GUEST EDITORIAL
We often read, in this very blog post, about today’s changes and tragedies that affect the repossession industry. Often we shake our heads at what some people’s actions invoke in these stories, thinking to ourselves how ridiculous is all this going to get? Opinions of fellow reader’s often draw and develop the most eye opening conversations when we hear about today’s changes and all or part is disagreed with. Sometimes these changes are acknowledged by a guest editorials, leaving us, in the end, with the facts to propel change or at minimum the facts to form an opinion.
I have said many times in the comments that some things will not work for this industry because of its division in the minds of the repossession industry work force members. This is my take, on how I view repossession “associations”, “groups”, “professionals” or whatever people want to call themselves to gain members and be something viable that would truly service the repossession industry. If, you take a company that is in a state that is under severe repossession regulations and take a company that is in an extremely lax state with minimum repossession regulations, you will find discord in a “multi-state “association due to the expected operational requirements of each state. This is understandable, that if in one state you must have a BA degree in repossession and another lets you hire anyone off the street.
The operational requirements will not match and that will leave people pushing and pulling at the “association” to help their side, which leaves the lenders and insuring companies in limbo as well. Most repossession companies, as I know them, do not have an open door policy and they do not want their laundry hung out for anyone to see. It is a constant battle to work and maintain our businesses without people drawing undue attention or maybe needed attention to our businesses.
So how does one “association” accomplish what needs to be done for the whole industry? It very possibly just cannot be done on a level playing field. One part of the group or all parts of the group will always see something they refuse to live with. So we have a multitude of “associations” available to peruse in this industry. Local or in-state “associations” would seem the best place to start as they should enhance a common goal in your state. Repossession being a much smaller industry than the general towing industry creates its own obstacles as the larger force often gets laws put into place that harm us. Sometimes, this works as a blessing for some. When you are a towing company and your main business is towing and you basically have a side business of repossession, I like to call them “franchised repo companies”, then towing laws are your thing. That would be a different topic all together.
Case and point:
On December 5th 2017, a release appeared on this blog. https://blog.cucollector.com/hot-topics/11592-2/ira-announces-new-president/ . In this release, we learned that Illinois, where I am from, gained a new president for IRA, Illinois Recovery Association. Now to be honest, I know nothing about IRA, nor do I know or have any animosity for Jon Jendral. What I do know is that this must be a secret “association” as the website has been taken down, if there ever was one and there is no mention of any on-going agenda to be found on Google Search. Then I did find something even more disturbing, it made my blood boil, that per this website link: http://ptroi.com/officers-the-board/ , the very last name on the board members list is Mr. Jendral’s, this appears he may be confusing the meanings of “recovery” or maybe I am.
Now, I do know something about Professional Towing & Recovery Operators of Illinois. And, if you would research this site and do a little background on the members, you will find Illinois “repossession” companies or people associated with “repossession” companies also belong, you would figure out that they stand for most things that have caused the lending institutions to bring crushing rules down on the repossession companies. They lobby, they unite and they make what they do legal! There is a line and when, maybe right now, the lending institutions will catch our main player’s in our “associations” pleading for crumbs for the repossession companies and that same player helping to victimize them, us too, with greed laws to protect towing companies from being responsible for racking up huge lienholder impound bills because they don’t think they should have to contact the lienholder, in a timely manner, upon impound: http://ptroi.com/legislative-update/ .
Where I am located right now, a DUI, tow and impound on a vehicle on the 30th day would be $1,725.00, before I get paid to recover it. The police $500.00 (on the vehicle), tow $175.00 and storage $1050.00 ($35.00 a day). When you walk in with an authorization to represent letter from your favorite lender, the towing company will still require you to show an Illinois class E permit, repossession employee permit, or they will not release it. That means basically they are forced to repossess a vehicle even if the loan is not delinquent just to stop the bleeding. If the debtor is current, the lienholder doesn’t have a reason to monitor each debtor daily to see if their car has been impounded and the only way to verify impounded vehicles would be to monitor every county, every day, in Illinois and the debtor would have to be driving the car when it was impounded to find out from open sources.
I have been to this lot, mentioned above, and recovered vehicles. I am sitting about a mile away as I type this, and the owner of this “towing service” is one of the main title holders of PTROI. I know 1st hand how bad PTROI is for our repossession industry. Anyone of us would like to repossess the vehicle, price not included in the above, and collect $1050.00 just for holding the car for 30 days. New trucks for everyone! I have been to a PTROI meeting, I was not asked back this year. Now, just imagine how much pull for the repossession industry this creates with lienholders on our playing field. Ever seen someone day dream a little too much about what they would do if they won the big lottery? These are the people creating their own windfall system on our backs because they dreamed a little too much and then found a way to make it happen. They get to charge unknowingly to the lienholder and we knowingly have to store vehicles for free, for a designated time, for the same lienholders.
Like I said before, I do not know Jon Jendral and I have no idea what his agenda may be. Since I have had no luck finding it on-line. I thought, if we were to get public answers, we could listen and learn. I am not opposed to finding an “association”, I do worry that nothing will be pure enough to be worthy of joining.
As I am sure we are not the only state, in this country, that these “leaders of our collective voice” may mix business in, a challenge for 2018 would be to find out what goals your association has on their agenda. This leaves you with the choice to stand up and help or the choice to work on changing the goals to meet the repossession industry’s needs. Remembering, that the division we create within our national repossession industry, creates the weaknesses used by FDCPA, lenders, insurance companies, law makers and the almighty forwarder to make this a sub-standard industry.
Look at the articles of this blog just from the past couple months, to start with. National banks shutting down credit to repossession companies, https://blog.cucollector.com/hot-topics/11592-2/repo-companies-being-cut-off-from-credit-and-banking/, because they see and create discord across the nation, they recognize the weaknesses and powers we have handed them, increasing our divide nationally and turning us in to an “unstable” industry. Some even challenge us to re-organize to meet the changing times, even openly threatening that if we don’t we will fail, https://blog.cucollector.com/hot-topics/11592-2/rebuttal-consolidated-asset-recovery-systems-response-to-punishment-over-reporting-breaches-editorial/. The people they lead to their ways, are the leaders of this industry, which is every owner and worker for this industry that does nothing to stand for what they have/had or worse, we don’t fight for what others aspire to take.
All this leads to the title, Illinois, where are we headed? Which can be applied nationwide!
I believe that, “Nobody” can stand up for us, like we can stand together, if only we could!
As with any references in an editorial, the respective websites belong and are maintained by that website owner’s. The parts used in this editorial are strictly public information pages used to show that website’s publication. None of these pages are shown to represent the entire website nor used to convey the full agenda of that perspective association or blog.
Tim Downs
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