Takin’ a Ride

When car repossessions go wrong, they go wrong in a spectacular
fashion. There’s even a TV show about it. If you don’t watch reality
TV, maybe you caught a similar story on the local news recently.

If a bank or a buy-here-pay-here car lot owns a vehicle’s title,
Ohio law permits them to repossess it after as little as one late
payment. A professional recovery agency will charge around $385 to take
a car back. “Bozos will do it for $150,” explains a former repo man who
asked to remain anonymous. Last month, a Cleveland lot hired an amateur
to get back a ’99 Oldsmobile Alero. And soon a mom was bloody, and her
child was gone.

According to the police report, on September 18 around 9:30 p.m.,
Keep It Moving Auto Sales owner Ronnie Simmons Jr. was scouting East
Cleveland looking for the delinquent Olds. In Hough, he spotted the car
and gave an amateur would-be repo agent duplicate keys to the vehicle.
The hack repossessor jumped in the vehicle and started it, not noticing
a toddler in the back seat. The investigation is still pending, but
according to one account, the repossessor backed out of the driveway,
driving over the shouting mother’s feet. The frantic woman grabbed the
vehicle and held on as long as she could as her feet were shredded
against the pavement. Blocks later, the driver abandoned the car, and
the toddler was returned home safe, as was the vehicle.

The popular truTV show Operation Repo presents even worse
misadventures in repossession. The program, a retitled version of
Telemundo’s Operación Repo, claims to chronicle the
action-packed exploits of a Los Angeles recovery agency. In every
episode, its workers fight their way through tough neighborhoods in
California’s San Fernando Valley, ducking thrown bottles, brawling with
bewildered car owners, and holding pimps and escorts at bay while
attempting to hitch a vehicle and drive off. When debtors cross the
line, the burly repo men aren’t above picking them up and tossing them
into dumpsters.

The nonstop drama quickly becomes unbelievable, and it probably is
— a disclaimer at the beginning says, “The stories that are
portrayed in this program are based on real events.” So are fishermen’s
tales. But, unless you’re a TV producer, there’s no money in letting a
repo go bad.

“[Operation Repo] is so miles away from the reality of what
we do,” says Mark Lacek of North Star Recovery, a 30-year veteran and
former editor of trade magazine Professional Repossessor. “I
always say I’d rather hire an unemployed marriage counselor than a
black belt. If you do get into any level of confrontation, you need to
be able to talk to people.”

The job calls for wits, persistence, patience, respect, even some
charm. Bulging biceps and tattoos are optional.

Larry (no last names, please) repossesses cars from Cleveland to
Canton. A bank may send him as far as Pittsburgh to retrieve a vehicle.
From afternoon through late night, he prowls Northeast Ohio in a gray
Ford XLT tow truck that boasts 246,000 miles and counting, guided by a
stack of work orders on a clipboard filled with paperwork from a
half-dozen accounts. He’s not a fan of Operation Repo.

“That’s the biggest bunch of crap,” says Larry, an Air Force veteran
with a buzz cut. In the military, he learned to drive different
vehicles, remain vigilant and keep a civil tongue. He’s been in the
recovery business for less than a year, and his Air Force experience is
serving him well.

“We don’t want to come off [as] unsympathetic, ruthless
individuals,” says Larry. “You try to give them respect as a human
being, and hopefully you get that back. Sometimes you don’t.”

It’s late afternoon. For his first stop, Larry is looking for a
Chevy Cavalier. He drives to a ranch home in the working-class Canton
suburbs. There’s no Cavalier in the driveway. Still, he parks the
truck, knocks on the door and stands three feet back from it, waiting.
No one responds. In the driveway sits a Chrysler convertible with
temporary license plates. People often trade in delinquent vehicles for
one with a fresh record. This account could take more digging. The
knocks go unreturned. Larry takes some notes and moves on.

Agents like Larry represent one side of repo work. On the other
side, recovery professionals are a combination of detective and bill
collector.

It’s not a nine-to-five job, but over the past decade, the business
has become increasingly corporate. When your client is a giant bank
with enough resources to finance thousands of cars, it expects a
certain amount of professionalism. Throwing customers in dumpsters is
frowned upon.

Amy Bednar, co-owner of Cleveland’s Relentless Recovery, which has
six offices across the state, is proof you don’t need to be a hulk to
get the job done. She stands, in her words, “five-foot-zero.” She and
her business partner, David Ziebro, started off without a truck. At
first, they’d work with just small lots. Owners would give them
duplicate keys, they’d drive around, find vehicles and bring them back.
Bednar drove a tow truck for years and found that people generally
respond well to a petite blonde. Ten years after breaking into the
business, she runs the Cleveland office, using her knack for
investigation.

For a typical domestic-vehicle repossession, the repo man has a good
idea where to start. If payments are overdue and a client stops taking
the bank’s calls, the lender will contact a recovery agency or broker
and issue a repo order. The repo agency combs through the paperwork,
finds an address and references, and starts looking there.

Around half of repossessions are “skips,” accounts where the person
no longer resides at the address on the loan paperwork. In skip traces,
the repo office becomes a detective agency.

Recovery is a 24/7 business. When you’re new and trying to establish
yourself, you might spend 18 hours a day in a tow truck, on the move.
An assignment might involve driving around the hills of West Virginia
for two days, or a trip to Indiana and back. And if you turn down work,
you won’t get the next call. It’s a lot of driving, talk radio,
Mountain Dew and gas-station food.

“You have to be part car thief, part poker player, part driver, part
attorney, part detective, part psychologist — and a businessman
the whole time,” says Ziebro.

For his next account, Larry is looking for an ’01 Ford Taurus. He
drives out into the country, steers off the road and heads down a long,
winding gravel driveway through woods to a farmhouse. A visitor and his
truck could disappear on a big property like this. Larry’s not worried.
He’s been here before, looking for a different car. A garage sits next
to the house, door closed. But in Ohio, garages are one of many legal
gray areas for repo men.

Like most businesses, recovery has regulations, laws and protocols
that professionals have to follow. Or should follow.

Some states, like Florida and California, license repossession
agencies, but Ohio doesn’t. Cleveland has stricter regulations than the
neighboring communities: Tow trucks need to have a permit, and agencies
have to notify the police department when they’re reclaiming a vehicle,
so that when a citizen calls and says her car is gone, cops don’t waste
time taking a stolen car report.

The same federal law that prohibits banks and agencies from
releasing information about clients’ debts prevents repo men from
saying too much; they can ask neighbors where a car or owner is, but
can’t tell them why they’re looking. In Ohio, repo men can’t bring a
police escort: It’s an unfair advantage.

Larry drives to a nicer area of Canton suburbs. He drives past a
house and doesn’t see a car. He gets out, knocks on the door and
notices that the house appears vacant. The mailbox also looks empty,
and he peeks in window. The house is empty. He does a couple “door
knocks” — brief visits to neighbors’ houses — and asks some
carefully phrased questions.

Repo men have an arsenal of tricks and tools, and they won’t talk
about most of them. Most of the recovery trade groups prohibit members
from talking to the media for fear they’ll divulge secrets. But most of
the work stems from the simple fact that everyone leaves some kind of
trail.

A big agency might be plugged into a national electronic network
that monitors license plates or vehicle identification numbers. A small
operator might be limited to his wits. Most insist it’s best to be as
forthright as possible. Others prefer to be a little more slippery.

A former repo man recalls a favorite scheme: If you call loan
references and tell them you’re looking for their shifty brother, you
won’t get far. But if you call and say Mike entered a drawing a couple
months ago and won $100 worth of Domino’s pizza, they’re gladly give
you his address, phone number and work schedule.

As your skill set develops, so do your clients. Once he’s proven
he’s trustworthy with cars and motorcycles, a successful recovery agent
might eventually have the opportunity to take aim at bigger game.

Lacek, the 30-year veteran, spent 15 years as a licensed private
investigator. He cut his teeth repossessing cars in Cleveland and moved
on to “high-dollar collateral.” In September, he repossessed a
tractor-trailer full of fitness-center equipment. Then he spent a
weekend in Baltimore, reclaiming two trucks and six trailers. Before
that, he traveled to Kentucky looking for three giant Terex articulated
dump trucks, which was like parachuting into enemy territory without a
map. He spent a week talking to people, asking questions. Eventually,
he “buddied up” to a couple locals. Finally, he found the trucks,
rented a lowboy trailer and beat a hasty retreat.

“When I’m looking for someone, I find someone who loves them or
someone who hates them,” says Lacek. “Either way, they’ll tell me about
you.”

Repo ethics span the spectrum. Allied Finance Adjusters, one of six
trade groups for recovery professionals, has a 10-point code of conduct
for its members that touts respect, loyalty and fairness. Laws grant
certain rights to the repo agent and to the debtor. Agencies have to
provide debtors a chance to reclaim their personal property from the
car. Or they should. Some smaller operators and part-time repo men who
are inclined toward short-term gain do a brisk trade in selling car
stereos. Curious repo men rummage and find a window into people’s
world, discovering interesting items like a preacher’s stack of unpaid
bills, or scads of peanuts and bacon all over the floor. One former
freelance repo man remembers finding a briefcase full of weed and
recalls others keeping tools from a vehicle.

“You have access to perks,” he says.

Larry’s working his way toward Cleveland. He stops at a trailer park
in Tallmadge, looking for a recent-model Hyundai. He finds the home,
and the car, parked just off a four-lane road. Normally, he’d pull in
front of it, and hook it up to the truck; at that point, it would be
legally his. A veteran driver can hook and extract a parallel-parked
car at a 90-degree angle. But Larry is newer, traffic is heavy and he
doesn’t see a need for dramatic measures. He parks by the car, blocking
it in. Then he gets out and knocks on the door.

A graying man in a T-shirt answers the door. He explains that his
wife lost 50 hours from her job last month, and she’s not on the
schedule for the next two weeks. He hands over the keys without
incident. The car is already cleaned out, like every car he takes
tonight. Larry says 90 percent of his cases are like this one.

“There’s nobody out there that doesn’t know we’re coming for them,”
he says. Once the car is secure, Larry’s shoulders relax as he drives
off. Debtors usually tell him more than he needs to know. Listening to
it is part of the job. If you listen long enough, he says, even a tense
confrontation deflates.

“You have to be respectful in any situation you get in with your
employees, or the customers or clients you’re trying to collect from,”
says Bob Nicewander, president of Canton’s Central Ohio Recovery Inc.,
a recovery business that specializes in skip-tracing and sells
repossessed vehicles at its own auto auction. “Maybe people lost a job.
They might be en route to losing a house, or divorced. Or just lost a
child to leukemia and spent all their money on the kid. You just don’t
know what the situation is.”

Nicewander says he has “an outlined set of parameters” for his
agents’ conduct. He doesn’t permit them to carry guns, and he always
wants them to talk first. Talking, he says, can prevent a repossession
in the first place.

In fact, in this economic climate, banks are having a hard time
selling repossessed cars. For a car that’s five years old and five
months overdue, a bank might lose money by repossessing it. Many
lenders are happy to accept monthly payments that are a fraction of
what’s owed. Like a full bear, a lender won’t come after you unless
agitated.

“The biggest thing [to prevent a repossession] is stay in
communication with the bank,” says Nicewander. “If you call them and
say you lost your job, they’re apt to work with you a tremendous amount
of time before they take your car. When they can’t get in touch with
you, that’s when they get nervous.”

The Federal Reserve’s current report estimates the amount of
installment loans in this country as $1.3 trillion, and 60 percent is
in outstanding auto loans. A bank may average a 2 percent default rate;
in a bad economic climate, it may double. Nicewander’s agency operates
with six trucks, and it will repossess 300 cars in a good month. (In a
bad one, he’ll recover 100.)

Everyone assumes repossessions would be on the rise during a
recession. None of the repo people Scene talked to reported a
sharp spike. Bednar says her business is up 10 percent. Nationwide,
it’s down.

“When in a recession, one thinks the recovery industry would be
busy,” says Art Blanchette, past president of trade group American
Recovery Association. “On the contrary. Banks are more apt to work with
people when they aren’t loaning money. No car loans, no cars to
recover.”

But the Cash for Clunkers program created a whole new wave of loan
payments, many for people who didn’t have one five months ago. The
average car default happens after two years of payments. A tide is
coming.

This part of Southeast Massillon is a residential neighborhood where
the sidewalks are broken and the shrubs overgrown. Larry drives past a
house, loops around and slowly drives behind it, looking for an ’01
Escort. No car. A full porch of neighbors take notice of the white guy
driving a tow truck. “You’ve got eyeballs everywhere,” says Larry, and
moves on.

One agency owner estimates 60 percent of his repossessions come from
low-income areas, 20-30 percent from middle-class areas and the rest
from high-income areas. Under most circumstances, a lender pays the
same for a repossessed Rolls as a Lumina, even though some recoveries
are more involved than others.

Larry’s boss doesn’t allow him to carry a gun. And he’s not tempted
to carry one, anyway.

“I can,” says Larry. “I usually don’t. I don’t have enough equity in
my house to handle a lawsuit.”

Ziebro echoes the same sentiment for his business, even when his
agents are moving into the rougher parts of Cleveland. “A piece of
collateral that has a $10,000 delinquency is not worth incurring a
$500,000 lawsuit. There’s always a more intelligent way to get a
car.”

Later, looking behind a house in a similarly distressed
neighborhood, Larry will take only a flashlight with him. Some repo men
prefer to carry a gun, especially the “Lone Ranger” types. Some say
it’s better to have one and not need it. Especially at 3 in the
morning.

“You’ll get killed,” says the former freelancer. “Some dude catches
you breaking into his shit at night, he don’t know you’re the repo
guy.”

The popularity of Operation Repo may be making such scenarios
more likely — at any hour.

“When we arrive at a house, people are expecting a fight,” says
Bednar, Ziebro’s business partner. “Assaults on our drivers have gone
up.”

“The show has really put our guys and the industry in harm’s way,”
adds Ziebro. “If somebody’s expecting a repo, they’re waiting for a
steroid-pumped person to show up at their door, and they’re ready to
charge them with pepper spray.”

The show is attracting the wrong element to the business as well
— guys who have seen it and think that bouncing people around and
taking their car looks like swell fun. Says the pro-gun former
freelancer, “Any dickhead with a tow truck can’t be a repo guy.”

Later that night in North Canton, Larry makes a second pass of the
first house he visited. Now that the sun is down, the Cavalier is in
the driveway. Larry lowers the wheel lift, backs up and zooms in. He
raises the lift and puts on the strap.

“Now it’s mine,” he says, and heads for the house. Its owner answers
the door and hands over the key.

When bills are mounting, a car loan is usually the easiest item to
let slide. Larry understands. He says it’s a no-brainer if you have to
choose between the car and house.

“I feel bad that people are in the situation they are,” says Larry.
“I used to be in the position [thinking] ‘Just pay your bills!’ But if
you’ve been in that position, you know how it is. This is a shitty job,
because [a vehicle] is putting food on the family’s table. It’s a good
job, it just sucks that I have a job where I’m taking something away
from people.”

dferris@clevescene.com

This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2009.