"But why
is he taking our car, daddy?" the little boy asked. His mother was digging out the last of the clothing that was frozen
to the floor of the trunk.
"Well son, we didn't make the payments, and when you can't pay
for it, you don't get to keep it," he patiently explained. I took the keys from him. I took the car instead of hooking
it up, and my brother, Jason (who owned the towing business) drove his tow truck, so it would be ready for the next repossession.
The little boy stood in the yard and watched as the repo man drove away in the family car.
I don't
remember exactly, but they probably owed less than a thousand on the car. It was worth even less than what they owed. I had
to stop occasionally to use snow to clean the windshield - the wipers were broken. I wish all our repossessions went this
smoothly.
A Scarier Repo Man Story
Later that month we were in
a small town to take some Pontiac. We cruised behind a couple of the bars in town - generally a good place to look. At the
second bar, we found our car, and checked the VIN (vehicle identification number) to be sure. We didn't have keys for
this one, so we would have to tow it.
Unfortunately, the wheels were turned slightly, and Jason decided
it would likely hit the brick wall if we tried to pull it out. He decided we had to go inside and ask the owner for the keys.
We found the man at the bar, and he pretended not to hear a word we said. He just stared at his drink. Everyone else heard
us, though, and they were all his friends.
A crowd began to form as Jason hooked up to the car. They
made rude comments and watched us, but then, as the car was pulled out, it did hit the wall, and the turn-signal light cover
was broken. The crowd went wild, yelling and threatening us. Unfortunately, we had to stop right there to hook the car up
properly.
I grabbed my baseball bat and ran into the bar to call the police. Afterwards, I ran back
out, waving the bat around. By this time, Jason was on top of the tow truck, with the angry mob circling below him. Someone
had thrown a beer bottle, and we would later discover that in the chaos my brother lost a toolbox full of expensive tools.
The police arrived quickly, and added threw their own insults our way (nobody likes a repo man), but they
kept the mob at bay while we hooked up. At least there was no fist fight, and nobody pulled a gun on us, or fired shots over
our heads. These three things would happen on later jobs.
Jason never was paid enough for the work,
and he gave me just $15 per car retrieved (this was almost 20 years ago). I think in our best night we repossessed four cars.
Moral of the story? There are better ways to make a living than being a repo man.
BANKS Most banks in the United States today do a great
deal of business in auto financing. When loans are past due they usually go to the bank collection department. The people
who work in this department sit at desks and make telephone calls all day long to people who are past due with their car payments.
When problems occur, the account is given to the collection manager who makes a determination on what to do. In a great deal
of these cases, the collection manager determines that the best solution is to repossess the car. Depending on how easy he
thinks this will be, he might either have one of his collection agents repo the car or call in an outside repo agency. Some
banks rely solely on outside agencies to do this kind of work. Other collection departments will attempt to repo a certain
percentage of the easy ones and turn the rest over to a professional repo agency. Even a percentage of these usually end up
in the hands of an outside repo man.
CAR LOAN COMPANIES These loan companies work much like the banks
do. However, they usually charge a higher interest than most banks and deal with a higher percentage of loans gone bad.
USED CAR LOTS Thousands
of used car lots can be found throughout America that do their own financing. They are usually dealing with people who can
not otherwise obtain credit. The way a great deal of these operators make money is to charge the buyer a down payment equal
to the what they paid for the car and finance the rest. Payments are usually made weekly by the buyer. A large percentage
of loans go bad. The used car lot owner makes money by repoing the car, putting it back on his lot and selling it a second
and third time. These used car lots have a great deal of repossessions but usually want a cut rate price.
NEW CAR DEALERSHIPS People
outside of this business would think that a new car dealership would not have that much of a problem with repos. However,
they do have some. It generally occurs when something is found to be wrong with the loan papers and the banks or loan companies
throw the liability back onto the dealership. This is called recourse. Another thing that happens is someone comes in and
puts a down payment on the car. The check is written to the car dealership and the check bounces. Although new car dealerships
do not have as many repos as loan companies, banks and buy-here-pay here car lots, they do have their share.
CAR RENTAL AGENCIES There
are independents and chains. When car rentals don't come back in, these agencies have big problems. They will need to
jump on these cases right away. Most of the time, this will require a full scale location investigation in order to locate
the renter.
PRIVATE CITIZENS Every once in a while, a private citizen will sell off one of their autos and be paid with a bum
check. Their only recourse is to call in a repo man. However, this type of market is usually only targeted by established
repo agencies who have been in business several years and list their services in the telephone book.
There are other specialized markets in this business such as semi-truck rentals, semi-truck loans,
motor boats, house boats, airplanes, and motorcycles. Usually airplanes and semi-truck repos go for about twice the normal
charges.
REPO FEES
Repo fees seem to vary greatly within the United
States and vary greatly from one type of market to another. The standard rate for a repo from a bank or loan company is about
$200.00. The standard fee for a used car agency is about $100.00. The repo agency usually has a break down in the charges
which might look something like this:
REPOSSESSION FEE: $150.00
DRIVER FEE: $45.00
CONDITION
REPORT & PHOTO: $15.00
SKIP TRACE: 4 hours @ 25.00 per hour $100.00
INSURANCE: $15.00
But the basic repo fee is 150 dollars plus another 45 dollars for a driver
fee. When a repo man picks up a car, he usually has to have someone drive him to the location. That is what this fee is for.
He will also be required to produce an inventory and condition report. Some agencies also take a snapshot of the car which
is included in the inventory and condition report. A great deal of repo cases require the repo man to first locate the subject
although this is not always the case. Usually when you locate the subject, you have also located his car. The above total
bill comes to $325.00 and repo specialists report they can do several of these assignments per day.
A great deal of the problems in auto repossession
occur in the location of the debtor. There is a prospective technique employed by auto repossessors that is often referred
to as backwards tracing. What the repo man does is look for vehicles with out of state or out of county tags on them. When
he spots one he jots down the location of the car and the tag number. With the tag number he obtains a vehicle registration
from state motor vehicle and does a title trace. What this tells him is, if the vehicle has a lien on it. If it does, it will
give the name of the lending company. The lending company is then contacted to see if the vehicle is missing and needs to
be repossessed. Many repo men report that they can obtain assignment to a repossession on three out of every twenty leads
they perform a title trace on.
