The American Spectator : Hanging Out With the Repo Man

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Hanging Out With the Repo Man

By Andrew B. Wilson from the July 2009 - August 2009 issue

He's smart, he's funny, and he "steals" cars legally. (He's also the best friend you never knew you had.) Our July-August issue's cover story.

(Page 4 of 6)

And four: be warned that nothing that TFA members say about being careful to do everything legally and avoid any breach of the peace applies if the repo man who comes to your home is some roughlooking character with a sign on his truck that says something like (to cite a few names favored by some of the macho outfits)—Da Dawg Recovery, Guido’s Repo, Nightstalker, Predator, or Mad Dog Repo.

In a case that made national news just over a year ago, an ex-Marine and part-time preacher killed a man when attempting to repossess a car outside a mobile home at the end of a winding dirt road in Halsell, Alabama. Hearing noise just outside his bedroom window at 2:30 a.m., the lone occupant—a retired railroad worker—picked up a gun and went out to confront the intruder. Shots were exchanged and the retiree was killed. Though claiming selfdefense—saying he had only fired when fired upon—the repo agent was charged with murder. Since then, in another botched operation, two other repo men from the same company (not a TFA member) were shot, one fatally.

Across the country, there are thousands (no one knows the exact number) of wrecking and towing companies that do a sideline business in car repossession. In all but a few states, the repo business is unregulated—with no minimal training requirements, no restrictions against hiring ex-cons, and no rules forcing companies to carry accident and liability insurance to make restitution to those who might be damaged by their actions. Ron Brown, TFA’s chairman, estimates that that there may be 50 outfits of the “Two Men and a Tow Truck” variety for every one of the professionally oriented companies represented in TFA and two other professional associations, which are more overlapping than competitive, with some firms belonging to all three organizations. TFA makes training, bonding, and insurance a condition of licensing.

Though a small minority in numbers, the professionally oriented companies handle a disproportionate share of the car repo business, perhaps more than 50 percent. They work for banks, the automakers’ credit bureaus, and other lenders under contracts that give them a whole or partial franchise for doing the lender’s repossession work within a certain geographic area. The contracts stipulate a set fee per vehicle, which varies widely—anywhere from $200 to $1,000 being the normal range.

In addition, standard contracts often stipulate other fees for “skip-chasing,” which means doing the detective work needed to find someone who has disappeared with a collateralized asset (in repo lingo, a “skip” is someone who has skipped town). The farther behind in his payments a borrower becomes, the more likely he is to have moved and the harder he is to find. Up until a few years ago, most lenders commonly pulled the plug on borrowers who were 30 or 60 days late. Now they are allowing 90 and 120 days before initiating foreclosure proceedings. “Ninety days is an eternity in this business,” Altes complains. “It makes it extremely difficult to find people.”

One of two main selling points that TFA members have in dealing with lenders—and seeking payment at the upper end of the fee range—is the breadth and cooperative nature of the organization, with a list of members in every state. If, for instance, Ron Brown, in Oklahoma City, skip-traces an owner and car to Houston, he arranges for Millard Land, his good friend and fellow TFA member in Houston, to repossess the car and send it back to Oklahoma City.

The second selling point is the group’s dedication to professionalism, which means that its members are far less likely than their untrained and shady counterparts to reflect badly on a lending institution, and expose it to the possibility of major lawsuits. Any plaintiff is likely to regard a big bank (even one that has needed billions of dollars in TARP funds) as a far richer target than the little repo man it has hired to do its dirty work. There have been a number of cases of hefty settlements against banks that failed to do proper due diligence in contracting with unlicensed and untrained recovery agencies. In Brown’s way of phrasing it: “Bank of America is very concerned about who is representing it in the driveway. If he is called to the witness stand in a lawsuit, they don’t want him to be some toothless biker dude.”

Nevertheless, it has become increasingly difficult for the professional repo agencies to maintain high standards and premium prices as the lenders themselves have fallen into perilous financial straits. Over the past year, their collections departments have gotten tougher with established repo agencies—slashing fees, placing more work on a contingency basis (no car, no payment, regardless of the expense incurred in the search process), and more and more willing to farm the repossession work out to lowerpriced but less qualified companies.

Thus, even if revenues have been going up, margins have been coming down, and many TFA members complain that they are losing market share to the fly-by-night companies with almost no overhead. Altes predicts a surge in “violent, uneducated repossessions.” Skip-Chasing Casper, the

Skip-Chasing Casper, the Disappearing Con Man

One of those who has become disenchanted with car repo work (which accounts for upwards of 80 percent of revenues for most TFA members) is Ray Crocker, 62, the president of American Locators Recovery, in Nashville, and a TFA board member. At 6'3" and a heavily muscled 275 pounds, Crocker looks like a retired NFL lineman. On the theory (which I heard in some old cowboy movie) that you should always try to take out the biggest guy first when venturing into a bar that might be filled with unfriendly people, he was the first person I approached upon crashing the party.

Years ago, he worked for Ford Motor Credit Corporation as a lead supervisor in their collections department. Today he refuses to do business with the company because of their insistence that repo agents work on a strict contingency basis. That has reduced the incentive for undertaking difficult cases at the same time that increased competition from unlicensed operatives has killed profit margins in the more routine work. Accordingly, he has increasingly shifted his focus to more remunerative work in repoing office and construction equipment. Like Ron Brown and others at the top end of the repo business, Crocker is a licensed private investigator who prides himself on his investigative skills, which he regards as different, and superior, to those found in ordinary law enforcement.

To illustrate the difference, he told me the story of skip-chasing “Casper,” the chosen name of an amorous con man and biker who preyed on single working women. Casper would move in with a lady, dazzle her with his charms for several weeks, then gather up her jewelry, appliances, and other valuables, take them to a pawn shop, and disappear. He moved from city to city in this way. Several of his victims testified to his prowess on the popular Montel Williams television show.

Crocker had a contract to repossess Casper’s motorcycle. Knowing his interest in the con man, a Nashville detective invited him to join him in interviewing one of Casper’s victims. Crocker went but was furious at the way the detective ran the interview. When they got back to the police station, he told him, “I hope you never have to go out on another interview. You don’t know how to ask the right questions.” This outburst prompted an angry phone call from the district attorney in Nashville ordering Crocker to “stay the f--- out of the case. We don’t want you muddy ing up our investigation.” To which Crocker replied, “I’ve found people the FBI couldn’t begin to find. You can be sure I’ll find Casper way before you do.”

Crocker’s next move was to phone the victim for a quick follow-up interview. He asked her if she had a cell phone. She did. Did she have her last cell phone bill? Yes. Well then, Crocker told her, he’d like her to take a pen and cross out all the itemized calls on the bill that she knew she had made.

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About the Author

Andrew B. Wilson is a freelance writer living in St. Louis.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (32) | Leave a comment

Becky| 8.11.09 @ 9:07AM

I expect within a year, some of these clunker replacements will be on repo lots.

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.11.09 @ 9:20AM

No one...No one... expected this kind of crash.

The first TARP bill, like it or not, was needed. Even Rush and Newt agree.

Bush, as always, trusted his helpers too much, and forgot that either a communist...or a broken warrior... was following him into the oval office.

Since the election, those communist America haters have been licking their chops, and feeding the pigs.
Nevertheless, we America lovers will win this war.

BET ON IT, T.E.A.M. !!!

PolishKnight| 8.11.09 @ 10:04AM

What a wonderful article!

Sean| 8.11.09 @ 10:44AM

Ken,

There were people that predicted this crash. They are also the ones that opposed TARP. The ones that couldn't predict the crash supported TARP. The ones that couldn't predict the crash also supported the stimulus bill. Those that predicted the crash opposed the stimulus bill. Unfortunately too many people are still listening to those that are clueless.

Dan| 8.11.09 @ 1:13PM

Becky, I suspect your right on the money.
Thats just what everyone needs more consumer debt.
Probably good times ahead for the repo-man.

Robert Pinkerton| 8.11.09 @ 1:25PM

Only by semantic laxity does one "borrow" money from strangers; rather, one rents a stranger's money, the rental charge being "interest." Unlike 99+% of my fellow Americans, I have always -- consistently -- thought that the renting of a stranger's money for personal consumption to be the height of folly. (Gambling with rented money leaves "stupid" far, far behind in the direction of suicidal perversity.) As such, I not only never ever obligated myself to pay even so little as a penny of "interest," but have silently cheered every time I have heard of someone garnisheed (i.e.: Wages attached, stopped and diverted to the creditor) or repo'd. I hoped against hope (Yes, I consider hope a vice. Make of that what you will.) that the humiliation might induce the victim to change his/her ways. Whether one actually borrows -- i.e.: Without charge, from family or friends -- or rents from a stranger, alongside of any material object that might be in pledge as security, one's honor is in pledge for security; mine is just too precious to me to risk in betting on the future. Too, simply I cannot justify spending the extra that is interest, when by waiting 'til I have saved enough, I can obtain what I want for simply its tagged price.

Fifty years ago, when I was fifteen, I heard a favorite aunt complaining about the paperwork she had to do every time one of the laborers in the scrapyard (where she worked as office "manager" -- two other office girls) got garnisheed -- which was frequently. I could not understand how any adult could bear such humiliation without suicide. Needless to say, I learnt more as my field of social observation broadened and deepened.

In my last two years of college, my side job -- part-time -- was as a bill collector for a finance company. (I had one of the debtors, a hard-core deadbeat, tell me he would rather deal with a demon out of hell than with me. I never raised my voice, nor used profanity, nor got really or feigned angry; nothing personal, just business.) Forget your anti-Sicilian ethnic slurs about the Cosa Nostra collector and his baseball bat: The law of the State of Ohio gave the creative creditor everything he might need at take a delinquent debtor apart. And, yes. I had asked my boss to give me only people from whom the company did not want repeat business. I finished my BA with NO overhanging indebtedness in 1970, and quit the collection business.

However, while I applied for work after college, I was told by several prospective employers that, while I otherwise looked very good to them, the deal-breaker in my personal history was the fact that I had no indebtedness whatsoever! Make of that what you will; however, intervening decades of observation have led me to put a thoroughly malign construal thereon. The person without indebtedness but with savings, if he gets fired, is well able to pick himself up, dust himself off, and straightaway commence searching for other work, not needing to take simply any port in a storm; perhaps his pride is slightly hurt, but that is all. Likewise, the person with no debts but also no savings, though loss of employment might cause him more pain and diminish his choices of subsequent employment through need for immediacy. However, the poor soul who is base over apex in debt with no savings, is the one who will be seriously hurt by loss of employment regardless of the reason for this; this is the one who is meat for the employer bent on doing unlawful -- or lawful but unconscionable -- things, for this poor soul wears a collar with leash attached, which leash can be jerked. I have seen this last situation happen to others.

I acknowledge without shame nor guilt that I hate the very institution of consumer credit, and that I love that hatred as a stimulus to virtue. I believe myself vindicated in that attitude by the current crisis. Such economic growth as the United States should pursue is closer to hardwood tree-ring growth than the fashion of bubble "growth," for it is in the nature of bubbles that they burst. Consumer credit is the noxious gas (Flatus of the body politic?) with which our recent bubbles bave been filled.

Assuming the United States survives this current crisis, if the crisis teaches a large minority of our population unconditionally to loathe and shun consumer credit at all costs, perhaps some value might be extracted from the aftermath. Unfortunately, however, at least I believe that we Americans are seing the beginning of the end for this country as a unified political entity.

Dan| 8.11.09 @ 1:48PM

Robert, your so right. The public has been brainwashed to expect easy credit.
Even the theme song for one of the credit card companies sings loud and clear, "I want it and I want it now".

PolishKnight| 8.11.09 @ 2:14PM

Dan, my wife and I loved that commercial (with the song "I want it now")

It was actually a credit card advertising a feature for consumers to check their credit limit and stay in it, rather than buy something they couldn't afford and/or go over it.

In the commercial, the man gets all excited over buying a 60 inch flat panel TV and when he checks his limit, he returns home with a more modest 32 inch. His wife says helpfully to him: "This is nice." I thought it was wonderful that the ad was showing respect for a man living within his credit limit (which isn't perfect, but a start anyway.)

Dan| 8.11.09 @ 2:22PM

Remember it well.

GG| 8.12.09 @ 2:51AM

The England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed the 29-year-old is back in hospital for further treatment but is due to be released on Wednesday.
Pietersen was operated on after his movement became increasingly restricted through the first two Ashes Tests.
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The surgery already meant he would miss the final three matches of the series.
"Pietersen will be discharged from hospital tomorrow after experiencing a complication of the wound made during surgery on his injured right Achilles two and a half weeks ago," the ECB said in a statement on Tuesday.
"He was seen by a wound care specialist and will receive a course of antibiotics in order to exclude infection.
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"Medical advice is that a complication can occur post surgery and in this case resulted despite Kevin closely following specialist advice on management of the wound."
The injury first surfaced on England's tour of West Indies in March.
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However, Pietersen's recovery was slowed when he strained the tendon again while playing for the Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Indian Premier League in April.
The Hampshire right-hander then missed the one-day series when West Indies made a return visit in May.
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Despite clearly struggling at the crease, he averaged 38.25 from four innings at Cardiff and Lord's in the current Ashes series.
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The ECB originally estimated Pietersen would be absent for six weeks and he has been named in England's initial 30-man squad for the ICC Champions Trophy, which begins in South Africa on 22 September.

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Elyse| 9.16.09 @ 10:25AM

Repo Men and The "Big Truck Syndrome":
Run a background check on these "Repo Men" and what you will find are “the usual con men, travelers, and deadbeats” that you have unfairly applied as a label directed at those whom these creeps target for repossession.

It is interesting that you have chosen to interview company owners or the rare exception of a former CIA agent for this article. Could this possibly be due to the fact that the vast majority of Repo men are incapable of intelligent conversation, have lengthy criminal records and constantly violate the laws created to protect consumers within their States?

I am in favor of paying one's bills, but to send people with histories of violent crimes (sex offenders included) onto the private property of families with children, allowing access to their keys (which they could copy and pass along to their criminal buddies), for any reason is nothing short of dangerous and irresponsible.

Besides this, after meeting many, I must now digress:

Come on! You must have figured out at your little "Repo Party" that Repo Men are poorly educated criminals who make up for what is lacking below by trying to intimidate people. They brag and boast yet most make less than $30,000 a year and sneak around at night trying to intimidate people-Mostly Women and their children. Not the job of a tough guy, but the perfect job for a guy who is too ill equipped and embarrassed to ever get laid. Their job actually sucks, but NOBODY else would ever hire them!!!

How do I know all of this? I am a headhunter who has searched in vain for reputable Repo companies who don't hire ex-cons or people who lack judgement and common sense for several of my National accounts. After weeding through hundreds of failed background checks and interviewing people who made my skin crawl, I had to move on to a more pleasant clientele. There is nothing admirable about Repo Men.

Ray Crocker| 8.26.10 @ 10:42AM

I have been in the recovery business for 25 years. Like the true professional in our industry I have a private investigators license. In order to have that license I have to have a clean criminal record just as all of my employees do. I agree there are many undesirable people in the business. The problem is licensing and only two state require training and licensing of recovery agents.

The true professional recovery agent is aware of all laws that impact their business. They will see that all of their employees take an independent training course to make sure they understand the laws. The problem is the finance companies and banks look for the cheap repossession and hire the cheapest company available. These financial institutions who farm out 8 to 10,000 repossession a month latterly look for the cheap repoman. If they can save $50 or $75 dollars a recovery that save their company as much as $750,000.00 a month.

When a repossession goes bad the financial institution is $100% responsible for the actions of the recovery agent. Some of these financial demand a $5 million dollar insurance policy that will defend the recovery agent and the financial institution in lawsuits for wrongful repossession. Those insurance policy premiums are based on the number of repossession the company will average a year. The premiums can exceed over 100K per year.

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