Editorial

On the morning of Thursday September 9, I stumbled across the story of three Kentucky repossessors arrested for impersonating police officers to coerce a debtor into surrendering the car. I cringed. This morning on the 12th, I find yet again another similar story of three repossessors charged with kidnapping a teenager at gunpoint in Marysville, Washington. My God, who are these people? I am dead serious, who are these agencies so that we in the Credit Union collections world never make the mistake of using them.

I spent the first six years of my twenty-one in the collections industry working in the repo business and the idea of using guns or impersonating police never crossed my mind. It was simply too over the top and outlandish to even contemplate. Now, I am seeing elements of the repossession community that are completely out of hand and area threat to the self help repossession industry, as we know it. Who are these people, these companies and how do we stop this on our own or, is it already too late.

For anyone who didn’t read “Repo Madness” by the National Consumer Law Center, in March of 2010, I suggest you read their proposal for the overhaul of the repossession industry. Using the high number of violent incidents during repossession as the catalyst for change, on the forefront of their desires is the end of self-help repossession and the requirement of a judicial process to be followed by police enforced repossession. While some may think this is far-fetched, I suggest you get an understanding of the newly formed Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and the broad and sweeping powers to create new regulations to protect the consumer and, the person most likely to be appointed to this post, Elizabeth Warren, a strong advocate of consumer rights and teh person most sought after for this post by the consumer protectionists.

If people in the repo business continue acting like these morons, I’ve read about in the last few days, not only is it possible that those of us in the auto collections field will have to forgo long judicial processes for a simple repossession but we may witness the end of the repo business, as we know it. In closing, I urge anyone reading this, if you are a collector, never use repossession companies that are not either licensed (where applicable) or affiliated with the major repossession associations. This will blow up in your face. For the few dollars you may save, you will likely have nightmares in the future. For those of you in the repossession or collections field, watch your agents and collectors closely, if you have an agent that plays too close to the edge, yank his chain and rein him in. These loose cannons could bring us all down.

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K.W. Armstrong

Editor

CUCollector.com