The American Repossessor News

By Jennifer Palmer
Business Writer

The first thing people ask Curtis Compton when they find out he’s an automobile recovery agent, or “repo man,” is: how many times have you been shot at?

The answer, after 30 years in the business, is zero.

People continue to imagine auto recovery as a dangerous profession, full of close encounters with hard-headed debtors refusing to give up their car or truck. Violence is rare, but it does happen, Compton said.

Once, in 1996, he was beaten unconscious by a man whose car he had just hitched to the back of his tow truck.

The assault landed him in the hospital with a broken nose, 28 stitches in his head, four fractured ribs, a concussion and six teeth knocked out, Compton said.

Lienholder’s last resort

Other debtors have tried to outsmart him by getting inside the vehicle with the keys and locking the doors.

Sometimes, two people being tracked by repo men have switched cars, trying to throw them off guard.

But Compton likes the challenge.

“One out of 10 people have made up their mind that you’re not going to find them or their car,” he said. “It becomes a battle of wits.”

Compton owns Aggressive Recovery, a repossession service in Oklahoma City. His customers are major car finance companies, who hire him when their own efforts at collecting payment have failed.

He employs nine recovery agents, who are independent contractors. Each is responsible to own his tow truck (although some lease), pay for gasoline and obtain towing insurance. The agents split assignments based on regions of the state.

They set their own hours, too, often working at night when the vehicle they are seeking is parked.

Since it’s commission-based, if they don’t recover the vehicle, they don’t get paid. Sometimes, this system can lead to trouble.

“Because it’s commission-oriented, sometimes they (the agents) are prone to push it too far,” Compton said.

When training a new agent, Compton teaches them the legal boundaries of recovering a vehicle. It’s legal to go onto a debtor’s property and take the vehicle, as long as it’s in plain sight or can be seen through a fence (like chain link) or an open garage.

If the debtor tells the agent to leave, they have to. They can always try again later, or find the vehicle on public property, such as a parking lot.

If the agent successfully hitches the vehicle to the tow truck, they pull it into the street, then return to ring the doorbell. They offer a deal: an opportunity to retrieve personal effects in exchange for the keys.

About half comply.

Compton also encourages agents to treat debtors with respect and not raise their voice during discussions. And no physical contact — stay two arms lengths away, he tells them.

The best repo men often have a criminal element in their background, Compton said. In fact, the job is sometimes termed “legal stealing.”

But those people never make good employees, he said.

“I look for good morals and gradually bring them into the industry,” he said.

By JAWEED KALEEM
McClatchy Newspapers

Miami Herald/MCT

A National Liquidators team repo a luxury boat in North Palm Beach. The repo business is one of the few businesses soaring in today’s recessed economy. In South Florida, even owners of luxury boats are getting their properties repo’d.

MIAMI — Charlie Clarke throws his boat into gear and speeds toward the waterfront mansion in North Palm Beach. His eyes fix upon the 63-foot yacht docked outside. He’s piloting Little Tow - an 18-footer that barely fits a crew of three.

Within minutes of hopping onto the wooden dock, he has untied the yacht from land and attached it to his own boat. Little Tow may seem like no match for the larger craft, but with a 150 horsepower engine, the job is a breeze as his tow captain pulls the yacht away with Clarke on board. “Piece of cake,” Clarke says.

While the recession means hard times for most people, it’s a godsend for the repo man, the person who shows up - often unexpectedly - to snatch your property when you’re behind on payments.

At Clarke’s employer, Fort Lauderdale boat repossessor and auctioneer National Liquidators, business has tripled in the last 18 months as higher maintenance fees, fuel and docking costs - as well as the real-estate crisis - have put boat owners behind on payments.

The same is true for those repo (short for repossession) men - and a few women - who spend their days and nights hunting and snatching luxury cars and SUVs from distressed owners.

“Before the house, everything else goes,” says Clarke, a former navy engineer who’s never seen more boats in five years on the job. He has taken small motorboats, sailboats and multimillion-dollar yachts. For the 63-footer he takes on this day, its loan hasn’t been paid for months, with $200,000 overdue.

Clarke is soft-spoken and seems utterly unlike the stereotype of a rough-and-tumble, ethically challenged repo man. He’s 5-foot-10, 215 pounds and wears navy shorts and sky blue company shirt - tucked in - with sunglasses and white cap. On the water, he weaves through marinas and private docks in daylight and is rarely confronted by owners.

While snatching boats may be easy, the inspection on board usually reveals problems.

“Something is always dismantled or missing,” Clarke says. This yacht’s engines and electric generators wouldn’t start once it was towed far enough to run on its own. Inside, a seat was missing, wires were scrambled and a bathroom was trashed, its two bedrooms dusty and unused.

“Sometimes people sabotage the boat if they know you’re coming to get it. They take fuel, they take parts,” he says. Maybe that was the case here, or maybe the boat was just in the middle of servicing.

Clarke takes it just before noon, and 2 { hours later it’s docked in a marina a few miles away. The mechanic arrives, and in another hour the engines fire. Clarke’s crew sails the yacht to the company’s Fort Lauderdale dock and his day is done.

Along with nine other agents, the company recovers up to five boats daily throughout Florida. Each is listed online for auction within a week; most are bought by foreigners.

“I remember years ago when we used to pick up a boat a day,” says company President Bob Toney. Right now he has 650 boats for sale or ready for sale across the country - in addition to Florida, he has teams working in Los Angeles and Cleveland. “People that have gotten into boating more recently are not as experienced and may not have realized the costs involved. Fuel is a big part of it. Marinas are charging $5 to $6 a gallon, and you’ve got a 300- to 400-gallon tank.”

The day before taking the 63-foot yacht, Clarke had called the owner’s phone number, even knocked on his door. Nothing. He is sure the missing boat won’t be a surprise. When people don’t pay, they know the repo man is bound to come, he says.

Back on land, many of South Florida’s auto repo agents - there are more than 250 in Miami-Dade and Broward - are less than halfway through their day as Clarke finishes his.

At American Lenders Service in Kendall, owner Ed Wolmers has been awake since sunrise, taking calls from banks and shuffling through paperwork. He spends his days tracking down people, and his nights - when owners are most likely to be home - taking their cars.

“We do the dirty, ugly jobs that everybody hates,” says Wolmers, who’s been in the business, off and on, for a decade. “But if I don’t take your car, someone else will.”

He has taken tractor-trailers and riding lawn mowers, shiny new BMWs and beat-up Saturns. His unwilling targets: doctors, real estate agents, drug dealers, even a police officer.

He’s six feet, 250 pounds with a buzzed head and goatee. He wears a bulletproof vest - he’s been shot at, but never hit - and he’s ready for a fight. He has already had a few: roadside after highway chases and outside homes. He was once pistol-whipped on the back of the head and needed stitches. Wolmers doesn’t carry a gun, but he has his own ammo: to start the night, a medium coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts; to keep him on track, a talking GPS unit on the dashboard; and a heavy-duty flashlight to find his way through dark neighborhoods.

Nights start at 10 p.m., as Wolmers takes off from his small office near Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport for about a dozen potential jobs through early morning.

A recent tour begins in Tamarac, where he combs the neighborhood for a green ‘98 Chevy Blazer. A few neighbors emerge from the crowd of single-story homes as he slowly drives from house to house, beaming his flashlight on cars. No luck. A man on the street corner says the owner moved months ago.

From there, it’s on to Miramar, Miami Gardens, Opa-locka, Sunny Isles. Hours have passed. He circles parking lots, peers into a condo garage, checks mailbox labels. He drives by a bus company where the driver of a Ford Expedition works. He swings by her mom’s house. Nothing.

By 4 a.m., he’s fuming. He hasn’t slept in more than 20 hours. For the last six, he has zigzagged across South Florida on near-deserted highways, dreaming of his next catch.

“This is nuts,” he says, gliding south on Interstate 95, hoping to spot a gray Infiniti G20 as he exits toward Northwest 86th Street. The car’s loan hasn’t been paid in more than three months. Its owner seems to have disappeared. When he arrives, the house is bare. There’s an SUV in the driveway but no Infiniti. Particle board is nailed over the windows of a nearby home.

“People are more transient during the recession,” Wolmers says. A house is foreclosed. People rent and jump from neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city. They move in with parents and friends. The calls and faxes from banks keep increasing, but it’s also getting harder to find the people, he says.

He stops to fill his diesel tank for the second time in a day, setting him back $175 between both trips. And he has his own loan to pay, $1,000 a month for his truck. Still, business is better than ever. He’s hiring for the first time in years, adding to his roster of three.

Wolmers won’t say how much he charges, but most banks pay $400 for simple jobs and more than $1,000 for complicated ones, where it can take weeks or months to track down a vehicle. As more people default, more are voluntarily giving up those cars, too, he says. He’s on his way to Kendall, dashing through Overtown and Coral Gables for a last-chance catch. Nope.

By 6:30 a.m., he’s home sleeping. Clarke, the boat repo agent, is starting his day. He’ll be in the office by 8 and on Little Tow again, cruising the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale, his eye out for a 43-foot yacht, $250,000 overdue.

Within a few hours, Wolmers gets a call to do a voluntary pickup: mini-excavators, tractor-trailers, dirt diggers and pickup trucks; tools of a failed construction firm. It’s an easy few thousand dollars from the bank, if not more.

Maybe this, he thinks, will be his big day.

Strapped owners are seeing lots more cars and trucks go on the hook

Published: Jul 24, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Jul 24, 2008 06:10 AM

Lorenzo Perez, Staff Writer

Brandon Taylor repossesses a vehicle in Raleigh for Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery, a Wendell company. The business, which repossessed 20 to 30 vehicles a week last year, is hauling in 50 a week now, the owner says.

Staff Photos by Jason Arthurs

In the middle of the night, the diesel rumble of Steve Mozingo and Brandon Taylor’s trucks prompts excuses for why the car payment is past due and driveway pleas for more time.

And in the current economic slowdown, there are a lot more excuses for the two drivers from Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery. Repo men across the country are towing away a steadily growing number of cars and trucks from owners who have fallen behind or defaulted on their loans.

As many as 1.6 million cars and trucks may be repossessed nationally this year, the most in at least a decade, according to the Manheim wholesale vehicle auction service, which touts itself as the country’s largest. Large banks have yet to report a large increase in car loan defaults, but the anecdotal evidence is growing among smaller lenders and repossession companies such as Mozingo and Taylor’s employer.

Based in Wendell, Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery, named for the Wake County community, has gone from repossessing 20 to 30 vehicles a week last year to 50 a week now, according to owner Ron Shirley. In Benson, Don’s Auto Sales issued about 25 repossession orders in 2007; in the first seven months of this year, Donald Young said he has already matched that.

“People are falling behind more, so there is a greater need for repossession,” said Young, owner of Don’s Auto Sales.

Many banks and other lenders begin contacting borrowers within 60 days once payments have stopped, resorting to repossession only after several months when the expectation of recouping money has vanished. Lenders have begun shortening that leash and are trying earlier to avoid repossession, according to the American Financial Services Association.

“Companies are reaching out to borrowers early. They’re communicating early to try to help them to reach a workable arrangement sooner rather than later,” association representative Lynne Strang said.

For some consumers, the calls and repossession efforts can begin just a day after a missed payment, and repossession efforts are not limited to lower-income consumers who took out subprime car loans, Shirley said.

“We get mostly middle-class Americans,” Shirley said. “We’re mostly repossessing nice vehicles. I see a lot of nice $20,000 and $30,000 vehicles coming across these days.”

Lizard Lick repo men cover a large swath of central North Carolina, blending a flair for diplomacy and detective work. But the car repossession business can bring notoriety and trouble to its practitioners.

The Wake County Sheriff’s Office charged Shirley with encouraging an employee to impersonate a law enforcement officer March 20. A felony aiding and abetting extortion charge related to the case has been dismissed, according to Wake County court records. A misdemeanor charge of aiding and abetting the impersonation of a law enforcement officer is pending.

On commission

Although salaried, Mozingo and the other repo men employed by Shirley earn commissions for each vehicle, which helps explain Mozingo’s eagerness to rack up 200 miles in Tuesday’s predawn hours driving from Wendell to downtown Raleigh to Wake Forest to Rocky Mount, Wilson and back.

“You have more problems trying to find younger people who spend their nights bouncing around the clubs,” Mozingo said. “Now, once you found Mama, then you’re usually all right.”

Nine hours of driving through suburban neighborhoods, mobile home parks and downtown Raleigh netted him a Pontiac Firebird in Wendell, a Chrysler Sebring in the Nash County town of Castalia and a Ford Expedition in Rocky Mount.

Although he said he has a permit to carry a .45-caliber pistol in the truck, the former biker-bar bouncer typically gets by with an imposing physical appearance accentuated by his shaved head and a large spider tattoo stretched across his left forearm.

Before midnight Monday, the sound of Mozingo’s truck rumbling up the unpaved driveway set off a chorus of barking dogs from a fenced-in kennel, followed moments later by less-imposing yips of a smaller dog from inside the ranch home on Wendell’s Watkins Road. As he lowered the truck’s boom to extend a pair of claw arms around the Firebird’s rear wheels, Mozingo could see the blue glow of a large television.

Mozingo knocked on the door and explained to the annoyed older man who opened it that he was there to repossess the Firebird. The man grumbled about a time when another car was repossessed, blaming a shady auto dealer who sold it to him with a false title. A 21-year-old woman, identified as the car owner by the lien holder, came out and spent 10 minutes pulling out beach towels, folding chairs, compact discs and a duffel bag of personal effects from the car.

Tears fell down her cheeks, but she didn’t say a word to Mozingo until she finished emptying the car, peeling a large decal of E.T. the movie extraterrestrial from the rear window.

“These ain’t the best times for nobody,” the older man said as Mozingo finished tying straps across the car’s rear wheels.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” Mozingo told the young woman.

“It’s not your fault,” she answered in a low voice.

Limiting speculation would push prices to fundamental level, lawmakers told
By Rex Nutting & Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The price of retail gasoline could fall by half, to around $2 a gallon, within 30 days of passage of a law to limit speculation in energy-futures markets, four energy analysts told Congress on Monday.

Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135.

Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co., Edward Krapels of Energy Security Analysis and Roger Diwan of PFC Energy Consultants agreed with Masters’ assessment at a hearing on proposed legislation to limit speculation in futures markets.

Krapels said that it wouldn’t even take 30 days to drive prices lower, as fund managers quickly liquidated their positions in futures markets.

“Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals,” according to Gheit. “Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel.”

Futures trading in London has not been a major factor in rising oil prices, testified Sir Bob Reid, chairman of the Chairman of London-based ICE Futures Europe. Rising prices are largely a function of fundamental supply and demand, not manipulation or speculation, he said.

“Energy speculation has become a growth industry and it is time for the government to intervene,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the full committee. “We need to consider a full range of options to counter this rapacious speculation.” It was Dingell’s strongest statement yet on the role of speculators.

Dingell introduced a bill on June 11 that would ask the Energy Department to gather the facts on energy prices, including the role played by speculators. See full story.

There are two kinds of speculators in the futures markets, Masters said. Traditional speculators are those who need to hedge because they actually take physical possession of the commodities. Index speculators, on the other hand, are merely allocating a portion of their portfolio to commodity futures.

Index speculation damages price-discovery mechanisms provided by futures markets, Masters added.

The committee will likely consider legislation that would rein in index speculation by imposing higher-margin requirements; setting position limits for speculators; requiring more disclosure of positions; and preventing pension funds and investment banks from owning commodities.

Both major presidential candidates have supported closing loopholes that encourage speculation in the energy markets. Read more on Election Blog.

However, other witnesses said that pure speculators have had little impact on energy prices, which have doubled in the past year to about $135 per barrel. Both Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman have dismissed the impact of speculators on prices paid by consumers.

Speculators now account for about 70% of all benchmark crude trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from 37% in 2000, said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the investigations subcommittee. Stupak introduced a bill on Friday that would limit index speculation.

There has been much discussion recently about how big a role speculators have been playing in the sharp rise in energy prices, though no consensus has emerged on this point.

Congress, however, has grown increasingly concerned over speculative investors’ role in the energy market in comparison with those buying futures contracts to hedge against risk from price changes. Lawmakers are expected to consider legislation to set strict limits — or in some cases, an outright ban — on speculative trading in energy futures in some markets.

Dingell is looking into any legal loopholes that may have contributed to speculation in energy markets. In 1991, according to documents provided by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the committee’s investigators, the agency authorized the first exemption from position limits for swap dealers with no physical commodity exposure. This began what Dingell said was “a process that has enabled investment banks to accumulate enormous positions in commodity markets.”

Is Congress barking up the wrong tree?

Neal Ryan, manager at Ryan Oil & Gas Partners, said that if Congress develops regulations to cut back speculative trading, speculation will just find a new home.

“Speculation is the root of capitalism,” he said. “If the speculation is forced out of the U.S. exchanges, it’ll simply show up on other exchanges that are OTC like the ICE, or new exchanges will pop up to allow for the spec trades to continue functioning.”

Ryan said he does see a reason for Congress to look at eliminating aspects such as allowing West Texas intermediate crude oil futures to trade on foreign markets and the “Enron loophole,” but “these exchanges are currently functioning as they are supposed to in a free marketplace.”

The creation of a comprehensive U.S. energy policy that tackles issues of increasing domestic supply and reining in consumer demand via conservation should be Congress’ focus, Ryan said. “Instead we’re on bended knee begging the Saudis to put more oil on the market and talking about shutting down spec trades.”

Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.
Michael Kitchen is a copy editor for MarketWatch and is based in New York. Nate Becker contributed to this report from San Francisco.

By Craig Guillot • Bankrate.com

It’s not just homes that are being taken away these days — cars are also being repossessed at startling rates.

Today’s all-too-frequent recipe for hard times — resetting mortgages, increasing foreclosures, declining home prices and soaring prices for food and fuel — is now peppered with increasing numbers of consumers falling behind on car payments.

Thomas Webb, chief economist at Manheim Consulting, a wholesale vehicle auction operator, says 1,505,000 vehicles were repossessed in 2007, a 10 percent increase over 2006. He predicts another 10 percent increase in repossessions during 2008, sending repo numbers to one of the highest levels in a decade.

As repo figures climb, auction wholesalers and dealers are buying used cars at significant discounts and frequently passing those savings on to consumers, says Webb.

Wells Fargo reports it has also seen an increase in auto loan delinquencies and wrote off $1 billion in auto loans in 2007, an almost 17 percent increase over the $857 million in write-offs in 2006. An even higher write-off rate is expected this year. As with subprime home loans, low interest rates over the past few years made it easy for people to buy cars they ultimately couldn’t afford. Between 1998 and 2008, the total of Americans’ auto loan balances jumped from $282 billion to $772 billion.

Fast facts

Car repos rose 10 percent in 2007 — a similar jump is expected in 2008.

Much higher used car inventories are pressuring resale prices lower.

So far this year, used vehicle sales have dropped by about 7 percent.

The current national average rate for a 36-month used car loan is 7.16 percent.

The 2007 Non-Prime Auto Financing Survey published by the National Automobile Finance Association revealed that delinquencies on subprime auto loans jumped from 6.8 percent to 11.6 percent.

Tom Kontos, chief economist for vehicle auction operator ADESA, said ADESA’s normal 45-day inventory rose to a 55-day inventory in January 2008. Some of that has since eased, but Kontos says there have been abnormally high levels of vehicles on the auction block.

“Some of it we anticipated in tough economic times, but the spillover from the housing market may make this a little out of the ordinary. The increased number of repossessions in the first part of 2008 was greater than we expected,” says Kontos.

While resetting mortgages may be driving some of the problems in late car payments, Mari Adam, president of Adam Financial Associates Inc., of Boca Raton, Fla., says the problem is compounded by the fact that Americans have a bad habit of buying vehicles they can’t afford. Adam says she sees many clients overspend on vehicle expenses — sometimes spending as much as 40 percent of their income on vehicles, when even 20 percent can be too much.

“The bill is coming due for a lot of people who were living large. Whether it’s the house, the car, the credit cards or anything else, it’s a problem. You have to remind people that a car is a depreciating asset and you can’t overspend on it,” says Adam.

An easy credit market in recent years and dealers anxious to find creative ways of helping consumers buy vehicles they couldn’t afford also share in the blame, says Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com. Reed says many drivers have discovered their leases are too long or that they’ve leased too much vehicle.

What you can do

If you’re having trouble meeting your car payments — or think you will in the near future — there are things you can do before you mail in the keys or watch the tow truck haul your wheels away:

Sell and downsize.

Renegotiate loan terms.

Refinance.

People who bought with traditional financing have more options, assuming that they are not upside down on their loans.

Even though it is a depreciating asset, those with a fair amount of equity in the vehicle may be able to sell and downsize, thus eliminating their car payment and even creating some surplus cash. For example, consider a vehicle valued at $18,000 with a $10,000 balance remaining with monthly installments for 36 months at 6 percent.

Selling the vehicle and paying off the loan would free up $322 per month and bring in $8,000, which could be used to buy a cheaper used car or possibly used for other purposes, if the household can get by on one vehicle.

“If you have some equity in the vehicle, then you do have some freedom to make positive changes to your economic picture. (Lenders) would rather not repossess your vehicle and they have options for you,” says Reed.

No matter what kind of situation the vehicle owner is in, Reed recommends talking with the lender and explaining the situation. Besides selling the car or downsizing, owners may be able to turn to their lender to reconfigure the loan, perhaps by extending the term. If your lender isn’t willing to renegotiate the existing loan, look to other lenders to for a new loan — at terms better suited to your needs — and pay off the existing loan. Use Bankrate’s auto loan rate search to find national averages and rates in your area.

Typically, if a consumer misses three payments and will not communicate with the lender, a repossession order is put in place. Even while missing payments, Reed says, drivers can at least temporarily delay a repo by simply communicating with the lender.

“They just want to know that you’re not going to disappear on them and close down completely. Repossession is a negative financial situation for them as well because they have to pay to have it repossessed and then they have to pay auction fees,” says Reed.

Adam says that when people are trapped between a high car payment and resetting mortgage, the worst thing they can do is to simply skip vehicle payments and risk repossession. The effects go beyond simply losing the vehicle — a repossession can have a very negative impact on a person’s credit rating. And in a time of tight credit and increasing lending standards, that can affect a person’s ability to get another vehicle.

“Defaulting on a car nowadays, with credit scores having the importance that they have, has huge consequences. It can even affect your insurance and your ability to get a job in some cases,” says Adam.

Similar to the housing market, one person’s misfortune is another’s opportunity. An increased number of repossessions are creating some great deals in the used vehicle market and, Webb says, wholesale used vehicle prices have been down substantially.

Used vehicle sales across North America in the first three months of 2008 fell by 7 percent from a year earlier, the Bank of Novia Scotia says in it Global Auto Report, with one-year-old models dropping 11 percent. The bank says it expects used-car prices to “soften” through early 2009.

The Black Book, a guide to used vehicle prices, has reported that prices of premium used cars fell by 20 percent to 22 percent since March 2007 and CNW Marketing Research says used sport utility vehicle sales in March were down 14 percent compared to last year.

At ADESA, says Kontos, not only are used vehicles coming at a cheaper price, but repossessed cars tend to be newer and in better condition. In the past, repossessed cars tended to be five to seven years old when taken back and they usually were purchased used by someone who was already a credit risk. But under current economic conditions, many of those cars being repossessed today and the owners they are being taken from don’t fit the typical mold.

“I think there are a lot more gems out there now,” says Kontos.

By Andrew L. Wang
Tribune reporter
11:45 PM CDT, June 18, 2008

The Illinois secretary of state police arrested the owner of a Wauconda construction company Wednesday who they suspect was using fake vehicle-identification numbers on some of his equipment.

Officials last week impounded 13 semitrailer cabs and eight trailers without VIN plates that Ronald Laverdure, 56, was trying to sell at an auction in Morris.

Wednesday morning, police executed search warrants on Laverdure’s company, K Construction of Wauconda, 29693 N. Rand Rd., and his home in North Barrington. They were looking “for documents or other types of information that they were manufacturing fictitious VIN numbers,” said Beth Kaufman, a secretary of state spokeswoman.

During the searches, investigators impounded five additional semitrailer cabs and a front-end loader with missing VINs, plus several firearms, ammunition and substances they suspect are drugs, said Lt. Jim Murphy of the Illinois secretary of state police.

It is a felony to remove a VIN plate, own a vehicle without a VIN plate or manufacture false VIN plates. Someone could remove or replace the plate to hide the vehicle’s true origin, Murphy said.

“If the vehicles are stolen, it would be to conceal that to sell it to someone,” he said. “Also, if you are borrowing money and using the vehicles as collateral, when the bank comes to repossess them, they can’t identify them.”

Police do not yet know whether any of the impounded vehicles were stolen, Murphy said.

GARY — The mayor said Monday that no one but him, police and firefighters should be tapping into city gas pumps, but records show other Gary employees continue to fill up. Employees from Gary’s general services, animal control, city court, traffic and parks departments filled up Thursday, three days after Mayor Rudy Clay made that comment, according to records obtained by the Post-Tribune.

One employee of the parks department signed the fuel logs “C. Jones.” Superintendent Caren Jones is the only employee in that department, according to city records, who has been assigned a take-home car.

Jones did not return multiple calls for comment Friday.

Three cars assigned to Gary city court were also fueled at the city pumps by Harold Washington, the records show.

“Evidently, somebody didn’t get the memo,” Clay said.

Gary is in a tight money crunch, facing a possible $36 million cut in its operating budget next year. Clay and his staff are reviewing several cost-cutting measures and he refused last week to rule out layoffs.

The city plans to seek relief from the state, but to make its case it will have to show it has cut spending by as much as possible.

Meanwhile, Gary is spending $30,000 on gas every week, and Clay refuses to abandon his 14-miles-per-gallon Hummer H3, calling it a “very economical car.”

Monroe said her court uses its cars to verify residences and do repossession work that would otherwise need to be done by police officers.

“There’s no way the city court could finance putting gas in cars,” Monroe said.

The judge confirmed she has a take-home car and “sometimes” fills up at the city gas pumps. She said Clay hasn’t asked elected officials to stop using them. “He understands what the city court has to do,” Monroe said.

Clay said the only reason an employee from a department other than police or fire should be fueling up would be an emergency.

A week ago, Police Chief Lawrence Wright ordered all his officers to be prepared to park their take-home cars at the police station.

Clay overruled the chief Monday, explaining that a reduction in city take-home cars must be more organized.

The mayor said Friday that the chief is putting together a new plan for parking those cars.

“We’ve really got to cut back,” Clay said.

Charles Haralson has been repossessing cars for five years. He’s had people unleash their dogs on him, threaten him with baseball bats and throw rocks at his tow truck.

But, earlier this month, he had his tow truck set on fire while he was inside.

“I’ve never had anything that severe,” Haralson, 27, of Hampton said. “By far, this is the worst that’s happened.”

Haralson stopped the May 12 attack by firing two gunshots in the direction of the man whose vehicle he was trying to repossess in a southeast Atlanta neighborhood. No one was hit. Minutes later, Atlanta police showed up and arrested two people.

“I didn’t want to hurt nobody,” Haralson said. “I didn’t want to go to jail for hurting nobody. I was just out there trying to do my job.”

Haralson, owner of Get Hooked Towing for the past year, said the incident shook him up so much that a friend had to drive him home. He also took the next couple of days off work.

“I couldn’t get behind the wheel,” Haralson said. “I have a wife and kids at home.”

Schollander Billingsley, 32, and a woman who lives with him, 29-year-old Erica Glover, were arrested on charges of aggravated assault and arson, according to an Atlanta police report.

Haralson said that another repo man tried to take Billingsley’s red 2000 Ford Expedition from his home on Holly Drive the previous week, but Billingsley somehow drove the Ford off the tow truck.

When Haralson showed up, Billingsley, Glover and two teenage boys surrounded his tow truck and began shaking it, he said. They cursed at him and banged on his windows, Haralson said.

Billingsley grabbed a five-gallon can of diesel fuel, poured it over the back of the truck and set fire to it, according to the police report. Inside, Haralson called 911 over and over while he sat with a .22-caliber pistol in his lap.

When Billingsley grabbed another fuel can — this one filled with gasoline — Haralson jumped out of the car and opened fire.

“I sat there as long as I could,” Haralson said. “I told them if anybody came near me or my truck again, that I’d shoot them.”

GREENWOOD, Miss. (AP) - Leflore County Court Judge Solomon Osborne, who is serving a suspension for misconduct, has resigned, effective Friday.

The economy is down and repossessions are way up. Some repo men in Toledo have been on the job for more than two decades and they say it’s never been so busy.

Three guys, working for a company in an unmarked pick-up, get hired by banks to repossess cars. Their next mark is a red Silverado parked outside Toledo’s Days Inn along I-75. A device the repo men call the “minute man” or “snatcher” is used to get the job done in a matter of seconds.

One of the men says, “The economy’s really bad here in Toledo. People are losing everything. I feel sorry for a lot of these people, but if it wasn’t me doing this, it would be somebody else doing it. I have to make a living. It’s sad that I have got to make my living off of other people’s misfortunes.”

In less than one minute the guys have their fare. This time, there’s no confrontation, the most important part of the job. One repo man says, “Sometimes you can roll up, it’s a swift job, you’re in and out. You know, like this one was, but a lot of times, it’s not like that. Lot of times, we’ve got people coming out, baseball bats, dogs and it’s hard, you know.”

It’s not just Toledo. They go from Lima to Detroit and wherever the job takes them.

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There was a guilty plea Tuesday from a Jessamine County man, accused of repossessing a truck with three children still inside.

As part of a plea deal, David Mahaffey received two years probation and a 250 dollar fine for second degree unlawful imprisonment.

Last month, Nicholasville police say Mahaffey took the truck, even though the children inside screamed for him to stop. At the time, he said he had no idea they were inside.

Another sign of the times may be the booming business for repossession companies. Those in the Sacramento reported double-digit increases in repo orders compared to this time last year.

Repo workers are stunned to find they’re taking everything from toy boats, RV’s, motorcycles to extreme luxury cars like Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Maseratis.

“You give up what’s least important, and that’s the boats the RV’s and the car,” said John, who didn’t want to give his last name. He owns a vehicle recovery company in the Sacramento area. His lot is full these days of Range Rovers, Mercedes. There’s even a renovated vintage bus.

John said toys are also increasingly too expensive for people to keep. “From 2002 everybody decided, ‘Well I’m making a bunch of money now so I think I can afford this.’ They just get over extended. They can’t handle it anymore.”

John’s business has doubled in the past two years by “an extremely large amount. I mean there are repo companies out there doing 12 to 1,500 repos a month.”

He adds the reasons for the surge in repossessions is obvious, the question, he said, is when will the economy turn around?

“Nobody’s spending any money, so we are picking up these cars left and right.”

J.J. “The Repo Man” has never had it so good in the 15 years he’s been in the business. He’s repossessing twice the amount of cars he normally handles–averaging around 30 vehicles a week. Lenders are expected to reposes more than 1.5 million cars this year.
KNX 1070’s Charles Feldman rode with J.J. one night. He tells Charles, “Bush did good for me…but all the poor people he screwed them real good.” Charles speaks with J.J about how he find his targets, how he protects himself, and how he feels about his job.

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DELAWARE TOWNSHIP – A Dingmans Ferry man was arrested after allegedly threatening two men, who had repossessed his car, with a gun.  John DeVilliers, 40, of Birchwood Lakes, is charged with simple assault, terroristic threats, and other offences.

Police say two men, from New Jersey, attempted to repossess the defendant’s vehicle for non-payment.  As they were leaving the property, DeVilliers allegedly pointed a gun in their faces, threatening to kill them.

A young East Hempfield Township man obviously was not happy when he saw two men from a vehicle repossession firm loading up his 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe.

East Hempfield police said 32-year-old Benson J. Johnson came out of his 2009 Marietta Avenue home at 12:20 a.m. today and pointed a shotgun at 22-year-old Gary Reider and 21-year-old William Essick.

Reider and Essick are from York County, and they work for a repossession firm contracted by a bank. Police said they identified themselves to Johnson before they started loading the Tahoe onto a tow truck.

The shotgun was unloaded, but Johnson allegedly pointed the weapon at the two men and threatened them, Officer Luke Murray said.

The two men backed off as Johnson got into the Tahoe and tried to drive it off the tow truck. He was unsuccessful.

Police arrived and took Johnson into custody. He was charged with making terroristic threats and released on $5,000 bail, police said.

While reporting a story about the increased frequency of automobile reposessions around the country, local New York station CW11 caught the repo man trying to take rap star Lil Kim’s silver Bentley on tape.

The embarassing moment immediately calls into question the state of the Brooklyn rapper’s finances, but new statements from Kim’s reps deny any money woes.

“The car was a gift, given four years ago. This matter is currently being resolved and is completely out of Kim’s hands,” a rep told AllHipHop.

According to the news report, payments on the extravagent luxury car are 4-5 months past due. A reporter tried to obtain a comment from Kim: “Oh please. Get the f**k out of here. You are so f***in’ ridiculous,” she responded. The rapper refused to relinquish the keys and the car was not taken.

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A reposession agent has been jailed after he stole a 43-foot yacht from the Hamble river.

On arrest, he claimed he had bought the boat from her owner, a Mr Astor, and tried to support his story with documentation, but the court heard he had never met Mr Astor and had forged documents.

You’ve got to love the beat!