These are the three ways your incarcerated loved one can reach us — one for each way they might be able to communicate from inside.
Communication from prison is limited and unreliable — tablets get locked down, calls are short, and some people have neither. So we built a path for every situation. Tap each one to see what it offers.
A lot of the people inside were the providers — the reliable one, the one everybody leaned on, the one who took care of things. Incarceration strips that away fast. Everything gets done for you, and being the person others counted on becomes being the person who needs help. That loss runs deep, and most people never see it.
So when your person gets to handle something on their own — choose the book, decide what to order, take care of it themselves — it's not really about the book. It's the feeling of being useful again. Of doing something. Of still being someone who can take care of business. That's dignity — and it's worth protecting.
If your person has email access inside (a facility tablet or kiosk), they reach us directly — they email commands@bidbudz.com and handle it on their own, no help needed. No account yet? They can email START to begin their own, free — then tell you to look them up by name + register number.
Email access gets locked down sometimes — that's just part of prison. When email goes quiet, the phone and mail are still open. That's the whole point of having three.
On a call, your person just tells you what they want. You place the order from your phone in seconds — nothing for them to set up, nothing to figure out on a wall phone.
Fast enough for a 15-minute call — nothing for them to set up. On your side you just see their balance and place the order. They pick — you make it happen.
Some people have neither a tablet nor the phone — so we made a way to keep something coming with nothing but paper and a pen. It's subscriptions only, so there's nothing to spell — they just write a number.
Paid from their BidBuckz balance — you keep it loaded, they pick by mail. We match their name + register number so we know it's really them, and it ships straight to the facility. Nothing to send back — the book or digest arriving each month is the confirmation.
💡 Two ways to pay, same thing arrives. By mail it comes out of their loaded BidBuckz balance (shown here in BidBuckz). On the web you can subscribe by card instead — Book of the Month is $25/mo, the Digest from $3/mo. 100 BidBuckz ≈ $5.
BIDBUDZ ORDER Name: __________ Reg #: __________ I want #: ____ (1, 2, 3, or 9) Digest topics (if 2 or 3): 1 Sports 2 Faith 3 Jobs 4 Health 5 Money 6 News 7 Fun 8 Family My topics: __________ (like: 1, 3, 5)
🖨️ Print the mail menu to send them →
It's regular mail — it only starts once their letter reaches us, so allow a couple of weeks each way. The slow lane, but it leaves no one out.
Mail it to: BidBudz · 2248 Central Dr, Ste 120 · Bedford, TX 76021
Same on every channel — email, phone, or mail. It all goes straight to the facility and follows mailroom rules, so nothing gets turned away.
Email, phone, or mail — however your person can reach the outside, there's a way to reach us. That's the promise: nobody left unreachable.