- Joined
- Aug 20, 2014
- Messages
- 2,932
- Reaction score
- 657
- Location
- Shady Dale, Georgia
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Very Conservative
Repossession is high tech now. It used to be the repo man had to sneak around in the dark, stalking a debtor's address, risking life and limb to recover the lender's asset. Not any more. Thanks to high technology, the recovery agent, as repo men now like to be called are able to just drive around in parking lots looking for cars needing picked up. I've spoken with two of these agents recently, one in McDonough, Georgia and one in Loganville, Georgia (just this morning). They both tell me that it has increased their income at least five fold. When they used to be able to get one to two cars a night, if they were lucky, they now pull five to ten in a day.
Favorite places to find cars on the "active repo network"? In McDonough, he says the Walmart parking lot. The Loganville guy says churches on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings and any public parking lot on weekdays. He tells me that he hits on just as many at Target as Walmart. His truck was actually a disguised tow truck. It was masquerading as a normal pick up truck. When he finds a debtor's vehicle that is up for repossession, his wheel lift comes out from the bottom and he makes the snatch. Then he pulls to a nearby parking lot to remove the license plate from the vehicle, puts his required DOT signs on the side of his truck, adds his flashing yellow light, and tow lights with magnets. Pretty slick in all. The recovery agent that I met in McDonough it didn't bother with covert. His truck was clearly a repo truck. He told me that the parking lot that we were standing in had three hits, he took the one with the highest bounty.
Some will say that this isn't fair. No longer does the recovery agent have to be looking for a certain vehicle but instead he or she can drive through a parking lot and just snatch whatever hits on the computer list. License plate readers have changed things. It certainly makes it harder for deadbeats to get away with hiding their cars. Others will argue that a reading license plates is a violation of privacy. The reader doesn't tell the driver anything about you unless you are in the database. Only cars up for repo are in the database. What do you all think? Fair, not fair?
Favorite places to find cars on the "active repo network"? In McDonough, he says the Walmart parking lot. The Loganville guy says churches on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings and any public parking lot on weekdays. He tells me that he hits on just as many at Target as Walmart. His truck was actually a disguised tow truck. It was masquerading as a normal pick up truck. When he finds a debtor's vehicle that is up for repossession, his wheel lift comes out from the bottom and he makes the snatch. Then he pulls to a nearby parking lot to remove the license plate from the vehicle, puts his required DOT signs on the side of his truck, adds his flashing yellow light, and tow lights with magnets. Pretty slick in all. The recovery agent that I met in McDonough it didn't bother with covert. His truck was clearly a repo truck. He told me that the parking lot that we were standing in had three hits, he took the one with the highest bounty.
Some will say that this isn't fair. No longer does the recovery agent have to be looking for a certain vehicle but instead he or she can drive through a parking lot and just snatch whatever hits on the computer list. License plate readers have changed things. It certainly makes it harder for deadbeats to get away with hiding their cars. Others will argue that a reading license plates is a violation of privacy. The reader doesn't tell the driver anything about you unless you are in the database. Only cars up for repo are in the database. What do you all think? Fair, not fair?