Keep Bailing

Earlier this week a bail bonds company located in Rancho Cucamonga was served a warrant under the suspicion that they have been violating rules of solicitation.

Bail bonds regulatory agency California Department of Insurance  investigators and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detectives served a warrant to search the premises of the Bail Hotline Bail Bonds Company.

The bail agency is being accused Read more »

KeepBailing? What does that mean?

We’ve been surprised how many people visit our blog and enjoy the news stories on celebrity and sports star arrests, jail issues, and police crack-downs, but don’t realize that we are a licensed, professional California bail bond company.

Greg Rynerson Bail Bonds is owned and operated by Greg Rynerson and his wife, Tonya. Greg’s dad, Cal, started a bail bond business in Orange County, California in 1971. When Cal retired, Greg had a career in the insurance industry and the business was sold. Years later, Greg started his own bail company.

Now, we’re a thriving, family owned business. We’re a mom-and-pop company that uses technology and an network of agents throughout the state to serve every jail in California. Often, potential clients assume that we are one of the larger bail companies in the state. In reality, we’re a small bail family that cares about the individuals we work with and goes the extra miles to meet their needs. We hope you enjoy our blog and if you ever need a bail bond, we’ll be here for you.

Facebook: some of us “Like it”, some don’t, some spend too much time there. If you’re not on it, you’ve probably been “invited” to be. Maybe you set up your account and have 600 friends or only a few. Whatever your affiliation with Facebook, it seems to be here to stay. Personally, I love the terms “Face Book it” and “Friend Me” and “Face Book Me”.

At Greg Rynerson Bail Bonds, we have a fan page. As of today (Facebook tells me), you can either “Become a Fan” or “Like” our page. We invite you to do that:

According to the Santa Maria Times, a lawsuit filed by several local bail bondsmen was dismissed by the Superior Court Judge that alleged Sheriff Bill Brown and others were impacting their business by preventing inmates from making their free phone calls to bail bond companies.

A final ruling by Judge Thomas Anderle sustained a motion filed by the defendants that the lawsuit had no real legal basis.

The suit filed claimed that Brown, who Read more »

Like KeepBailing? Well, the Rynerson family is bringing you a new blog: The Family Bail Blog.

The new blog goes along with the redsign of our “sister” website for Tonya Page Bail Bonds. The intention of the Family Bail Blog is educate the public as to how bail works, what to expect as they go through the bail process, how the jail system works, how bail bonds can be paid, what are the benefits of bail and so on. It will feature information that is helpful to those needing California bail bonds or simply curious about “How Bail Works”. We will also provide extensive information about Southern California jails.

If you have Questions about bail bonds, check out “Ask the Bondsman” on the Family Bail Blog.

This week, we read about the effects of a downturned economy on bail bondsmen in Imperial Valley and in San Bernardino. There’s no doubt this tough economy has played some part in our bail bond industry. Like any other business, bail bond customers now have less money and their homes are worth less as collateral than a couple of years ago. The jails are becoming overcrowded and I hear clients say: “With the economy the way it is, we’re going to let him stay in jail.”

As bondsmen, we’ve already been fighting a singular economic battle for some time, because we can’t compete based on price — we’re regulated by the Department of Insurance and are rates are set with them. In addition, our customers may not be very particular:  They often just want to deal with whoever can help them the fastest.

It used to be that good, honest service was the benchmark of a successful bail bond business.  Call me old fashioned, but I still believe this to be true and I really get steamed when I find myself up against bondsmen who break the law to earn a buck – and who then use bad economic times as their excuse.  So I’d like to dispel the belief that their practices have anything to do with a lousy economy.  I want to Read more »

In Philadelphia, large numbers of fugitives are skipping bail and fleeing justice, angry District Attorney Seth Williams told the Senate at a subcommittee hearing, and this “broken” bail system is like a second assault on crime victims.

Williams said Philadelphia defendants defeat the system by failing to show up for court, wearing down witnesses and causing cases to collapse in large numbers. So far, Philadelphia has let almost 47,000 fugitives escape. Between 2007 and 2008 over 19,000 defendants have failed to show up for at least one hearing.  This means one out of every three defendants, making it the nation’s highest tally for failure-to-appear.

Philadelphia courts took over the bail bond process about 40 years ago, citing widespread corruption within the bail bond industry as their reason. Under the city’s bail system, defendants pay 10 percent of their bail up front to the court, with the other 90 percent due if they skip their court dates. But the city has never backed up the consequences for skipping by collecting that money.  Now fugitives owe Philly a grand total of $1 billion in forfeited bail.

Contrast this to private bail such as the system in California. Bail agents Read more »

As last year, California bail agents met at Lake Tahoe for the 2009 Annual Convention of the California Bail Agents (CBAA). Day one was Monday and included the usual State of the Association and PBUS National Updates.

Pretrial Release

Continuing Education Credit was offered to bondsmen who attended all required sessions, the first of which was an attorney presentation regarding Pre Trial Release presented by Ash Pirayou of Rutan & Tucker and a panel on Credit Card Bail. Pirayou reviewed current happenings in Pretrial Release (commonly known as Release on Own Recognizance or “OR“) in Santa Clara County. Pirayou said that Santa Clara County jailsare attempting to use pretrial release to relieve jail overcrowding and save money, but the bottom line numbers show a significantly different picture. He called on bail agents to help paint an accurate public picture.

Orange County Sheriff Candidate

Bondsmen were also addressed by Bill Hunt, candidate for Orange County Sheriff.  Hunt, who spent 22 years in the Orange County Read more »

Yesterday I wrote about what to expect if you become a California bail bondsman. If you got through that and you’re back for more, you’re ready for the steps in obtaining your bail license. Now that I completed my pre-licensing class, I’m the expert here (ha ha)!

So, without further fan fare, here are the necessary steps to becoming a licenced bail bondsman in California:

1. You must have lived in California for least 2 years and be prepared to provide proof.
2. You must be 18 years old or older.
3. You need a clean record. Kind of an obvious one since you are working within the legal system, but many people don’t realize that to be a bail bondsman, you must have no felony convictions on your record. (Unlike the NFL which employs many people without clean records.) Read more »

If you are having ideas for a new career like many people these days, maybe you’d like to know how to become a bail bondsman. It probably seems like easy money: answer the phone, collect 10% of the total bail amount, post the bond… “next!” Before you take any of the steps necessary in getting licensed by the Department of Insurance (yes, you will have to pass a test), you might want to take a look at the life of a bail bondsman.

(Assumedly, you already know how bail bonds work, so I’ll skip those details.) In order to survive as a bail bondsman, be prepared to be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Any good bail bondsman or company will tell you, the entire livelihood of the company is generated from the 10% premium of the bail that is written. If you are not willing to take calls on Saturday morning at 3:00am, you probably won’t be in business for very long.

Additionally, doing all the necessary technical steps to becoming a bail bondsman are very straight forward, but Read more »