Respond to friend request from jail?

September 2, 2024 1:50 PM

I recently received an email with subject line "Inmate message from ${name}". I do not know this person and am struggling with whether or not to respond, as I think it may be a case of mistaken identity.

The email looks legit. The subject line contains the name of the county jail where the person is being held, and I googled the person's name and there is a relatively recent (within the last few months) arrest record for them in that county. Furthermore, the message came from an email address with the domain vendengine.com, which upon further googling appears to be a company that provides these kinds of tech services to jails.

In fact, this is the second such message I've received. The first was probably several months ago but I don't remember exactly. The messages were short and contained no details. I don't remember what the first one said, but the one today said just "hey man hmu". As best I can tell, "hmu" means "hit me up".

As I said, I do not know this person at all, nor do I live in the same state (or even country). The only reason I am considering responding is that I suspect they just have the wrong email address.

I have a hyphenated last name, the first part of which could also be a first name. Think something like "John Lawrence-Anderson". My email address is the analogue of [e-mail]. The message I received was sent to [e-mail], with the dot missing, which further makes me think this person just pulled this email address out of thin air. In the almost 20 years I've had this email, I've been contacted probably 20 times by people looking for Lawrence Anderson, and if it is a personal message or looks to be important, I respond to politely let people know "Hey, I'm John Lawrence-Anderson, if you're looking for Lawrence Anderson, you've got the wrong person." So my inclination is to do that and move on.

I haven't done that yet because, in order to reply to the message, I need to sign up for an account with this service called CorrectPay (powered by VendEngine™), and they want an immense amount of personal information from me. Name, address, birthdate, phone number, and even a driver's license or passport number. It feels like quite a lot of very personal data to give to a private company where I have no other use for the account.

I am torn. I don't want this guy to languish in jail thinking that his good buddy (or casual acquaintance, even) Lawrence Anderson has abandoned him. It looks like the arrest was for a low-level drug possession offence, and people in jail need deserve to be able to contact their friends. But at the same time it seems like a pretty high personal cost to pay for somebody I don't know.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

posted by number9dream to Grab Bag (20 answers total)

People do scams from jail a lot!
posted by kickingtheground at 1:59 PM on September 2 [12 favorites]

Contact the jail directly and let them know.
posted by JanetLand at 2:08 PM on September 2 [6 favorites]

I haven't done that yet because, in order to reply to the message, I need to sign up for an account with this service called CorrectPay (powered by VendEngine™), and they want an immense amount of personal information from me. Name, address, birthdate, phone number, and even a driver's license or passport number. It feels like quite a lot of very personal data to give to a private company where I have no other use for the account.

I would never, under any circumstances, sign up for such a service for any purpose, on either the part of the individual or the service. This is an attempt to gather your information for nefarious purposes. My heart goes out to the guy, if this is legit, but this would definitely be a do-not-engage situation for me. And I say that with a guy who has gotten many "similar name" emails, some vital, and has tried to do the "right" thing in passing them on.
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:13 PM on September 2 [24 favorites]

Best answer: I know it sounds a bit cold, but I do not think you need to take exceptional measures to let this or any other person know they have the wrong email address.

This is even before considering whether or not this could be a scam, and is definitely before the point where you spend a lot of time ruminating about how there might be some sort of situation where the sender is somehow harmed, even in a minor way, by the fact that they think they're asking their buddy to hit them up but are actually emailing you. (Which it sounds like you may already be doing--please stop!)

I'm also someone who wound up with a very common [e-mail] address. In the past 20 years, I've received debt collection notifications (from other countries, no less), passport applications (also from other countries), responses to job applications, and what I believe are sincere, non-scam mash emails. Plus endless product order confirmations, promotions, mailing lists, etc. At this point, I just delete and block as necessary.

Look, people figure this sort of thing out. Email addresses get mistranscribed and typoed, and emails are eaten by spamcatchers and security systems ALL THE TIME. It's an inherently unreliable and ephemeral mode of communication (far, far worse than most countries' postal services), and while it's certainly used for important stuff, it's also almost never the final word or last resort, and there are always ways around an email that goes undelivered or unanswered. You simply do not have any responsibility here.
posted by pullayup at 2:23 PM on September 2 [12 favorites]

I believe (I used to volunteer for a books to prisoners org) in almost all places you can send a physical letter to an inmate without having to disclose your personal information to a sketchy gross for-profit vendor like that. Your comfort level may vary and you could maybe figure out a return address to use that isn't your personal physical address if concerned, but you could just write and send the inmate a physical letter letting them know that the email is going to the wrong person and asking them not to try again.
posted by lizard music at 2:33 PM on September 2 [5 favorites]

You could send this person a postcard letting them know you received an erroneous email from them. Your postcard may or may not reach the inmate, depending on the particular mail regulations of this particular county jail, but at least you made the effort. Just read lizard music's answer above and think a postcard would be got, put a very random return address, they may not deliver anything without a return address.
posted by mareli at 2:36 PM on September 2 [2 favorites]

Also I would not suggest contacting the jail directly as there is a chance it may place this inmate under scrutiny or single him out for taking away vital communication privileges. In most cases the jail staff would do nothing actually helpful in my opinion. If you honestly think it is a scam targeting you I would contact the police rather than the jail.
posted by lizard music at 2:36 PM on September 2 [4 favorites]

Not addressing your question directly, but just so you're aware, the dot in your email address is irrelevant. Your email address is [e-mail] and it doesn't matter if there's a dot or no dots or many dots. [e-mail] and [e-mail], etc, will all hit your inbox. All Gmail addresses work this way.
posted by dobbs at 2:37 PM on September 2 [13 favorites]

I would never respond to this or do anything other than delete it. If it was a message about an emergency or serious problem or cry for help or something, maybe, but "hey man hmu" is none of those things. This is 100% ignore.
posted by Mid at 3:14 PM on September 2 [8 favorites]

In most cases the jail staff would do nothing actually helpful in my opinion.

I didn't say anything about this in my original comment but I heartily agree with this, and similar reasoning applies to my decision not to respond to the vast majority of misdirected emails.

Replying to let a debt collector know I'm the wrong Lawrence Anderson? Like, there are exactly zero ways for this to go well. Best case seems like the agency flags the account as having received a response and redoubles their efforts to collect. Replying to an email intended for a prospective employee? Employers are perpetually looking for reasons to disqualify otherwise equally able, not-well-differentiated applicants. Would my confusing email give some HR drone itching to drop a resume into the circular file reason to go ahead? I have no idea.
posted by pullayup at 4:18 PM on September 2 [1 favorite]

but the one today said just "hey man hmu"

That seems like a very unlikely message to be sending to a friend from jail. I think you can safely let it go.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:43 PM on September 2 [1 favorite]

I am very sorry to be taking up so much space in this thread, but the content 'hey man hmu' seems plausible and real to me - asking for contact from a friend, or possibly hit me up being used as a way to ask for funds to be added to his account to purchase basic hygiene items and snacks from commissary. Not to mention things that affect inmates like limited technology time, and broader statistics about lower literacy levels. Again, just trying to add context to what I believe is going on with this message - ignoring it seems fine, since as noted above it's not like 'let me know how [family member] is doing' or something serious.
posted by lizard music at 5:12 PM on September 2 [2 favorites]

The only reason I'm not 100% sure it's a scam is that the rates for sending email from prison are generally extortionate (hence the initial up-front investment too much for someone to be blanketing the world with emails). However, perhaps they are emailing from the one of the jurisdictions that have improved on this front lately.
posted by praemunire at 5:16 PM on September 2

Don't touch this with a 50 foot pole. Do not engage.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:40 PM on September 2 [4 favorites]

Oh no, just delete and ignore. Don't waste another second thinking about this. At best, it's a case of mistaken email. At worst, some scam. But finding out is not worth it for you. FWIW, I get these a lot, but there are a lot of people out there who think they have my admittedly straight forward and easy-to-remember email address. Delete, more on. Not worth more thought than that.
posted by cgg at 7:08 PM on September 2

Block and ignore.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:43 AM on September 3 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: OK, thanks for the perspective, everybody. To outline how I'm thinking about this now:

I don't think this is a scam, for reasons people have articulated here. There's nothing at all to indicate this message is crafted for me specifically, and it is almost certainly too expensive to spam randos via the jail-approved email system. (Probably their messages would be monitored as well!)

Also, since the company seems legit (as in "is an official thing that actually does provide tech services to jails in the US"), my guess is that they want all this personal info in order to monitor who incarcerated people are talking to, not to use for opening credit accounts in my name or whatever.

It seems to me that this is just a simple case of somebody getting the wrong email, but everybody here has convinced me that it's not my responsibility to fix their mistake. Message deleted, moving on with my life.
posted by number9dream at 5:44 AM on September 3 [1 favorite]

As someone who has a national profile, I get requests like this on the regular. Generally, they are legit. But a few of them, when responded to, almost immediately turn into requests for money, sometimes aggressive, often misleading and manipulative. One of them has turned into a flood of paper letters three or more times a week, written in a crabbed (and crabby) style that makes them hard to read. I sent one correspondent books, which were confiscated by officials because I wasn't on an approved sender list I didn't know about — a waste of time, money, and materials. Since it is also a giant hassle to respond to prisoner email (setting up multiple accounts in terrible software systems that you must load with a minimum amount of money that is far more than you will spend, all the while knowing that some stupid corporation is milking the cow twice), I have unfortunately now made it a policy not to respond to inquiries from prison.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:23 AM on September 3 [1 favorite]

I need to sign up for an account with this service called CorrectPay (powered by VendEngine™),

Yeah, this is so you can put money in his account so he can buy stuff from the commissary. If you do not want to do this, you should not proceed. He can write a letter to his friend to get the correct email address.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:51 AM on September 3 [3 favorites]

This has happened to me before, it was a legitimate company that managed inmate's emails, etc. I just went to the website and they had an option to remove my email address from their system. I haven't received any further messages.
posted by Julnyes at 2:21 PM on September 3 [2 favorites]