Exhausted

So yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from a distraught mother located several states away.  Her son and two of his friends were arrested for drug possession on their way to a concert. She needed my help bonding her son out and we started with e-mail and faxing documents. I received most of the documents that I needed by dinnertime and was ready to go get the kid first thing this morning.  Last night, before bed, I ran the credit card and it was denied.  It took hours to get this resolved and I didn’t go to bed until well after midnight, but I knew I had captured the full 10% fee.

This morning, I drove out to get the kid.  He is a couple of counties away so it took about an hour.  I then waited nearly two more hours for the judge to arrive and do his thing.  My part of the paperwork took 5 minutes and I was on my way back to the parking lot.  An hour and a half later, my new client was released and I took him out to Lunch.  It was my treat, not that he could have paid if he wanted to, since all of his cash (over $300) was seized by the police because it was a drug related charge.

After lunch, we drove all over the county looking for the impound lot.  Took about an hour and we finally found it.  The GPS was less than useful in the rural county as it directed us to a big empty farm field.

Once at the impound lot, we waited 2.5 more hours for my client’s Aunt and Uncle to arrive.  They were driving up from two states away to pick him up and take him to his Mother.  It worked out because they were moving up there anyway in search of new work opportunities.  It took another hour to get home after that.  So after fees, I made just about $1,000 and it took a tank of gas plus 10 hours of my day.  Not to mention the 2-3 hours that I’ve spent on the phone with the guy’s mother. Assuring, reassuring, and answering all of her questions is a fulfilling job, but time consuming.

I found the mother and son’s extreme gratefulness quite satisfying and I hope that he keeps up his end of the bargain.  It was those kinds of thanks that reminded why I’m in this business to begin with.  I could have just taken the fee and let the kid out of jail and ditched him to make his own way home.  It would have taken maybe 3 hours of my time, but that isn’t the quality of service I try to provide to my clients and I feel it sets me apart from the competition in a very good way.

-bbc

---

Posted in Bail Bond Business, bail bondsman
Tags: bail bond, credit cards, expenses, fee, Surety