You have to go into the building, through the security process, and give cash to the person behind the class. They don’t even accept checks or credit cards, let alone things like gift cards or gold.
If you’re going through a bondsman, it can be a little different. Julie’s company only does cash or card. No checks, apps, or anything else – just those two options. Julie also has an office, and meets people there to do the transaction. Other bail bondsmen in North Carolina might take things like CashApp or Venmo. Julie disagrees with that, but there’s no law against it.
Ultimately, less than payment method, it comes down to pressure. A legitimate bondsman will answer your questions and walk you through the situation. They’ll be able to verify they are who they say they are. And they will be able to meet you in person to do the transaction, either at their office or at the jail. If the person says it has to be right now, and makes it sound like if you don’t pay that instant your loved one is spending a lot more time in jail, they’re not legitimate.
If it’s got to be right now, no other way, they’re about to go to the firing squad in the back, let’s slow down. Let’s take a minute [to verify].
Julie Henderson
Bail is Not as Urgent as Scammers Claim
Scammers claim that you have to act right now, and if you don’t pay the bail immediately your loved one will have to sit in jail for much longer. But that’s not actually accurate. In North Carolina, magistrates and jails are open around the clock. There are periods where it isn’t ideal, such as during a shift change, but nothing that would prevent you from getting someone out. Julie has seen situations where they’ve had to move people to different cells because of shift changes. But that only delays things by a few minutes.
In North Carolina, there are some laws that affects this. For example, if you already have prior charges before this, you might not be allowed to make bail until you see a judge. Once you see the judge, then you can. But that delay is usually in the range of a few hours. It’s not comfortable, but the sky isn’t falling. Even in the jails with the most prisoners and the least staff, it’s usually not more than a day.
Having a loved one in jail can be frightening. But it’s not an urgent, act-now situation. You have time to figure things out. Taking a few minutes to verify isn’t going to keep them from getting out. This scam is effective because people don’t know that. If you don’t know how the system works, scammers can easily make you panic. They also scrape data and get information about legitimate arrests very quickly, so they can make the story even more credible. They use this data and your unfamiliarity to prey on you.
Take that five or ten minutes, because that’s not going to make or break it, just to verify what you’re dealing with.
Julie Henderson
Bail Scams are a Huge Problem
Bail scams are underreported, but they’re a huge problem. Whatever law enforcement thinks the problem is, Julie is sure it’s a hundred times worse. There’s no particular demographic or community bail scams target. Scammers will target anyone who was arrested for any reason. These days, it’s very rare for her to work with a client where either they or someone close to them hasn’t been targeted by these scams. Often, she’ll be working with one family member, and another family member will call in a panic because they heard from a scammer.
Like most scams, bail scams aren’t reported nearly as often as they happen. From Julie’s experience talking to victims, there’s two reasons. Sometimes they feel like it would be a waste of time to report it, because they don’t think anyone will follow up on the report. Or, more commonly, it’s because of embarrassment. They’re embarrassed that they were scammed and want to forget that it ever happened.
There’s no reason to feel embarrassed of being a victim of any scam. But if you’re a victim of a bail scam, all that says to Julie is that you’ve never been involved on this side of the criminal justice system before. If you had been arrested or had a loved one arrested before, you’d know how the process was supposed to work. Because you’ve never dealt with the situation before, you didn’t know the scammer’s story didn’t add up. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
If you were a victim to a bail scam, that just shows me that you’ve never been involved in the criminal justice system on this side.
Julie Henderson
The Best Defense is Education (and Reporting)
Julie thinks the only way we’re going to stop bail scams is with education. She encourages bail bondsmen to be patient, take time to answer people’s questions, and encourage them to make complaints when scammers target them. For the general public, learning about how these scams work and how the bail system works when it’s legit is an important step.
Another useful suggestion Julie has heard is creating a family password. This is a word or phrase that you don’t write down or tell to people outside your family. Then, if someone doesn’t know the password, you know they haven’t really interacted with your loved one. It’s also a good idea to verify everything. If you get a call from someone claiming to be a bail bondsman, look them up! Are they licensed in the state? Is the license active? Do they have an online presence? Even a google search can help.
If you encounter a bail scam, whether or not you lost money, report it! Julie recommends reporting it to the FBI at ic3.gov – these scams are happening across state lines, and the FBI can look nationally. Many states’ Attorneys General want to investigate these complaints, too. The North Carolina Department of Insurance investigates bail bondsmen, so they want to hear about these scams. And if they claim to be from a particular organization or company, report it to them, too. Reporting is how law enforcement can actually start to address the problem.
Learn more about the bail system and what the North Caroline Bail Bonds Agents Association at ncbaa.com. They are a nonprofit fighting to protect, promote, and preserve the integrity of the North Carolina bail industry, and they’re happy to answer questions.
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