The Anatomy of a Repossession by Robert Adlan

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, if ever , mentioned by economists.

Ever wonder 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 who had exhausted the patience of his finance company.

We found the car at the first address we checked--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 thought we’d spotted the wanted wheels several times that night.

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 http://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 phone number research. He had recently discovered this 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.

“I didn’t even know the guy had a cell phone. But now I have a new home address, plus I know where his sister lives,” he tells me, becoming more excited with each word.

The sisters house is a 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 and Fontana reversed his tow rig up the driveway, raised the hydraulic lift and rolled the prize down the street before securing it properly under better lights and more friendly conditions.

Those in the recovery business haven’t always had to rely on outside vendors. Of course then it was a simpler America--a place where people stayed put for a few years at a time and jobs were careers. The new fly-by-night culture of rapid mobility in which everyone is affected by vocational free agency has so complicated society that even those who steal cars for a living have been forced to adapt.

About The Author

Robert Adlin is an investigative jourmalist providing business-sector information and articles to mainstream news sources. The currently lives in and sleuths from Dallas, TX, assisted by his dog and two cats.