Tags: bail bondsman, bail business, Bail Business, bondsmen, courthouse, licenses, lobbying, Marketing, solicitation, suspension

Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/police-rein-in-bondsmen-marketing/

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MCDONALD COUNTY, MO — Bondsman Bryan W. White of All Out Bail Bonds has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after firing a warning shot in a residential area while pursuing a man to be arrested. White has been charged court costs and $500. White had gone to a trailer park to apprehend a man wanted on an outstanding warrant. When the man fled, White fired a warning shot in the trailer park, leading to his arrest.

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Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/bondsman-pleads-guilty/

Tags: bail, bondsman, bondsmen, car accidents, courts, fraud, jail

Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/couple-created-lots-of-work-for-bondsmen/

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Bail bondsmen should avoid making these SEO mistakes.

AboutBail has written about best search engine optimization (SEO) practices for your bail agency website, but we haven’t touched on worst practices. These are things that can make your site’s ranking sink faster than a lead balloon because Google and other search engines feel cheated or bored. Hopefully these common SEO mistakes don’t ring a bell!

1. Not brushing up on SEO basics
Whether you’re attempting to optimize your website on your own or hiring a company to do it, you should gain a solid base knowledge of SEO and why it is important. There are right ways and wrong ways to optimize for search engines, and it would serve you well to be able to tell the difference.

2. Targeting the wrong keywords
One common keyword mistake is trying to optimize for really general terms like “bail” or “bondsman” instead of being very specific. When you optimize for these general terms, you are competing with thousands or millions of other sites and are less likely to see positive results. Use keyword research to identify more precise words you should be targeting, such as “Los Angeles bail agent.” This focused approach will have greater impact on drawing potential customers to your site.

3. Not optimizing locally
Search engines want to show people results that are as local as possible. If someone searches for bail agents in Denver, Google prominently displays Denver bail agencies. This means that your SEO strategy needs to include optimizing for keywords such as “Denver bail bonds” and “Denver bail agents.” To read more about local search, read How Local Search Puts Your Bail Agency on the Map.

4. Stuffing your site with too many keywords
Keywords, like many things, are best in moderation. If you try to overload your website with keywords, the search engines will lose some interest and possibly lower your ranking. As long as your content flows naturally for readers and includes keywords in moderation, you’re in good shape.

5. Ignoring your title tags
The title tag is the series of words you see at the top of your browser. Placing keywords in the title tag is a hugely important component of SEO, so ideally your title tag will contain bail-specific keywords as well as your agency’s location. Many websites still have “XYZ Bail” in the title tag, which tells search engines little about your site’s purpose.

6. Buying or trading links from dubious sources
Many people will tell you that they can get thousands of links to your website (a good thing for SEO) for a price. However, many of these link-building services are either scams, or they use practices that can actually damage your SEO ranking. Instead of placing your trust in these questionable link peddlers, you should either research best practices for building your own links or work with a reputable company.

7. Trying to fool the search engines
Companies like Google pay their brainiac staff members well to write complex algorithms that sniff out attempts to fool their search engines. In other words, don’t waste your time trying. Historically, people have tried things such as including keywords in white or light-gray text, hoping that search engines would recognize the keywords while website visitors remained unaware. This and other sneaky techniques are called black-hat SEO, and they can get you blacklisted from search engines.

8. Not varying the content on your pages
Make sure each page of your website has unique content, title tags and meta descriptions (the descriptive text you see in search results under links). It’s a turn-off for search engines when they come across a site where every page is very similar.

9. Having broken links
Search engines don’t like broken links and neither do your site visitors. This is an easy fix – just make sure that all links on your site go to the appropriate destination instead of an error screen.

10. Not blogging
Blogging is actually optional, but it’s beneficial. The more unique and relevant content you have on your website, the more impressed search engines will be. Another benefit of blogging is that if you write customer-focused content, potential customers will come to your site for bail information.

Related reading: 9 Essential Elements of a Better Bail Agency Website

If you need a new website, AboutBail can have one up and running for you in a day. Visit our Bail Agent Websites site to see a variety of designs.

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Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/seo-for-bail-bondsmen/

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DALLAS COUNTY, TX — Last week, it was reported that Dallas County was owed $35 million in unpaid bail bond forfeitures. However, this week, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins claimed that the “legally collectible” amount of Dallas bail bond forfeitures in the county is in fact $6 million. The Auditor’s Office claims that the actual amount which can be collected is actually under $500,000. The differing amounts are because some of the bond forfeitures date back decades and – according to Judge Clay Jenkins – can no longer be collected. A task force has been created to create protocols to avoid similar debts in the future and a law firm has been hired to collect as much debt as possible.

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Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/dallas-bail-bond-forfeitures-2/

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BALTIMORE, MD — Baltimore bail bondsman Milton Tillman Jr. and his son have been sentenced in a tax fraud case. The men allegedly evaded payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. Milton Tillman Jr. has been sentenced to 51 months. He pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns, working in the bail business while a felon, and committing wire fraud. Tillman Jr.’s son, Milton Tillman III, will serve a year but will be eligible to continue working in the bail bonds industry.

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Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/baltimore-bail-bondsmen-taxes/

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HARTFORD, CT — Flavio Bail Bonds has been told by the Connecticut Supreme Court to forfeit $125,000 in bonds in the case of an alleged drug dealer, David Sheriff, who fled the country. The Connecticut bail agency had alleged that they did not have to forfeit the bond because state prosecutors did not try to extradite Sheriff from Jamaica after he fled the U.S. Flavio Bail Bonds claimed the did not have the authority to get Sheriff out of Jamaica themselves.

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Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/court-determines-that-connecticut-bondsman-must-forfeit-bond/

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TALLAHASSEE, FL — Six local families have been targeted by a scam that authorities say uses information from a jail web site. According to authorities, some scam artists have used the site to get the names and contact information for families of defendants in jail. The scammers then contact the families and promise to get the family member out of jail quickly for $1,500. Once the money is paid, the scammers disappear. The scammers pose as law enforcement officers looking for a payoff. They promise families that inmates will get out of jail and into programs such as anger management or rehab. The county has made changes to its website to make personal information more difficult to access.

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Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/criminals-target-defendants-families/

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Bail agents can prevent credit card chargebacks.

Your bail agency just successfully bonded a person out of jail and you received payment for your services via credit card. You’re feeling great about everything – until you discover that the client has initiated a chargeback on the credit card they used to pay you. You groan as you consider the hassles you are about to endure dealing with the client, the client’s bank and your merchant processing company.

Bail agents are at a high risk of dealing with chargebacks in part because of the nature of their client base, but there are ways to mitigate the risk. A combination of preparation, high-quality customer service and solid business practices can prevent chargebacks, as we’ll explain.

Why would a bail agent’s client resort to a chargeback?
The reasons that a client might initiate a chargeback vary, but they can include dissatisfaction with services, confusion over billing, or even that the person wants something for nothing. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on preventing chargebacks from clients resulting from billing confusion or a dispute over services rendered by a bail agent.

How can bail agencies prevent a chargeback?
Here is a list of 11 preventative measures and resolution tactics you can use to reduce your chances of dealing with a credit card chargeback.

1. Clearly explain your billing and refund policies to clients and if possible have them sign a written copy to prove that they read and understand them. Consider adding an item they can sign where they agree that they will not dispute or chargeback the payment.
2. Give clients a detailed written description of the services you will be providing. If possible, have them sign a copy of this outlined plan.
3. Make sure the business name on the credit card billing statement matches your firm’s name (or at least let the client know which name will appear if it’s different than your firm’s name). People become highly suspicious when they see an unknown charge on their card and may respond with a chargeback.
4. Include a phone number on the statement so clients can contact you in the event of confusion or disputes.
5. Keep clients fully updated on the status of their bail bond so they don’t consider a chargeback because they feel like they’re being left in the dark.
6. If any tricky situations arise, let them know promptly so they don’t try to have their money returned through a chargeback.
7. When choosing a merchant processing company or bank, research them thoroughly to compare chargeback resolution measures. Some merchant processing companies side firmly with consumers while giving little recourse to merchants or service-providers, so you should find a company that protects your rights and lets you fairly fight chargebacks.
8. Keep detailed records of your interactions with every client. Archive notes about telephone conversations, records of e-mail conversations, receipts, contracts, copies of credit cards and more. The more information you can offer when disputing chargeback, the better.
9. Work with clients to resolve disputes before they resort to a chargeback. You may deal occasionally with a client who turns away all resolution attempts, but often some logical reasoning and customer service can save the day.
10. If the client’s bank issues a retrieval request, which is where they ask for proof that you delivered the promised services, respond as quickly as possible. The sooner you offer proof, the less chance of a chargeback.
11. Last but not least is a tip that you likely practice every day but is nonetheless important: provide top-notch bail services. Good old-fashioned hard work and helpful customer service is an effective way to keep clients from even considering a chargeback.

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Article source: http://www.aboutbail.com/agent-center/collateral/bail-agents-credit-card-chargebacks/