Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Haynes.
Alexandra, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’m 28 years old, and I’m a bail recovery agent (just a fancy way of saying “bounty hunter.”) My boyfriend/business partner Jon and I track down fugitives in the Atlanta and North Georgia area!
I was born in the Northeast Georgia Mountains and spent my entire childhood enthralled with detective and spy stories. When it came time to choose a career, it never occurred to me that an investigation job was a real option, so I became a professional photographer. After doing photography full time for six years, I had an almost overnight existential crisis and realized that I wanted to be an investigator.
I started looking into my options and when I read about skip tracing (the process of finding difficult to locate individuals), I was really fascinated. In the meantime, I decided to take a Krav Maga (self-defense) class, and that was where I met my boyfriend/business partner. He was retired military and was working in the private security industry at the time.
A year after we met, he had the opportunity to get into bail recovery. He knew that I wanted to be an investigator, so he asked me for help locating people. He had very limited tech and social media skills (seriously, he didn’t even know his iPhone had a front-facing camera!) I was able to find all of the people from the first three files he gave me (using social media and basic google searches). At that point, we realized we had complementary skill sets and started our business, Fenrir Group.
After working together for a few years, Jon and I began dating and we now live together in Gainesville, GA. That is kind of our launching pad for our business, which takes us all around Georgia, and even to other states (we’ve been to New York, Miami, Detroit, New Orleans, and many other states/cities, looking for fugitives!)
Has it been a smooth road?
It has definitely not been easy, for so many reasons! Bail recovery is a difficult field to get into, period. There is so much risk and liability, most bondsmen won’t hire someone who walks in off the street. They want someone they can trust, and it’s difficult to even get an opportunity to prove yourself.
On top of that, it is (unsurprisingly) a male-dominated field. Not only am I a woman, but I’m small (5’4, 100lbs). Everyone’s mental image of a bounty hunter looks more like my partner: this 6’2, bearded, viking-esque guy with tattoos.
In the beginning, I was called “that little girl” by notable people in the industry and dismissed as being my partner’s sidekick (while being 50% of the operation and co-owner of the business.) Ultimately, the grind of building reputation won out. I was able to find people that other recovery agents couldn’t find.
If I could pick one thing to go back in time and tell 23 years old Alex, it would be this: When you’re dealing with superiors at work, or gatekeepers to an industry, you have to try and understand how they think, even if you don’t like/agree with it. Understanding who they are (and what they are) can help you figure out the best way to interact with them as your career progresses.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Fenrir Group – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Fenrir Group, in its current form, offers fugitive recovery, process service, general skip tracing (finding difficult to locate people), and we also do some private investigations work.
After five years of finding people who are running from warrants, we are definitely known for being highly skilled in tracking down people who don’t want to be found. My partner, Jon, has a background in mental health and he has developed a reputation for being skilled in de-escalation (of the ~450 people we’ve arrested, we fought less than 10.) I, personally, have developed a strong skill for social media and internet research. I’ve even had the chance to do that work for the US Army in a military court martial case, which was really cool for me.
There are two things in our business that we’re really excited about right now. First, we’re really getting into process service, but focusing on helping attorneys track down people who are avoiding being served legal papers.
The second is our podcast! It’s called “Wanted Podcast.” It’s full of stories of our cases and the weird world of bounty hunting (believe me, it’s weird!)
Are there any apps, books, podcasts or other resources that you’ve benefited from using?
So, I am 5 days into 2020 and using a daily planner for the first time in my adult life. I’m kicking myself for not doing this sooner. I already don’t know how I functioned without it. I know a lot of people use digital planners on their phones now, but it helps me so much to see everything laid out in front of me. It’s also satisfying to physically check off finished tasks.
I’m always trying to improve myself in general, so I listen to podcasts as much as possible (driving, working out, cleaning house), that way I’m always learning. As you might guess, I love true crime podcasts. I feel like listening to other criminal cases and hearing how they played out helps me improve my own investigation skills.
Contact Info:
- Email: fenrir.recovery@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/w.asp, https://www.instagram.com/unique_skillset
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wanted-podcast/id1444978509
Image Credit:
Charla Ayers Photography (for the photos in which I am wearing my body armor, and the two of Jon and I), Danielle Ward Photography(for the black and white headshot style image)
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