bountyscope.com

Well to each his/her own.

_________________
River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

See, if everyone had your attitude it would never get up and running

As a bail agency owner, I have to be sure that I don't hire someone that will cause additional liability to me and my company. I have dealt with contracts in other businesses. Direct and implied.

By using a site like the one proposed, a bail agent would be liable for any illegal actions done by anyone using that skips information to locate and apprehend him. If they go after him even without my knowledge and cause a problem the skip or his family could and probaly will sue.

As far as checking BEA's licenses, most state don't issue licenses. Some don't have any requirements at all. How do you verify those?

But even if the site checks out everyone, post the skip information proper and legally, the amount of time to admin the site will be more than one person can handle. At some point it will have to take advertising or charge to be a member.

Also, any site that doesn't have a legal disclaimer is also looking to be sued. Even if it does everything right, it can still be sued and take $100 of thousands to defend it self.

How about liabiality insurance?

These are just a few things that need to be addressed to protect everyone involved.

A website like this is definitely needed. But it has to be done right.

Well they can do just like they done in the day before licensing. . .get the names of 3 companies they work for, call them and ask them if he is a ligit recovery agent or just some wanna be dog.

We just went throught a lawsuit here in memphis, the situation was this, I was out looking for a person, 3 other bount hunters delt wih the guy in the past and seen him one day go into his mothers house.
Welp they called the bail bodsman he told them to call me, they never called me just went got him and brought him to the company.
Welp needless too say they never got paid for the recovery and when it went to court the judge ruled that even tho the bonding company has posters up wanting the man there was a number to call and no part of the poster stated that they would pay for ANYONE to bring him in.
The judge also told the attny that the suit could not be against the company because the company has the right to post flyers just like the police department's and sheriff's office. there for the responsable parties were infact the persons who took the law into there own hands without the legal documentation.

tsuggs, very valid points. this is why i am currently in the works with an attorney, to get a legal disclaimer written up that would suit this particular site.

obviously you brought up many good points that need to be adressed. as i have mentioned before this is still very much a rough draft. this is why i wanted to discuss matters here, 20 minds are always better than 1.

thank you all for your help, lets see what we can do to help make our jobs easier.

p.s. bringing up liability issues with other people going after your companies fugitives is a very serious issue. In fact just a few weeks ago an independent bounty hunter arrived on my website and actually found one of my skips, he then proceeded to go to another house to find another, and hit the wrong house. Obviously my company had little control over this as the independent bounty hunter did not contact us before working on some of our skips.

This is why i set up the site the way i did, to allow bounty hunters and bondsman to network first, communicate w/ each other and kind of gain a companies approval before working on a fugitive. Maybe if i made the site so only fugitives could be viewed between companies who are networked it might work better. But at the same time there is some value to having anybody be able to view a fugitive. This is why i have sinced removed the addresses of most all of the fugitives i have uploaded.

Tim,

My concern is not so much that a "un hired" BEA would sue to get paid but, rather than a "un hired" BEA does something wrong and gets sued. The "victims" will sue everyone in sight including the bail agent posting the info.

Yes you can probably win the case but after how much attorney fees.

So we have to make sure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed.

One last thing the disclaimer, legal notices, etc have to be acceptable in all States. Some states require different things are far as posting personal information, etc.

Again, I AM FOR such a site. I however have to protect my own business and make sure everything I do is legal.

There is another site set up that I know of, but I don't know the cost. It is www.bailncic.com. It was set up by a BEA working for one particular insurance company, but I understand they will allow memberships and add others for a fee. The last I heard, there were around 8,000 skips entered. I haven't gotten into it other than a test login when it was first started, but it seemed like an excellent resource. I asked the owner about it recently and he said that all of his insurance company skip info has been entered and it is operational.

This isn't a new concept, it is just a matter of getting it going with the various legalities, costs, and participation involved.

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

Proud Member of the AB Reject Club

ok...I just checked that bea-ncic website out. All of the number's listed are disconnected.

Also, 1 of the fugitive's they have listed..Skundrich..was an old FRTF case that myself and another former FRTF agent out of Pittsburgh worked to death, all to no avail.

Skundrich was reputed to be connected. He was a wanna-be lieutenant of 1 of the Pittsburgh, Pa's crime syndicate's. The Pa. FRTF agent spent thousands of man hours, dollars, and used alot of resources in his part of that investigation for which Michael Barber nor Bob Donnellan ever reimbursed him for.

They, the not so dynamic duo (Barber/Donnellan), dispatched me to Eastern Fl to follow up leads the Pa agent developed on possible locations. Everywhere from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale-By the Sea ( seperate from Ft. Lauderdale). I networked and liasoned with every Fl law enforcement agency up and down thier eastern coast. Passed out hundreds of wanted poster's, surveilled a half dozen or so possible residence's, gym's, etc. obviously all to no avail.

This was going on about the same time as the Natalie Holloway case. The missing blond bombshell 18 yr old from Alabama, who disappeared on a class trip in Aruba. At 1 point during my investigation, Skundrich was reportedly in Aruba at the same time. I could never verify that. I couldn't even verify that he was in Fl.

It was just a wild goose chase. to this day, I don't know if Skundrich has even been apprehended. If memory serves me right, his bond was something like $300,000.

Also, I did not have the training and experience then that I have now.

_________________
River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

LOL, I forgot that the numbers had been changed recently due to the owner receiving threatening phone calls from Ms. Dog after he posted some not too flattering comments on one of their fan sites after their latest fiasco. I have the new number if you want it. I'll let the owner know to update it on the sites as well.

Ruffin, I'm sending you a PM about the rest...

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

Proud Member of the AB Reject Club

After pondering this subject for awhile, I think that maybe the best way to get something like this going and have enough clout to cover any potential liabilty would to have all the sureties, go in and form a coalition that would develop, maintain and administer such a site.

I can see some agents not wanting to give up info on their skips to a site run by competing recovery agents. Same thing with the bail agents.

However if all or at least most of the sureites would share equally in such a site, we would get 100 of thousands of listings. The costs would be spread out among hundreds of sureties thereby making it very affordable for them.

Bail and recovery agents would not be charged for access to the site.

There could be a separate section for advertisers that could help reduce the costs to the "operators."

Tony,


If we could ever form a national union or organization, as has been discussed repeatedly here on this forum, then membership in that union/organization could inclue this database.

Something like the NRA, Teamster's, AFL-CIO, etc.

_________________
River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601