Finance/Business :: Personal Finances |
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The Anatomy Of A Repossession |
| A gonzo-journalistic look at investigation and repossession from the shotgun seat. |
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Despite government claims of a healthy and growing economy, repossessions and loan defaults continue to rise. While such trends are clearly not good for the bottom lines of banks and sub-prime lenders, they have created a boom in the investigative and recovery fields, industries whose financial success is rarely even mentioned by economists.
We wondered what sort of gumshoe legwork the average “finance adjuster” (an industry euphemism meaning repo man) puts into locating the vehicle he is licensed to steal. To find out, I spent two nights riding along with Marc Fontana, owner of Shadow Towing and Recovery in central Birmingham.
Most--if not all repo men will tell you there is no such thing as an “easy repossession.” Fontana has been putting debtors collateral “on the hook” for over twenty years and still cringes anytime a lender assures him that his task will be as simple as driving to the address and picking up the vehicle. Yet the first stop of the first night seemed to be just that easy. We were looking for a black, 2003 BMW 5 Series being driven but not paid for by a luckless debtor we’ll call Mr. Jones. And there it was behind the strip mall--or so we thought. A quick, obligatory check of the vehicle’s VIN betrayed the reality that the hunting had just begun. In fact we were certain several times that first night that we’d spotted the wanted wheels.
Fontana had a few more addresses to try. After about an hour of driving, bribing and making dozens of calls to the debtors family, friends and references provided by the lender, the wrecker was still unencumbered by the weight of the car we sought.
We moved on to the next account, whereon Fontana simply knocked on the debtor’s door and demanded the keys. It was quick closure, but wholly uneventful. After chasing a couple more accounts our teacher returned to the black Beemer that he later told me had proven illusive for nearly week. Just before dawn, we called it a night. There were apparently a few more leads that couldn’t be investigated until normal business hours--a phrase that varies a great deal for the finance adjuster.
When I met Fontana at a well-know coffee purveyor the next afternoon, he was busily pecking at his laptop computer placing search orders with a skip tracing firm called Cellular-trace.com . In the course of searching for the ghostly BMW, the agent had acquired several unidentified cell phone numbers. As there is no cellular number directory, identifying the name and address associated with such numbers can only be purchased from an investigator specializing in skip tracing. He had recently discovered a new, low priced source for such phone numbers and had had very good luck with the company.
When he checked his email an hour later, the normally stoic repo agent began to giggle aloud confident that the reverse lookup information had helped him best the shadowy debtor and that the mortgaged collateral would soon on the way to his storage facility.
Somewhat confused as to the progression of events, I asked Fontana to explain what he had done, how he had come by the unknown numbers and why he was so certain he had the info he needed.
“Normally, everything you need to find someone is in the file the lender gives you. This guy wrote copy for an ad agency before he got fired. And, already having his mothers number, I simply called her posing as a management-level employee of a fictitious advertising company stating a friend of a friend knew him and we wanted to offer him a job. His mother, knowing he was out of work and low on cash, excitedly relayed the message to him.”
“Ok, then what,” I asked. “He just calls you up and the caller ID catches his cell number?”
“No, its much better than that,” he said with half a grin. “I leave the mother a toll-free number that records all the incoming calls. He enters my “extension” which I’ve noted on the outside of the file. When I’m notified that that code was entered, I know its him calling. Turns out he called twice this morning, from two different numbers.”
These numbers, both cellular, were the numbers Fontana had the skip tracing company perform the reverse lookup on. One appeared to come from his sister’s cell phone, the other from the subject himself.
“I didn’t even know the guy had a cell phone. But now I have a new address, plus I know where the sister lives,” he tells me, becoming more excited with each word.
We check the debtors new address first, as it is several miles closer. It turns out to be a duplex that in all righteous mercy should have been condemned and the place plowed with salt many years prior.. There are a lot of cars at the address--none of them our 5 Series.
The sisters house is a stark contrast to the slum we just left--a normal, middle class suburban home complete with faux shutters, a lighted flag pole and a shiny black BMW in the drive way. This time the VIN was a match. Fontana backed up the driveway as quietly at a diesel engine will allow, engaged the hydraulic lift, and towed the car a few blocks to a better lit and more friendly setting before securing it properly for the ride to his storage yard.
As with so many vocations, persistence pays off in vehicle recovery. Yet the industry has changed a great deal. In the beginning of Fontana’s adjustment experience he would likely not had the need to buy info from an outside vendor. Of course, 20 years ago there were no cell phones to speak of. And that’s partly the point. Today’s super-mobile society is a stark contrast to a quieter, period in which people lived a lifetime in their first home and made their jobs their career. It wasn’t that long ago that people actually honored their financial obligations. In a world less and less inclined to do so, professional car thieves like Mr. Fontana are glad to equalize the situation, even if means buying some occasional info.
Robert Adlan is a freelance journalist covering business topics outside the mundane vapidity of normalcy.
He lives in Montgomery, AL where he is very slowly pursuing a doctorate degree.
Article Source: www.activehowto.com
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Posted 2006-10-17 05:53:05 By Robert Adlan
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