Beware the Auto Repo Man

[The Cosmic Avenger]

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Originally Posted by marko OTOH, we were turned down for a JetBlue (Barklays) Visa card. Twice! Seems that we truthfully entered our actual income and checked 'retired' as occupation. They sent us a nice personal letter asking us for more information as "your stated income appears too high for a retired person". We didn't respond and waited six months and applied again, this time using a lower, more credible income. They came back saying that we had been rejected before and now our income didn't match the first so essentially, 'don't call us, we'll call you'. We got a Delta card with no problem.

Ugh, I've run into issues similar to that, too. Who the hell are these underwriters? They should be required to pass statistics and quantitative analysis classes, so they understand what they actually need to evaluate and how to best evaluate it, before they're allowed to make decisions that affect others. I see such horrible basic survey design in so many areas...and I'm not talking about intentionally leading questions or push polls, those are actually well-designed to do what the creators intend, even if it is somewhat sleazy.

[Walt34]

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Originally Posted by Bamaman And the job of the repo man has changed. With drug dealers and so many hard core criminals in the world, going out to pickup cars is now very dangerous. The repossession agents deserve to make big money for the risk they take.

I talked with a guy once who was a repo man for private airplanes, some in other countries. In one memorable event, he and a partner started a fire at one end of the field as a distraction, then fired up the airplane to get it out of there. When they landed they were counting bullet holes in the airplane.

No thanks.

[Lakewood90712]

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Originally Posted by Walt34 I talked with a guy once who was a repo man for private airplanes, some in other countries. In one memorable event, he and a partner started a fire at one end of the field as a distraction, then fired up the airplane to get it out of there. When they landed they were counting bullet holes in the airplane. No thanks.

Come on, where is your seance of adventure ?

[audreyh1]

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Originally Posted by The Cosmic Avenger Ugh, I've run into issues similar to that, too. Who the hell are these underwriters? They should be required to pass statistics and quantitative analysis classes, so they understand what they actually need to evaluate and how to best evaluate it, before they're allowed to make decisions that affect others. I see such horrible basic survey design in so many areas...and I'm not talking about intentionally leading questions or push polls, those are actually well-designed to do what the creators intend, even if it is somewhat sleazy.

I think it's mostly a CYA type job - don't rock the boat. As long as they get enough business overall, they don't care about the exceptions and outliers.

[street]

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Originally Posted by jazz4cash Ok but he’s NOT stealing the cars since the borrower has not met the conditions of the loan. It sounds like these are borrowers that only qualify for a loan if the the lender keeps a key ( and probably installs GPS).

True >>> just bad wording by me. No these are cars/trucks that are purchased and are delinquent on payment from banks and dealers that are on loans. The auto company's have a key that fits every outfit it has a chip and if it goes in the slot it will start that outfit. I can't give any more information on the key but yes they have a way to do it. GPS I don't know about that but yes it COULD be turned on to find these cars I have no idea about that. Most are found from an address where these people live that they have etc..

[jazz4cash]

I’ve seen a few stories of people thinking their car is being stolen but more often than not they know it’s more likely to be a legitimate repo. Some believe the repo man is evil and not just doin his job. Ever see ‘Parking Wars’ reality show?

[treeofpain]

It would be interesting to see the data breakdown. The article seems to imply that the high risk/high interest rate buyers are driving this increase in default rate. If that is the case, then the risk is priced into the deal on the front end.

[Bamaman]

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Originally Posted by kgtest I feel like it would take a special breed to be a repo man, or a bondsman. They would literally need to value pride over safety. Being proud to recover stolen goods over fear of due harm. If someone is reckless enough to let the car payment go 4x without paying, I do NOT want to be the guy to go retrieve it. I would be nervous at every corner.

One big problem is that the Federal laws protect the consumers--even if they're hiding vehicles from the repo man. It's so difficult now to talk to people with them ducking phone calls, etc. If there's no dialogue, someone's got to make the hard decision to put the customer on "ankle express."

But when they start moving and not leaving addresses and ducking the finance companies and hiding the cars, hard core intelligence must often be obtained to take possession of the collateral and avoiding courts. With the internet, it's very, very hard for anyone to escape being found, however.