“Always hire a professional.” It’s one of the easiest pieces of advice to ever give, and one of the absolute hardest to take. We all want our work to be done on the cheap… or free.
I learned a long time ago that ‘cheap’ is almost always the most expensive way to go. The guy who lowballs you for a repo job? He may have faulty equipment or be in a drug laden state. Yeah, you may get that car back for $50 less. But it may likely be ransacked for personal property that will be sold to a nearby pawn to make up the difference. Your ‘former’ customer may decide to pay you a visit given that he left most of his life’s possessions in the vehicle. They have no proof. But you will still have a headache to clean up. Both in terms of an angry former customer and the reconditioning of your once pristine ride. So what do you do?
Always hire a professional… and make their job easy. I have GPS’s for the overwhelming majority of my vehicles. For $150 I can find every single vehicle’s location within 100 feet. For $250 I can have a disabler installed that does wonders. All the repo company has to do is drive up with a self-loading wrecker, aim the ‘stinger’ to lift the wheels, and take off. Sometimes they need to adjust their new payload due to a weird angle or the vehicle may have it’s driving wheels on the ground. The smart ones will lock and secure the steering wheel along with the lifted wheels… once they are a mile or two away from the pickup location.
The most important piece of equipment for all of these folks is experience. I use two guys for the small number of repos I have during the year. The ‘preacher’ and the ‘undertaker’’. Both of them are lifelong North Georgians with a depth of experience and relationships that make their jobs far less stressful than it would be for most folks.
The preacher is in fact an ordained minister. About 5’10” 230 pounds, the archetype Southern good old boy. Phillip has enough Biblical pearls of wisdom and dirty stories to make any car guy laugh for hours on end.
He is also is an absolute maestro at ‘getting the key’. A vital step in perfecting the security of a repo. His usual shtick is to tell the customer…
“I would hate to put some thick black skidmarks on this nice driveway. If you give me the keys I will let you get all your stuff out of the vehicle and lift the car properly.”
Often times there will be valuables in the vehicle. The person realizes that this big nice burly man is in control of that property. As a matter of tit-for-tat, they will usually play ball. Phillip gets most of my older customers who are delinquent. These folks I want to keep on friendly terms, and usually I have already gone out of my way with helping them in the past. I still get referrals from many of these people after the repo and in many cases, we work out a deal that enables them to eventually become long-term owners instead of long-term debtors.
I really don’t believe in being an SOB unless I absolutely have to. For that I have The ‘Undertaker’. A very tall, very well-connected repo agent… who is also deeply religious. This is the Bible Belt and you will rarely see any veteran in a risky profession who doesn’t turn to faith for inspiration. His name is Jeff and he handles one of the largest used car dealer networks in the city.
Approval Auto Sales averages 30 to 50 repos a week and the owner of the operation, Mike Cortez, is a very good personal friend. We’re both Yankees from the New York tri-state area whose minds are clouded by the fog of perfecting our daily work. I don’t have Approval’s volume because I’m too buys ‘drilling holes’ as a serial entrepreneur. He found one good oil strike and has been digging in the same spot for over a decade. I don’t have Mike’s tools or depth of business knowledge… but thankfully I can use one of his best resources.
Jeff, his repo agent, must knows cops. I can’t state this unequivocally. But I’m inclined to think that Jeff has a cop call whenever he has to deal with any uneasy situation. A bad criminal history along with the vehicle hidden in the garage? Cop calls. Jeff knocks. The garage door magically opens with the keys in the ash tray.
A skip who has a parent or friend co-sign? The cop may inform them that my company has filed a report for ‘theft by conversion’. A felony in the state of Georgia with a maximum sentence of ten years and their name is on the contract. The cop may explain to them that he is trying to end this as peacefully as possible for everyone and would they be so kind as to arrange for immediate pickup of the vehicle with Jeff? In certain states like Louisiana a Sheriff or Deputy actually does the repo. Georgia isn’t one of them. But the realm of ‘probable cause’ likely has a broader interpretation in Georgia than most other states. Your really bad customers don’t want to deal with cops.
Once Jeff gets a car I cut off all communication to the customer. Don’t talk to them. Don’t return any calls on that evening. Don’t even think about it. The deal is dead. Mail out the ‘Ten Day Letter’ along with the state form for listing personal property within the vehicle on the next day. When they ask for information beyond what the law requires, have an employee refer them to your lawyer who will be happy to help them out. The word ‘lawyer’ effectively ends the relationship.
I have never lost a car in seven years. Not once. This year my repo rate has been less than 10% in an industry where 33% is the norm. But this time there will be a nasty monkey wrench thrown into the system. The SUV that was rented out by the old man should have never left my lot. I had told Stan to never rent a vehicle that was behind the fence. Repairs, reconditioning, and GPS installations are all organized behind the back fence.
Stan fished out the SUV the week before I fired his ass, and likely pocketed a C-note from the Gypsy for reasons I will explain later. No GPS. No returned car. Just a long road to the junior Gypsy’s house along with a quick phone call to Jeff.
It was time to act quick. Lifelong criminals don’t tend to hang out for long.
Geez, reading this stuff makes me grateful for my career in IT.
Next time I’m in the lanes at Manheim, I’ll have a little more respect for the guys in this business.
-ted
Here we go again! Man, Steve, this is good stuff, unfortunately.
It’s a credit to you that you genuinely attempt to work things out before resorting to extreme measures, but, of course, you and most everyone else of us must deal with all sorts of people in all sorts of circumstances. I imagine that the depressed (yeah – I’m calling it what it is) economy makes it all the tougher.
Still, for us readers and contributors (lack of a better term) of TTAC, it’s loads of fascination to read this material just the same.
A southern preacher should’nt have any dirty stories.
He tells them in a strictly PG manner. A great storyteller seldom uses foul language… unless the audience expects it in the narrative.
A loan industry with a 33% default rate sounds like a pain in the butt. I’ll take that these used car dealers aren ‘t doing much of a credit check.
“Buy Here/Pay Here. Bad Credit- No Problem. Weekly payments available”
Those dealers target to deal with sub-prime, bad-credit, or shaky citizenship paperwork folks with cars that are equivalent to the potential owners. It may not be fair but that is life on the lower edge of financial literacy.
A used car repo rate is 30%? How does that compare to new cars?
Also would a prior repossession be listed anywhere in a car title’s history? I can’t imagine whats been done to or inside of a car that has been repossessed and I would wager most customers would shy away from a particular vehicle if they new it had been.
The 30% rate is for “buy here, pay here” used car dealers who carry the loan themselves. Generally these deals are way, way, way below “sub-prime” borrowers.
Ages ago when my dad was in the business these deals usually were structured so that the down payment cover the dealers’ actual cost of the vehicle and all the monthly, or even weekly, payments were upside. I don’t know if it still works that way or not.
“I can’t imagine whats been done to or inside of a car that has been repossessed”
Mechanically- probably nothing has been done- no maintenance at all.
Inside- probably ok, maybe a different stereo, unless they had kids or a drug habit.
And this is what “vehicle reconditioning” services are for…
You could repo it yourself. I enlisted two unwitting friends to join me in the simple reacquisition of an ’06 Mariner. We had an extra key, so it would be simple, right?
Long story short, we ended up sawing through the weld of a Club for twenty straight minutes at 4AM with the Merc perched precariously over a sewer grate in quite possibly the WORST ‘hood in South St. Pete with the former owner’s wife creatively and loudly intersplicing bible versus with profanity, i.e. “Jesus gon’ come back as fortold and lay a whoopin’ on yo’ craka’ a$$!”
It makes for memories, no doubt.
I thought you could spray freon on those things and give them a good whack from a hammer… at least that’d what I read on the internet…
If you ever have to haul azz, just saw thru the wheel rim – it’s not hardened – it’s either mild steel, or more likely a light metal die casting. The club will fall away as soon as the hooked part finds the opening.
The ca. 6 o’clock location or near to it is a good place tp saw because it makes the steering easier. You can duct tape the joint back together until you can replace the wheel. If there is a spoke at 6 o’clock, then make sure you leave more than a little stub adjacent to the spoke to attach the tape to.
Don’t ask me how I know!
Or use a tungsten-carbide blade. Steel blades aren’t very useful for cutting hardened steel.
Big battery powered reciprocating Sawzall type saw. Tungsten carbide blade. The club will give way quickly. I shouldn’t know that :).
Old and Slow… some do and some don’t. Credit scores are correlated to price. The less costly the vehicle, the less likely your credit history will be pulled.
cmdjing… new car default rates are far lower than they once were. I don’t have the stats with me at the moment. But when I was at Capital One Auto Finance the ‘superprime’ (a.k.a. prime) customers defaulted only about 3% to 5% of the time. The subprime defaulted twice as often and sometimes even more depending on how low the company was willing to go with approving sub-prime customers.
Flybrian… here’s an oldie for you…
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/05/hammer-time-repo-2-2009/
“I have GPS’s for the overwhelming majority of my vehicles. For $150 I can find every single vehicle’s location within 100 feet. For $250 I can have a disabler installed that does wonders.”
Uh, with all due respect this seems a bit creepy and ridiculous. Is there any way for your customers to get this junk out of their cars after they’re paid off?
cool insight, but wouldn’t it be easier for the repo men to have crane equipped flat beds than toe trucks?
seen police clean up a street with those in Turkey, the would hook the car by the rims, and lift the car up entirely onto the deck. no damage, not even a scratch, and then the owner/driver can pick it up from impound, or in your case take out the valuables on the lot…
That story brings back some memories. My little brother and I used to repo commercial vehicles — semi’s, dump trucks, limousines, all sorts of interesting stuff. The limos were the best. We were in our early 20s, we’d repo them on a Friday, and hang on to it all weekend…
If you want to talk about scary repos, try being a 23 year old kid facing a big angry dump-truck driver at a jobsite…
The buy here pay here business is such a nightmare. I’m so glad i’m on the other end of the spectrum.
The same philosphy applies to moving a car. If you care about it, find an individual transporter with a solid reputation. If you use an online broker bidding process you get screwed by the broker who will likely low-ball the move and then good luck not ending up with a low-life hauler that uses an overloaded F250 pulling an 8-car trailer. That low life will want what the broker promised him, which may be much more than what they promised you. Long-story short? Avoid the brokers and deal directly with the transporters.
contrarian, I ship over 100 cars a year and use a broker service for everyone of them. I never have any problems. The only time I have had an issue was many years ago with a car going to Dramen port in Norway, I used a large individual company and they knocked the front bumper off the car.
BTW in my experience(which i’m sure pales next to yours) the nigerian or bosnian in the f350 are the best most careful transporters you can find.
Funny thing about that car, it was a 2005 Carrera S launch car that we sold new and took back in on trade. All the launch cars were black loaded cars with ceramic brakes. like all launch cars this one had the leather PCM surround. Well on the drivers side it was leather, and the passanger side of the console was regular plastic. You don’t see many porsches leave the factory with those kind of mistakes. BTW that car got clipped in port once it got to europe. the wheels and 4 brand new snow tires i installed for the customer were stolen. That is obviously no ones fault but the theives though.
Speaking of subprime, buy here pay here and bosnians……
I think we can all agree that subprime and especially buy here pay here exists to take advantage of minorities. We are lucky here to have a large population of 35,000+ bosnians. They buy like subprime folks, absolutely LOVE german cars, and all have good credit and lots of cash! $$$$$$$
I will have to respectfully disagree with you.
Subprime lending is mostly handled by large financial institutions. Those firms target an exceptionally massive audience.. and not just consumers for that matter.
Most BHPH lots are community based. If you go to the medium sized towns in this country, you are guaranteed to see at least two or three BHPH lots and I believe that blue collar folks make up the bulk of their business.
In the metro areas the most dominant outfits are still the captive finance dealers (Drivetime, J.D. Byrider, Just Right Auto Sales), and I would argue that many of the new car dealer networks already do their own versions of BHPH under their own roof. Ed’s ad for the Scion Xb is a good example of that.
There are BHPH dealerships that will target Latinos, blacks, and a variety of immigrant groups. But usually they are not the biggest players in this business… and many new car dealerships apply the same strategies given their location.