Repo Man Might Face Extinction in the Future: Repossession Agents Under Fire!
The National Consumer Law Center released “Repo Madness: How Automobile Repossessions Endanger Owners, Agents and the Public.” It is a publication promoting legislation restricting repo work to sworn law enforcement officers.
It is posted on-line at:
http://www.nclc.org/issues/auto/content/Repo_madness_Report_0310.pdf
Here is the included press release via PR NEWSWIRE
Repo Madness Threatens Consumers
BOSTON, March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Dozens of consumers, repossession agents and bystanders have been killed, injured or traumatized in self-help repossessions done under state laws that allow automobile dealers and lenders to take cars without court action or the involvement of law enforcement.
That is the key finding of a report issued today by the National Consumer Law Center, which compiles and analyzes existing state laws and regulations on automobile repossessions, and catalogues recent repossessions that resulted in violence, fatalities, injuries, arrests or trauma. In four of the incidents, repo agents took cars with children under the age of eight inside.
“Not a single state guarantees automobile owners a day in court before a repossession,” said John Van Alst, a lawyer for NCLC and principal author of the report. “Only a handful of states have even minimal consumer protections such as requiring that repo agents have licenses, bonds or insurance.”
Millions of working and poor families depend upon automobiles for survival and daily life. When they need cars and lack access to conventional financing, they turn to “buy here, pay here” dealers.” Those dealers too often rely on the threat of sudden and potentially violent repossessions to bully consumers into making payments.
That threat is real. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, knives, fists and automobiles are frequently wielded as weapons in confrontations arising out of self-help repossessions. Since Jan. 1, 2007, those confrontations have resulted in at least six deaths, dozens of injuries and arrests and uncounted traumas.
“What we have now is vigilante repossession run amok,” said Rosemary Shahan, President of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates for consumer safety and against auto fraud and abuse. . “States need to adopt laws to rein in the violence, kidnapping, and lawlessness.”
The report calls for each state to enact laws that would require secured lenders to obtain court orders or at least provide consumers minimal due process prior to seizing automobiles. In addition, states should require that such repossessions, when authorized by courts, be done by sheriffs, police or other law enforcement officials.
The report also suggests measures that could reduce abuses and dangers in states that allow some self-help repossessions, including requirements that agents be better regulated, enhanced notice requirements and other steps to limit the arbitrary and harmful seizure of cars from consumers.
“In other areas of the law, such as evictions, self-help is generally no longer allowed in the interest of fairness and safety” said Van Alst. “Until we do the same thing in auto repossession, people will continue to be hurt and killed.”
For more information or to arrange an interview (or to voice your opposition), contact John Van Alst or Rick Jurgens at 617-542-8010
SOURCE: National Consumer Law Center
Category: Legislation, Repossession
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Totally insane, there will always be “bootleg” repossessors for those lenders wanting to save a buck. If all lenders have to go through the courts to recoup property the local sheriff will still have trouble finding them, debtors will cross county lines and thus the private process server will be retained to carry out the task, and there you go.
I myself am both a process server as well as own a legit recovery service, so require p.i. license (which i have) and and a body to govern the repossessors and lets continue on..
Not likely that repossessions will ever be carried out by law enforcement. That is a civil action performed by law enforcement is oppression and not allowed.
Also, self-help repossessions are always going to be on the table for mom and pop car lots that repo their own collateral.
Nice though but terribly unrealistic.
As a skip tracer, police don’t even have a clue where to start on how to locate a jumper. They don’t have what it takes or the manpower. The cops don’t have intuition or the smarts …even with a database supplied to them. I have to pay and govern myself accordingly and follow the laws. The debtor doesn’t always have the asset….3rd and 4th parties do …and people know when a cop is asking questions. Skip tracers and recovery agents that follow the laws are the ones that successfully locate and recover peacefully. This is going to get crazy!!!!
As a professional recovery agent for 20+ years, I find that these people do not have a clue as to what happens in our industry. Even if a state does not require insurance, generally most lenders do. The clients of the company I work for all require anywhere from one to five million dollars in liabilty insurance. These same clients also require the company to carry a dishonesty bond on the employees. They may talk about Fred Fly By Night working for buy here pay here lots but I have not seen any discussion on reputable companies working with reputable lenders ( Banks, credit unions, manufacturers finance divisions andyes, even buy here pay here lots).I have found that a lot of the small lenders do not really know what is involved in repossessing a vehicle or what can and/or cannot be done to recover the vehicle.I feel it is part of the recovery agents job to educate the lender whenever necessary ( and from the amount of information missing in the pamphlet, I would recommend that they find someone familiar with ALL the laws repossessions are subject to.
Maybe the National Consumer Law Center should speak with the people who’s collateral was recovered by one of the many professional’s in the industry. I’m sure they would hear the things I hear on a regular basis. Items such as : wow, you are so nice,this is nothing like what they show on T.V. or I really appreciate the way you handled this.
I do not work in the industry, nor will I attempt to offer solutions to something I know nothing about. But, I would assume that there exist some professional malfeasence among probably a very small number of those doing this kind of work, and it reflects on those who are doing the right thing and geeting the job done professionally. If states and advocacy groups feel it is a necessity, then persons who work the industry, can and should be licensed as “asset recovery agents” in the states they operate. Maybe there also needs to be some sort of national association to deal with and advocate the issues concerning asset recovery agents, offer professional education and maybe certification, if one dose’nt exist already. I just feel that leaving this kind of work to law enforcement, is wasting taxpayers money, and wasting officer manpower. Municipalities would probably be very resistant to the idea in detailing asset recovery to their law enforcement agencies. Additionally, no police officer I know, wants to do any kind of asset recovery. I would imagine this kind of detail, in most cases, is more dangerous than domestic disputes.
The police deal with people breaking the law. If there is replevin then they must see on the side of the leinholder because a judge made a decision. If the field agent breaks law he gets police attention. Keeping and not paying is breaking law.
Teaching someone to operate a tow truck isn’t the same as teaching one to interact with the consumer. If people involved with repossession conduct themselves as they do on television then yes they belong in jail.
OK Ms. Shahan, go ahead and push for legislation. Do you know how many THOUSANDS of vehicles are repossesed each year? Do you have any idea how backed up the court system would be with Replevin/Claim and Delivery actions? Do you have any idea how many extra Sheriff Deputies would be required to perform such an operation? Do you have any idea how much our taxes would go up to fund this adventure? Do you have any idea how much this would increase interest rates on vehicle funding? The average cost to bring a case to court runs in the thousands, the lenders would pass it along to the consumers. The incidents cited, while way out of line, are a very small percentage of the total process. The best way to cure it is require licensing and weed out the Operation Repo people out there.
The state of LA tried for many years to require all repossessions to be done by law enforcement. However, lender fustration led to the enactment of self-help laws there in 2005. Law enforcement has many talents but the ability to find autos when people intentionally try to hide them and avoid paying for them is not one of their skills. They have a hard enough time trying to serve them with notices for court dates and suits.
If the states want to make it harder for people with less than perfect credit to continue buying vehicles the enactment of laws requiring repos to go thru the court system is a sure way to do it. The additional cost in both money and depreciation due to the amount of time required to do a repo thru the court system would have many second chance lenders pull out of the market. Even the more reputable tote the note lots would think twice about continuing to carry notes if forced to go thru the court system every time a customer defaults.
In Illinois, even the mom and pop car lots, also known as buy here pay here dealers, are no longer allowed to repo, unless they have an MC number from the Illinois Commerce Commission.
There goes liberal America again , get a life , the private sector does a great job performing auto repossessions !
So you are suggesting that the over-burden police departments perform this task at tax-payer expense , most of you so called activist are scorn by some hidden agenda in your life ….. Big government isn’t the solution , it’s the Problem . ……Ronald Reagan was quoted . Wake up America it’s this communist theory has gotten this country where it is today because of scorned liberals lime the ones who are in favor of this crap .
I work for a repo company in Virginia and I have not once seen a debtor to be out of line to the point of being a problem. All debtors have always said something along the lines of thank you. And the local police dont want this sort of thing to deal with believe me I know they come by our lot and hang out all the time.
Its funny reading a article posted by someone who has no clue to how things work in the article they are writing about! I own a repossession agency and if I was as miss informed as this person is I would be out of work. Hey maybe before you write something you don’t know about come ride with a lagitamit Repo company and stop watching the tv show. (You have my email were I posted I would be more than glad to show you how its done).
And another thing. EVERYONE has a expiration date and no one knows when its coming.
I don’t know where to begin other then ther will always be a repo man!!! I’ve been doing it for a lil while with my child hood friend that has 10 quick picks (there all new trucks with tv’2 back up cameras stereo systems there pimped) and what I’m trying to say is we get cars…this idiot that thinks ford or gmac should have to go to court who does 100′s of thousands of loans in one month to get there property back is ridiculous, I don’t know where he lives but just not possible for any court system to handle that, I think people need to stop watching tv about fake repo shows for entertainment that are fake!!!!!! Come ride with us none of that bs happens ever,could you imagine how big of a police force your town would have to be able to handle recovering property from people that are defaulting on there loans,it would have to be massive!! Who pays for that? More taxes to who us? They already take 220.00 a week from me so all I can say after that is, if you get a loan for a vehicle u better make sure you can afford it because if not and you live in any of the 4 county’s near me and your with my lender I will get your vehicle,,
Just read Rob’s post and I have to say he’s dead on!!!!