Editorial
I have to vent in order to wrap my mind around this one. We ran an assignment last night for a vehicle that was believed to be a *straw* purchase. The maker was listed as deceased and a third party was supposedly in possession of the vehicle. The vehicle’s origin was from the state of Maine. The client provided info on the third party being from New Jersey.
Additional work was done for verification on the third party’s multiple addresses in New Jersey. When all addresses were run to no avail, we searched for possible relatives and found a new address for a brother that also showed this *third* party having connections to the brother’s address.
After attempting contact and getting a phone call from the brother in regards to this matter we looked into this further after the brother stated that he did not know anyone by the name of the deceased maker, nor did he know anything about the vehicle in question, but he did have a brother by the same name of the person we were told was in possession of the vehicle. I understand that there are many instances where several people can have the same name. However, we had to do damage control with the brother because he was so nasty that we came to his home looking for a person who might possibly have a connection to his address.
Further search showed that the person in possession of the vehicle does not live in New Jersey, but in Mass, and we were in fact looking for the wrong *third * party with the same name. The obit is further confirmation of this conclusion.
My issue is this, the client (forwarding company) is one that pays the lowest repossession fees. They are providing information that they feel is valid without doing their *due diligence*. This information basically sent us on a wild goose chase for nothing since they do not pay close fees, nor *skip* fees.
Why are we working like this? We are forced to work for companies that basically have us up against a wall, either accept our terms or don’t receive the assignments. I feel like we are being bullied by these companies because we all know that if we turn down the work, someone else will do it. It seems like it’s a no win situation and I strongly believe that the banks need to be aware of who they are dealing with when choosing what I deem to be a cut rate operation. Last night’s wrong *third* party has really confirmed the fact that the banks are willing to work with these companies since they offer the best price for their services and apparently are clueless as to how these companies filter information down to the repossession agent and then report it back to the client. Are they scrambling to service the client by making it look like they examined every avenue and giving the client any ½ arsed story to keep them happy. What about those of us who are relying on the information they are providing? Research takes time, time is money…..no brainer.
When the keynote speaker at NARS addressed our concern of fees not increasing in the last ten years by reasoning that the financial industry feels we were OVERPAID ten years ago, so does not sit well with me, nor anyone else that listened to his presentation. He did mention that the industry is well aware of the rising costs of fuel and insurance, etc, but we should not expect to pass this along to our clients due to the fact that there are less of them and they are forced to work harder to cover the responsibilities of many positions. Sorry, not buying that.
Thank you for listening…please offer any comments you feel might fit this frustrating situation…..aaauuuggghhh!!!!
Trish
TMA Recovery, LLC
Phone (973) 726-3700
Fax (973) 726-0700
Nothing will every change. For 5 years I have seen the total destruction of an industry. You talk about insurance? Have you ever tried to use your insurance? They put so many clauses in your policy to reduce their exposure good luck when you finally need them. Everyone…the insurance companies and the clients and our Lpr vendors have the control. I have never seen such a passive industry. There must be a secret reason why all the seasoned officers in charge of the associations don’t want to unite. (Gee, maybe its the fact that the largest association had officers that are shareholders in a national forwarding company) At least one of the other associations had the courage to dismember those that were involved and created a competing model…Hopefully someone out of the inner circle will step up and do what needs to be done. Janitors and laborers get treated better than repossession business owners. Until all the associations become 1 UNION UNITED OR one brave soul leads a revolution against those resisting unification (its coming people so wake up association leaders) nothing will change. This industry must become united. As in A UNION. You may have heard of these. Strength in numbers to get what is fair. A UNION will determine what Lpr fees are fair…what a fair repossession rate is…what a qualified repossession company is…what insurance should cost and cover. Passive repossession companies reminiscing about how good at used to be (funny most of the association leaders operated and made PLENTY of money in those days) and complain about client policies and procedures and passively sit by will accomplish nothing.
Open your eyes people it’s not the clients fault. It’s their JOB to save money. It’s our fault for putting up with the excuses year after year why association leaders refuse to unite and form a union. Someone doesn’t want us to unite…what would happen if we all refused to pay our dues unless we committed to for 1 union to govern the industry. NEWS FLASH FOLKS!!! Do you know that your very officers in your associations are SHAREHOLDERS IN A FORWARDING COMPANY and emails go out to manipulate association voting to keep these people in control? Our Association “Leaders” spend more time meeting in secret and more time MUCKRACKING than actually focusing on the real issues. We need someone whom is ready to embrace the here and now and leave the past where it belongs. I cannot sit back and let a client dictate to me that I need a bond from an association that has more issues than a high school or even worse are more dysfunctional than people on the talk show. It pains me to sit here and get emails from “unnamed” sources just taking the time to bash other members. These people must make so much money that they can spend all their time on nonsense. Listen forwarders are here to stay and I would not have lasted without them. Maybe if the associations didn’t look like a monkey F@#King a football the clients would send more work direct. Would you if you were a client? Our precious clients have the choice between dealing with a forwarding company which at least appear to be a large professional organization with a business model and chain of command and take on accountability…or, an association member that is being told and thus flooding their clients with various memberships…hey man use me i am CARS certified and NAMS member and RISC certified and FLACARS certified and CCARS licensed and RCS certified because RSIG says so and DRN says so and RSC says this means i am safe and blah blah blah…I get embarrassed sending all of these certificates and memberships to my clients. The clients heads are spinning…now we have co-ops to offer them.
ALL THIS WEAKENS US ARE YOU ALL SO BLIND TO SEE THIS??? IN FIVE YEARS I HAVE SEEN MORE MEMBERSHIPS CREATED AND LICENSES WHILE VOLUME IS NONEXISTENT. YOU ARE ALL DOING WHAT YOUE ENEMY FORWARDS ARE ALL HOPING YOU WOULD DO. MAKE YOURSELVES LOOK WEAK AND FRANKLY WITH ALL DUE RESPECT STUPID…WHILE THEY GAIN MARKETSHARE.
We need 1 union with everyone in this industry included…yes that means forwards…accept it or be a dinosaur and complain about it. What they have is a weakness and guess what? They need us! and we need then. We should be a team united not squabbling over gossip…
An association that doesn’t realize the importance of allowing the voice of forwarders is foolish and adding to their own demise. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. We spent an awful lot of time speaking to the head of one forwarder over the past few years and I have to tell you that he is by and far more intelligent and has been far more helpful to my business succeeding with his vast and free advice then any group of “officers” from certain associations that just want to have “members “fall in with the “COOL Crowd” And anyone that has met and spent time with this individual (who by the way goes out of his way to help and develop repossession companies…because guess what? HE NEEDS US-THE STRONGER WE ARE THE STRONGER THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY…
But it’s our clients fault for taking advantage of such weak and passive leadership. IT’S CALLED GOOD BUSINESS I WOULD DO IT TO AND SO WOULD YOU IF YOU HAD THE BUSINESS SENSE TO RUN JP MORGANCHASE OR FORD. That’s the difference between them and us…
But no we will all sit back and continue to be abused. Stop blaming our clients. If you allow yourself to be taken advantage of that’s business. And the clients are doing smart business. The business owners are not and are passive and scared. Oh well…maybe we will talk about this again at NARS 2013. Yeah right…..
Trish, good article. Thanks for sharing…
Trish. Your dilemma revolves around “What is Skiptracing”. To your client, it is subscribing to a “Skiptrace” data base and providing you all of the assorted info. What you need to realize is that a data base is just an accumulation of data from various sources. You are actually the “skiptracer” when you “scrub” the data provided by your client. You are the one who is verifying what info is accurate. If your client provides unverified data and you are foolish enough to run it and not “push back” to your client–you are the problem.
Tbone2012. A national Boycott Day is a joke. What needs to be done is to single out “one” forwarder and everyone refuse to do their work. When they can no longer find anyone to do their work they will go out of business. Then you pick the next forwarder and do the same.
There is a small group of us who stopped working for these ridiculous fees back in 05 & 06, for everything we walked away from “newbies” picked up the work and survived through the crash peak years of 08 & 09 thinking they had the world by the ass. All you were doing was “trading dollars”, and now you are sitting in the same position many of us saw in 05 & 06. Most repossessors are not business minded and as such our situation “is what it is”.
wish i could leave a comment…someone on here doesn’t want certain things said obviously…
Hey Trish,
Iam quite sure we are all feeling the same way right now, and that contract Chase put out last month just goes to show you that the banking industry wants to control us or move us out. To add to your story , we have these 5 and 10 million dollar bonds and insurances that cover everything from negligence to theft and so on, but why is it when you call some of these companies and request info such as a phone number or poe, or d.o.b. they say “we dont give 3rd party info”.
I don’t understand, you hired our company because we are properly licensed and insured and bonded yet you give us a hard time when we try and do a great job for you. I said it before and i’ll say it again , we should just all together and have a national boycott day, turn off our phones , turn off our faxes, and let the banks know that we will not be pushed into any situation that is unfair to us or the industry. Thanks for letting me vent as well.