Are they different and what do they do?
Bail bondsmen are hired by defendants, their friends or families to help get a person out of jail while they await trial. A Bounty Hunter; also called a recovery agent, is someone that is hired by a bail bond company to track down a defendant who did not return to court.
If a defendant decides to skip bail, called “failure to appear” and the bondsman is unable to produce them within a set period of time, they are on the hook for paying the full cost of the bond to the court.