So I know this topic seems to come up frequently here. You recieve a letter from an unknown inmate. Someone whose profile either doesn't exist or who you never chose to write to. Clearly there is some trading of address or contact details going on at times.
This happened to me for the first time today via Corrlinks.
What are your experiences with unknown inmates writing you? What are your horror stories with this? What are your success stories? I want to hear it all, because my curiosity has got the better of me.
I'm yet to actually receive correspondence from this unknown inmate.
Last year I wrote someone, we talked for a few months and I just didn't felt we clicked. No part of me trusted her, and occasionally, I felt like I was almost being "worked" in a way? I'm not sure if that makes sense. Regardless, I just got the feeling this person was testing the waters with me. One day, she abruptly just removed me from her contact list without reason or warning.
Fast forward many months later and I receive a Christmas card from her out of the blue. Said she missed talking to me blah blah. I sat on that for over 2 months, before decided to write her back a short letter (snail mail). I was basically just polite in it, respectful, and said thank you for the Christmas card. I also mentioned that I was surprised to hear from her, asked why she had removed me, that I had nothing against her either way, and if she ever wanted to talk to me again - then feel free to add me back etc. Either way, I wished her the best for the future and to take care.
This unknown inmate is from her facility.
Any thoughts on this situation of mine?
Thanks in advance for any replies! :)
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receive** feel** deciding** Damn. I need coffee Haha
Sounds like she passed out or sold your information to another inmate. I've only received 1 letter from an inmate I don't know in a facility I've never had any pen-pals in. He was very polite in his letter and honestly tugged at my heartstrings (he said he was 19 and in the shu). It's those maternal instincts I have. I did look him up and what he wrote in his letter about his name, age, and crime all checked out, but decided not to write.
I don’t have any advice, but keep us posted if you do decide to write!
I didn’t write back to the 2 unsolicited letters I got so I don’t have any stories to share, but I’m interested in hearing others experiences.
You said it happened via CorrLinks, so she’s added you but not wrote to you? Is that right?
I think the worst case scenario is when your name ends up in the bin, or written on a wall somewhere with sexually perverse conations... This happened to me at a prison in Texas after my name and address fell through the hands of about 3 different people. I recieved some kind of sexually perverse letter that I never finished reading and went straight in the bin. I think they might have forgone the gender of my name which is not gender neutral and thought I was a woman... or someones bitch anyway...
I would have been happy.. beggars can’t be choosers ;)
Davey1800 was lol that made me spit my coffee out, would you have read them to the end?
KellyKelly I would've treasured it like a family heirloom :)
Ha ha ha that’s so funny And put it in a frame
lol
@davey1800 - LOL
So I basically assume this inmate who I never trusted to begin with, must've traded, sold or simply given my details to someone else in her facility.
I accepted the Corrlinks invite. A day later I get a basic generic message. Prior to accepting this invite, I had already researched the shit out of this person via Google and the BOP inmate search feature. I knew her crime, release date, facility, age, among other things.
So I immediately could see she was blatantly lying in her first sentence to me.
At not point did she also explain or offer a reason as to why she was messaging me, or how she came to have my details.
So I blocked her immediately after without a reply.
Which now leads me to another aspect of things I have seen mentioned on here a few times in the past: blocking inmates ability to contact you.
So I have blocked this person on Corrlinks. Great. How do you go about blocking all contact from an inmate? Do you contact the facility? Or website? Or what? Would love to hear how people have gone about this and if it was successful etc. I don't want to hear anything from these two inmates again.
Hey, just read this from WAP Point of contact:
"If you are hearing from an inmate/inmates that you do not wish to have contact with, write and tell them so. If that doesn't immediately end the problem, contact the prison and tell them that you do not want to receive mail from the specific inmate/inmates writing. Also, you can take all letters from the inmate/inmates that you receive, black out your address, write "RTS" (return to sender) on the envelope, and put them back in your mailbox. The mail will then be returned as "undeliverable.""
Hey mate, blocking her on Corrlinks should do the trick. For future reference if someone contacts you in the BOP (and in many other states) over the phone and you don't want any other contact you simply press 7 instead of 5. You can call/email the BOP facility (or state facility) and be asked to be put on their general "do not contact" register. They'll be glad to put any other letters they send you in the bin.
Okay, Galapagos, I have had an incident happen where an unknown inmate wrote to me from the same facility as someone I was corresponding with already. Same stuff as you, made no mention of how she found me, where she got my details, she kept talking about my PP but couldn't even spell her name or get basic details right. This was actual correspondence, not via Corrlinks or JPay or anything. I didn't respond to it and never heard from her again. BUT, my PP got wind of it before I even wrote her again and basically told me that this girl was going through the trash looking for addresses and got my address, apparently someone known to both of them ratted her out. So, people shouldn't always assume it's their PP who give their details away, maybe it is but maybe it's not. That incident taught me alot about not jumping to conclusions and letting stuff play out before I judge. Maybe this isn't the case with you, but that's my experience.
I have had unknown people contact me a few times, I don't do anything with it ever. I don't feel like I owe these people anything.... about sexually explicit letters, I did get one, as I mentioned on another similar thread, some random sent me one and then sent two more letters admonishing me and demanding an explanation for not replying... he's not socialized properly obviously... but other than those two I haven't had anything particularly hair raising.
Dunno if I helped at all or how much, lol
@Nenn, @FrankieBones - thanks for your replies! Much appreciated and very helpful. I'll be sure to mark any incoming mail from these two as "return to sender". Probably won't worry about contacting the BOP facility to be put on their "do not contact" register until/if that happens.
@ShadeyBiz89 - It was really interesting reading your story! Totally gave me a different side to it. I would usually try not to jump to conclusions without evidence - it was the lack of trust and "sketchiness" I had experienced with this other penpal which made me come to this conclusion though Haha Crazy to think people could be going through the trash and all that! The lying about her age within the first sentence to me was what really put a sour taste in my mouth though - prior to that, I had been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until she explained things. Tried not to judge too harshly or anything. You gain my details via unknown means and then you blatantly lie to me in your first sentence? Bye bye Haha
No totally, I get what you mean! What tipped me off after initially doubting what happened with mine was, the girl who wrote me didn't say how she got a hold of my info... which tells me she probably stole it because if my PP didn't want to write me anymore, then you'd think she would say, ''She passed your info on to me''... although, she could say that and it still be bullshit trying to turn me against my PP, so maybe that's not so concrete... because I really don't think yours or mine or anyone else who writes to someone as a result of deception from stealing your info is gonna come out and be like, ''Hey, I just stole your address behind your PP's back from a trash can, wanna be friends?'' They know that people won't take kindly, so they'll either say nothing or try to mask it with a fake explanation...
But yeah, I'd react similar to you, people who lie to me from the get go, that's no foundation to build a friendship from... I get what you mean, you're coming at me already from a questionable angle and then on top of that you're lying... oh yeah, people get desperate, the girl was like I'm lonely, I have 6 kids, I have nobody to write and I'm getting out in 6 months, blah blah blah... sorry to hear that but you're not my penpal, I did not ask for you to write, and on top of that you did so behind my PP's back without her knowledge... I did not respond because regardless of what I said to this other girl, if she were to show this to my PP it could look like I wanted to write her and I did not, her letter was shady as hell... but yeah, just wanted to throw another angle out there!
I went through all that drama when I first started writing my current one, she actually knows someone who does the trash, and she found an envelope with my name on it in the trash. It took a lot of convincing from my perspective that I wasn't writing other women. I've had it explained to me in various ways since that it would be a huge hit to her self esteem if she found me writing to someone in the same facility and thats fine because I respect that and I understand that most people are posessive like that in these situations.