Do not pass go, do not collect $200, and pay your loans first

As I'd said in the death post, working longer defaulted accounts we deal with lots of people out on the fringe. This includes people who commit crimes and end up in prison, for things as small as shoplifting to as big as murder.

Incarceration is not something that pops up on LexisNexis like death. (A giant red D next to the name - usually a big clue. Incarceration might show up if you're willing to do a full search, but still takes digging.) Incarceration usually only pops up casually if you are doing a Google search, and the crime they committed was pretty big and they have an uncommon name. A colleague of mine recently found a borrower who was found guilty of a quarter-million dollar Medicare fraud that way - it has to be that big.

So how do we find out about incarcerated borrowers? Why, from references and relatives. Which means we usually get the story of what happened as well, as told from either a sympathetic point of view:

"Him? Oh - tragic, really. Such a nice kid, but bad friends. He's in prison right now for assault, but it wasn't his fault. So sad..."

Or non-sympathetic:

"HER? Fuuuuuuuck, she's in jail right now for sticking up a 7-11 to get money for meth. Fucking loser."

From there, we try to guide the conversation toward what prison the borrower might be in, and if that is a federal, state, or county jail. If we know that information, we can find the appropriate facility through internet prisoner searches, and verify that the borrower is actually incarcerated.

(Yes, incarceration information is available online. All links are available through blackbookonline.info Incidentally, if you have any delusions about online privacy, check out that site. You will be shocked and amazed at what is available online.)

One interesting part about incarceration is that the online sites usually also have mugshots, which is the only time we are able to put a face to the name of the person we are trying to find. I always find it a sort of shocking reminder - so much of our business is auditory only that it can be hard to get a visual of THIS is the person you were trying to reach. Especially if the crime happened to be a violent one, such as a sexual offense or a capital crime. Hard to look at a child molester or murderer in the eye who also has a large balance outstanding loan you were hoping to collect.

Of course, if someone is recently released from prison, you may try to catch them to see if they want to start their "new re-entry into society" with dealing with their loan. Apparently, parole officers are great contacts toward getting some sort of either payment or hardship program from an outstanding loan.

Assuming the parole officer knows where they are. I found that out by conversation with one a few months ago. "I haven't seen that son a bitch in three weeks. You find him, you let me know, okay? We have a warrant out for him." Drug dealer/wholesaler. I just marked that one as "on the lam" and I'll just leave it alone.

There are also the occasional cases of people trying to get things together before heading off to prison. I spoke with one borrower who we kind of raced against time to get all of the paperwork in to get his loan out of default through hardship program before he went back to prison. (I didn't ask what for - thought it might stop the conversation and I'd lose the program.) We finally finished things up with his girlfriend mailing back the paperwork.

"I just want my life back together - this is part of what I have to face and make right," he said to me. And I'm glad he was able to get this part, at least, sorted out before returning to prison. Since in the end, that's really all that we're all looking for, on both ends of the phone.