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Repo man busiest during hard times
As a 12-year veteran of the repossession business in Utah, Mike Edwards has been punched and chased, spat upon and had his tires slashed, all while trying to pick up cars whose owners no longer were making their monthly payments.
And to hear Edwards tell it, business these days is better than ever.
"We're probably picking up 30 percent more cars than we were last year," he said. "Things are tough for a lot of people right now. There just seems to be more and more people out there now who are down on their luck."
The nation's soaring home foreclosure rates may be grabbing all the political attention these days, but the rising number of delinquent automobile loans in Utah and the rest of the country is another unpleasant sign of the times.
And when times are tough for everyone else, they're generally good for the repo man.
Delinquencies in car dealer-arranged automobile loans reached a historic high of 3.13 percent during the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the American Bankers Association. That was only a bit less than the 4.3 percent of home loans that were delinquent in Utah in the same period.
"Look at what is happening," said Carol Kaplan, spokeswoman for the bankers' association. "We're seeing rising unemployment. You have people losing their homes and businesses. It is no wonder that repossessions are up."
Repo man Rich Whittaker of West Coast Recovery Services in Salt Lake City has been in the business for 25 years. Although he agrees that business is good, Whittaker said one thing is different in this recession from downturns of the past. These days he is repossessing many more luxury and high-end automobiles, such as Porches and Mercedes Benzes.
He finds it interesting and telling about the depth and breadth of this economic downturn that people who at one time must have had pretty good credit now find themselves unable to keep up the payments on those expensive cars.
And although repossessing cars continues to represent the bulk of most repo companies' business, the declining economy also is opening up other opportunities.
"What is really taking up our time, right now, is that we've been repossessing a lot construction equipment and big motor homes -- stuff that takes a long time [and a lot of effort] to haul away," Whittaker said.
Some of the larger-scale items that West Coast has repossessed have included a $300,000 granite saw used to cut countertops and an excavator used at one time to dig basements for homebuilders, who also have fallen on tough times.
Still, it is autos that are at the center of the repo business. With Utah banks, automobile dealers and credit unions taking back more and more cars and trucks, the state's automobile auction yards are filling up. This is happening even as the wholesale prices of the used vehicles that pass through their sales garages are declining, because of the burgeoning inventories.
"What we're hearing is that a lot more of the repossessed vehicles we are seeing were voluntarily surrendered," said Rob Brasher of Brasher's Salt Lake Auto Auction. "The owners just called up their lenders and told them to come and get their cars because they could no longer afford the payments."
Repo man Philip Vigil, who works for Edwards' Recovery First, said those who voluntarily give up the keys to their vehicles are the nice folks.
"Then you get the real ignorant people" -- the ones who try to hide their cars, and then get nasty and confrontational when they look out their windows only to see their automobiles being hooked up to the back of a tow truck.
It is the belligerent owners who rev up the ire of repo men and women enough to send them into the dark and sometimes cold of the night to find and tow away a deadbeat's automobile.
"It can be real tough when you have to take away the car of an honest, hard-working person who through no fault of their own has fallen on hard times," Edwards said. "You feel for them and can understand that having a car repossessed its a traumatic thing."
The others, though, don't get any sympathy.
They are the ones that repo men and women tell their stories about -- how they tracked the ne'er-do-wells down, how they figured out where their truck or car was being kept, and the strategy they used to separate them from their vehicles.
Edwards, whose self-deprecating humor reflects a confidence gained through years in the business, tells how earlier this year, after weeks of searching, he finally located a car he had been asked to repossess. The driver was in no mood to surrender the vehicle, so Edwards followed him all day until he saw his chance.
"I was just waiting for the guy to pull into a convenience store and fill up. When he finally went inside to pay for the gas, I backed up in front of his car and hooked it up. It took about 10 second, and I was gone."
Frequently, an owner who doesn't want to give up his or her car will instead trade vehicles with a buddy, Edwards said. "When that happens, all you have to do is run the license plate [on the car they are driving] and you can get a pretty good idea where the car you're looking for can be found."
Although repo men and women, much more often than they would like, find themselves confronted by baseball bat-swinging or firearm-wielding antagonists, most would much rather avoid such situations, Edwards said.
Instead, most will try to talk themselves out of tense situations, or just leave with the idea that they will be able to pick up the car later. " A car isn't worth getting shot over," he said.
Repo man busiest during hard times
As a 12-year veteran of the repossession business in Utah, Mike Edwards has been punched and chased, spat upon and had his tires slashed, all while trying to pick up cars whose owners no longer were making their monthly payments.
And to hear Edwards tell it, business these days is better than ever.
"We're probably picking up 30 percent more cars than we were last year," he said. "Things are tough for a lot of people right now. There just seems to be more and more people out there now who are down on their luck."
The nation's soaring home foreclosure rates may be grabbing all the political attention these days, but the rising number of delinquent automobile loans in Utah and the rest of the country is another unpleasant sign of the times.
And when times are tough for everyone else, they're generally good for the repo man.
Delinquencies in car dealer-arranged automobile loans reached a historic high of 3.13 percent during the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the American Bankers Association. That was only a bit less than the 4.3 percent of home loans that were delinquent in Utah in the same period.
"Look at what is happening," said Carol Kaplan, spokeswoman for the bankers' association. "We're seeing rising unemployment. You have people losing their homes and businesses. It is no wonder that repossessions are up."
Repo man Rich Whittaker of West Coast Recovery Services in Salt Lake City has been in the business for 25 years. Although he agrees that business is good, Whittaker said one thing is different in this recession from downturns of the past. These days he is repossessing many more luxury and high-end automobiles, such as Porches and Mercedes Benzes.
He finds it interesting and telling about the depth and breadth of this economic downturn that people who at one time must have had pretty good credit now find themselves unable to keep up the payments on those expensive cars.
And although repossessing cars continues to represent the bulk of most repo companies' business, the declining economy also is opening up other opportunities.
"What is really taking up our time, right now, is that we've been repossessing a lot construction equipment and big motor homes -- stuff that takes a long time [and a lot of effort] to haul away," Whittaker said.
Some of the larger-scale items that West Coast has repossessed have included a $300,000 granite saw used to cut countertops and an excavator used at one time to dig basements for homebuilders, who also have fallen on tough times.
Still, it is autos that are at the center of the repo business. With Utah banks, automobile dealers and credit unions taking back more and more cars and trucks, the state's automobile auction yards are filling up. This is happening even as the wholesale prices of the used vehicles that pass through their sales garages are declining, because of the burgeoning inventories.
"What we're hearing is that a lot more of the repossessed vehicles we are seeing were voluntarily surrendered," said Rob Brasher of Brasher's Salt Lake Auto Auction. "The owners just called up their lenders and told them to come and get their cars because they could no longer afford the payments."
Repo man Philip Vigil, who works for Edwards' Recovery First, said those who voluntarily give up the keys to their vehicles are the nice folks.
"Then you get the real ignorant people" -- the ones who try to hide their cars, and then get nasty and confrontational when they look out their windows only to see their automobiles being hooked up to the back of a tow truck.
It is the belligerent owners who rev up the ire of repo men and women enough to send them into the dark and sometimes cold of the night to find and tow away a deadbeat's automobile.
"It can be real tough when you have to take away the car of an honest, hard-working person who through no fault of their own has fallen on hard times," Edwards said. "You feel for them and can understand that having a car repossessed its a traumatic thing."
The others, though, don't get any sympathy.
They are the ones that repo men and women tell their stories about -- how they tracked the ne'er-do-wells down, how they figured out where their truck or car was being kept, and the strategy they used to separate them from their vehicles.
Edwards, whose self-deprecating humor reflects a confidence gained through years in the business, tells how earlier this year, after weeks of searching, he finally located a car he had been asked to repossess. The driver was in no mood to surrender the vehicle, so Edwards followed him all day until he saw his chance.
"I was just waiting for the guy to pull into a convenience store and fill up. When he finally went inside to pay for the gas, I backed up in front of his car and hooked it up. It took about 10 second, and I was gone."
Frequently, an owner who doesn't want to give up his or her car will instead trade vehicles with a buddy, Edwards said. "When that happens, all you have to do is run the license plate [on the car they are driving] and you can get a pretty good idea where the car you're looking for can be found."
Although repo men and women, much more often than they would like, find themselves confronted by baseball bat-swinging or firearm-wielding antagonists, most would much rather avoid such situations, Edwards said.
Instead, most will try to talk themselves out of tense situations, or just leave with the idea that they will be able to pick up the car later. " A car isn't worth getting shot over," he said.
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