The Repo Man Is Busier Than Ever

Speaker 1 Last month, our colleague Scott Calvert spent the night out and about in a tow truck.

Speaker 2 We went out, it was a Wednesday evening, it was in a part of Maryland that's roughly between Washington and Baltimore, and we were on the road for hours just driving around with these repo men.

Speaker 1 Repo men.

Speaker 1 It's their job to repossess vehicles when their owners can't make their car payments. If you see them in your driveway, something's gone wrong.

Speaker 2 And they are going from location to location, and they are essentially on the hunt. You know, the whole time, they are looking for cars that are eligible to be repossessed.

Speaker 2 And when they find them, they, you know, hook them up to their tow truck and drive them back to the lot.

Speaker 1 Scott joined a repo man named George Dowdy on one of his hunts. George is 47.
He's been a repo man for about a decade. Yeah, that's

Speaker 1 That night, George had an assignment. He was looking for a Chevy Tracks.

Speaker 1 George got out of the truck and double-checked that it was the right car. He checked the license plate, the vehicle identification number, the make, model, and color, everything.

Speaker 2 I think that's it.

Speaker 2 I think the vent was 911, so

Speaker 1 and George got to work, backing up the truck and lowering the boom on the back. All the while, he was on the phone with colleagues back in the office.

Speaker 2 Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I found it.

Speaker 2 It's on the screen.

Speaker 1 You should have known it. Soon the Chevy was ready to be towed away.

Speaker 2 Alright, let me put some straps on it and get the heck out of here.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 So that took all of like under a minute.

Speaker 2 It didn't take long. I can say, as long as you're not clear with it.

Speaker 1 These quick grab repos are happening more and more throughout the country because these days, more and more Americans are missing their car payments.

Speaker 2 And if you fall far enough behind in your car payments, maybe a few months, the bank or whoever your lender is is going to want to try to claw that car back.

Speaker 2 And what that means is, when all of a sudden done, that means a repossession company has to go out and get it.

Speaker 2 But the way they see it is they have a job to do and they're performing a service that's needed as part of the ecosystem of auto finance, right?

Speaker 2 There's somebody's got to go and get these cars if people don't pay for their car.

Speaker 1 And right now, the repo business is booming.

Speaker 1 Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza.
It's Friday, November 14th.

Speaker 1 Coming up on the show, a night shift with a Repo Man.

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Speaker 1 So, more Americans are falling behind on their car payments. Why is that?

Speaker 2 What's going on?

Speaker 2 Essentially, what's been happening is, you know, car prices have been really high. And so it's been harder for people to afford to buy cars lately.
They're having to take out longer loans.

Speaker 2 A lot of people are buying used cars, and their monthly payments might be higher, larger than they can really handle. And wages have been stagnant.
We all know that inflation has been high.

Speaker 2 So groceries and things like that are costing a lot. And so it's just the simple math that there are more and more people who can't make their payment.
Right.

Speaker 1 And it's just sort of a question of priorities too, right? If you're trying to choose between your grocery bill, your car payment, you know, maybe you choose food instead of transportation.

Speaker 2 Right. I mean, I think

Speaker 2 someone's got to give, you know, depending on how tight things get.

Speaker 1 A lot of the car loans that Americans are falling behind on are subprime loans. These are loans that are typically given out to people with lower credit scores.

Speaker 1 Scott says that this year, more than 6% of subprime loans are overdue by 60 days or more, a record, suggesting that more Americans in the lower end of the economic ladder are struggling.

Speaker 1 And more people missing car payments means more repossessions.

Speaker 2 Last year, there were an estimated 1.73 million vehicle repossessions nationwide. That was the most since 2009.
2009 was

Speaker 2 in the depths of that recession. The Great Recession, yeah.
The Great Recession. Yeah.
And so the fact that

Speaker 2 repos were pretty close to that number last year, that gives you an indication of the situation.

Speaker 1 Scott wanted to learn more about the army of repo men hunting for those almost 2 million vehicles. So he paid a visit to Speed Kings Recovery.
That's Kings with a Z.

Speaker 2 The folks who were involved have been in the repo industry for decades. And when I went out there Wednesday night, there was sort of a festive atmosphere.
The co-owner was grilling steaks.

Speaker 2 They had a fire pit. And so there was a nice sort of fire going.

Speaker 2 And all around were these cars that have been repoed inside a fence with barbed wire on it. But what's interesting to me is when you look around the lot, there are a broad range of cars.

Speaker 2 You know, there was a late model BMW and a Porsche and Range Rover, along with a lot of more, you know, run-of-the-mill cars. So it really does kind of run the gamut.

Speaker 1 The cars came from various parts of Maryland, Virginia, and D.C., where Speed Kings operates. Each car represents a payday.

Speaker 2 They get roughly $275 on average per car. And from that, the drivers get roughly between $75 and $90 per car.
That's their commission. But beyond that, they've got, you know, all the overhead.

Speaker 2 They've got insurance. They've got fuel because these trucks are driving around a lot.
They've got wear and tear and all that.

Speaker 2 And so, you know, I think it's a fairly low-margin business, which is why the volume is so critical.

Speaker 1 SpeedKings operates five big black tow trucks decorated with decals of a crown, the company's logo, and a a couple of slogans.

Speaker 2 On the rear window of the cab, they've got this stenciled lettering that says, creepin' while you sleepin'.

Speaker 2 And one of the trucks also has another message on the back of it. It says,

Speaker 2 don't make it, we take it, which is essentially a message of how they operate. I guess it's sort of a threat or a promise, depending on how you look at it.

Speaker 1 And you got to ride on one of these tow trucks. What was it like inside?

Speaker 2 My first impression when I climbed in was that this is like a mobile command center. You know,

Speaker 2 it was surprising to me. Maybe it shouldn't have been, but I wasn't, I was struck by the

Speaker 2 technology that he had on board.

Speaker 1 This is not your grandfather's repo man.

Speaker 2 Right, definitely not.

Speaker 1 The cabin of the tow truck looks almost like a cop car.

Speaker 1 There was a laptop on the center console and two smartphones glowing with apps that showed possible locations for cars.

Speaker 1 This mobile command center helps repo men like George Dowdy track down their targets.

Speaker 1 After George found the Chevy tracks, he set his sights on another target, a Toyota Corolla. The apps pointed him to where the Corolla might be parked, an apartment complex in Virginia.

Speaker 2 Main Street. So, this place here, it's huge.
This apartment complex is very large. Oh, wow.
We tend to get quite a few cars up for possession in the era.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's a big parking lot. And

Speaker 2 they even have their own 7-Eleven.

Speaker 1 As George drives around the lot, a beeping sound fills the cabin. It's coming from the laptop.

Speaker 1 Mounted to either side of the truck are a set of cameras. They're there to scan every single license plate that comes into view.

Speaker 2 And that's connected to a laptop that's in the cab of the tow truck. And all of this data is flowing into the laptop sort of in real time.

Speaker 2 And every time it goes past a car, it goes ding, ding, ding. It almost sounds like a supermarket scanner.

Speaker 2 And just to give you an idea, one of the drivers, the agents, repossession agents, that night, over the course of that one evening, his trucks, cameras, scanned and photographed about 21,000 license plates.

Speaker 1 21,000?

Speaker 2 21,000. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, just in one evening.

Speaker 1 Every time a car is scanned, the laptop cross-references it with a database of cars marked for repossession. George keeps an ear on the beeps coming from his laptop.

Speaker 2 When it gets what it thinks it might be a hit, it makes a different sound. It's sort of a squawk.

Speaker 2 And the screen of the laptop, which shows the pictures of these cars as they're photographing them, that screen turns red. And that's an indication that this might be a car that they're looking for.

Speaker 1 In the parking lot, the squawk never comes. The Corolla is somewhere else.
And George decides to move on. He'll get the Corolla some other day.

Speaker 1 George gets on the highway, en route to another potential target. And on the way there, he hears it.

Speaker 2 That's the noise you get when your gun hit. Okay, so that was like the little siren sound we just heard.

Speaker 2 What did it, and you don't know what it hit yet? No.

Speaker 1 George looks around, trying to find the car that triggered the alarm, but he doesn't see it.

Speaker 2 Okay, I guess we lost it. Okay.

Speaker 2 Could it have been going the other direction?

Speaker 2 It was.

Speaker 2 Ah, it was a 2023 Camry going the other direction. See, when you scan the car in the highway,

Speaker 2 it does no good. Because it's just gone.
It's just gone. The car's not going to be there in that same spot.
And I guess if you happen to drive by it tomorrow when it's parked,

Speaker 2 it'll still go off. Right, if it's parked, great.
You know, this car is parked.

Speaker 1 Even though more cars may be up for repossession these days, George says his job is tough.

Speaker 2 It's like, it reminds me of Warswaldo.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And it's like, because you think about it,

Speaker 2 cars are mass-produced.

Speaker 2 And it's like you think about Toyotas and Hondas. How many Toyotas and Hondas do they sell sell a year? Right? And so it's like you're trying to find one that looks like a million.
Right.

Speaker 1 For repo men, that means scanning thousands of cars a night is key. It ups the volume.
Later that night, Scott rode along with another repo man, Jay Cavanis.

Speaker 2 The business goes up and down, up and down.

Speaker 2 It means you gotta stay. We try our best to stay consistent.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 that's the whole plan of staying consistent.

Speaker 1 Jay is 33 and has been in the business his entire career. When Scott met up with him, Jay had just brought in a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Speaker 2 And are you finding that that has been easier the last couple years or not? Like is it like is it

Speaker 2 easy searching for people? Yeah.

Speaker 2 You search for something that's always moving, which is cars. It's hard to catch people.
Right.

Speaker 1 Jay says he works 12 to 13 hour shifts, constantly looking for targets.

Speaker 2 If you stay consistent, you're just searching, you're looking, you're going to find something. Yeah.
Like even with the cameras, I might just, oh, I'm going to go go to Walmart and scan today.

Speaker 2 I'm going to find something at Walmart. Oh, that sometimes happens all the time.
Shopping centers, parking rides. How much of a game changer are the cameras? Oh, I love it.

Speaker 2 It's like my own little office.

Speaker 2 It's going to lead me to you.

Speaker 2 It's going to lead me to something.

Speaker 1 Beyond the nightly hunt for the right car, repo men like Jay and George can occasionally run into the owners. And that doesn't always end well.

Speaker 1 That's after the break.

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Speaker 4 It's about finding someone with the right skills and background who can move your business forward. And a good way to start your search is with Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

Speaker 4 It's one of the best ways to make your job post stand out and reach the candidates you're looking for faster.

Speaker 4 According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 90% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. Plus, there's no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts.

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Speaker 1 His night with the repo men got my colleague Scott thinking about the role they play in society and the dangers they face.

Speaker 2 It's they're not popular, certainly with the people whose cars they're trying to take. It also, to me, underscored the fact that it is, it's hard.
It's hard work.

Speaker 2 Even though it's sort of boom times for the repo industry, right?

Speaker 2 And there's so many cars that are being repossessed and so many cars that are out there for the taking, you know, it still very much is this game of hide and seek.

Speaker 2 You know, the cars are out there, right? You just have to find them. People hide them in garages, they park them behind fences.

Speaker 2 And so it's really difficult work, you know, and that's even with all of this technology that they have supporting them.

Speaker 1 Scott says that there's a good reason that the Speed Kings guys operate at night and that one of their mottos is creeping while you sleep in. They want to avoid confrontation.

Speaker 2 Well, there's just an inherent danger to this job because if you think about it, you know, when you go to repossess a car, this is somebody who is going to lose their means of getting around.

Speaker 2 You know, how are they going to get their kids to school? How are they going to get themselves to work?

Speaker 2 And they might be in a pretty dark spot as it is because they're, you know, behind in their car payments.

Speaker 2 And then you add to that that, you know, here comes this tow truck at two in the morning, and the potential for confrontation is really high

Speaker 1 george dowdy has had to face his fair share of hostile owners once george was out on a job in rural virginia and things got heated

Speaker 2 i pulled out in the driveway and i found the vehicle was sitting in the driveway i back up to the vehicle gentleman comes out

Speaker 2 the car was not his It was registered to his girlfriend.

Speaker 2 And I explained to him whose car, you know, I said, said, I'm here and we possessed her car. And he's like, well, you're not taking the car.
At this point, I was already hooked up to the car.

Speaker 2 And he says, I'm going to get my gun. And then he tells her to go close the gate.

Speaker 2 I'm out in the middle of nowhere. Close the gate, like, basically lock you in.
Lock me in on their property.

Speaker 2 She ran to the gate, locked the gate, and stood at the gate.

Speaker 2 The man said, lock the gate. And so suddenly, you know, George and his truck were kind of trapped.

Speaker 2 And what he told me was that he happened to be on the phone with the co-owner of Speed Kings at the time. And they called the sheriff.
The sheriff came out. Everything ended peacefully.

Speaker 2 But again, that gives you an idea that it's pretty dangerous.

Speaker 1 Scott says that gun violence is a real problem for repo men nationwide.

Speaker 2 I mean, there's a website that tracks the repossession industry nationally.

Speaker 2 And according to them, in the last couple of years, there have been at least 10 repo agents killed in the line of duty nationwide. And so the danger is real.

Speaker 1 How do these guys stay safe?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, I think, first of all, if they sense that things are potentially going to go south, they will take off and come back another day.

Speaker 2 And George is saying that he sort of prides himself on being able to kind of de-escalate and kind of, you know, lower the temperature if he gets into a tense situation.

Speaker 2 I've never been shot at, thank God.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But like I said, I've had confrontation.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 me being me, I've always talked my way out of it. Because, you know, as they said, there's no repo that's worth jeopardizing anybody's personal safety over

Speaker 2 something materialistic. Okay? There's no need to...

Speaker 2 Because it's materialistic, it can be replaced. Anything can be replaced, except your life.

Speaker 2 Your time and your life are the only things that can't be replaced.

Speaker 1 Here's Jay Kavanis again.

Speaker 2 When I first started it, I used to get a little nervous.

Speaker 2 Oh, they're going to come outside and stuff like that. But like now,

Speaker 2 you're going to come outside and what? Do what? Give me the key? You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 It's all along knowing how to talk to people.

Speaker 2 Once you learn how to talk to people and you get people the respect that you want, you normally gonna get what you kick out. Have you ever been shot at? Yeah, I haven't shot at.
You have been?

Speaker 2 But obviously not hit. No, no, no.

Speaker 2 Alright, that's kind of, you know, that's like kind of close for coming.

Speaker 2 He might not have been shooting at me. He might have been shot in the air, but I don't, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it comes with the terrorist order. Right.
I mean, because you know, obviously, they're seeing their means of transportation basically being

Speaker 2 you better change somebody's life.

Speaker 2 Change their means to get around, get the kids around, do what they need to do. Right, I mean, are you sympathetic? Uh,

Speaker 2 I used to be a lot, but I came to a realization that everybody has a choice.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 people do crazy things,

Speaker 2 People go gamble before they pay their car note.

Speaker 2 Okay, so it's not always somebody who just

Speaker 2 simply

Speaker 2 nine out of ten people know we coming. They know that the bank is looking for their car.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So it's like a hide-and-seek game. Right, I mean, because people are having a hard time.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's good for that's good for your business. You got people having a hard time, but you got people who also isn't having a hard time and choose not to pay it.

Speaker 1 What does the situation for the repo industry sort of tell us about the economy right now?

Speaker 1 I'm just trying to think, like, there is sympathy for people who are having to do a really difficult job, but I'm almost like, should we be rooting for the repo industry to not be doing well?

Speaker 1 Because that means like fewer Americans are delinquent on their loans? Like, there's sort of an interesting kind of dynamic here.

Speaker 2 Well, there is. I mean, I think, you know, if you have more people who are falling behind in their car car payments, that's problematic for obvious reasons, right?

Speaker 2 They're struggling, and that's going to have ripple effects throughout the economy. And, you know, depending on which way this goes, things could get worse.
And

Speaker 2 so it's a warning sign for the U.S. economy, for sure.

Speaker 2 I think you could probably make a case, broadly speaking, that in an ideal world, maybe the repo industry wouldn't exist because, you know, that means everybody's able to make their car payments and keep their car.

Speaker 2 Certainly for those who are in the industry, it's their livelihood. It's the way that they make the money that they need to pay for their car and everything else.

Speaker 2 And, you know, they see themselves, again, as playing a necessary, if maybe a little bit unpalatable, role in our economy.

Speaker 2 But they're out there and there's a need for what they do as far as they're concerned.

Speaker 1 That's all for today, Friday, November 14th. Additional reporting in this episode by Ryan Felton and Ben Glickman.
The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 1 The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Rachel Humphreys, Isabella Japal, Sophie Kottner, Ryan Knutson, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez-DeLarosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez-Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhi, Jivika Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whelan, Tatiana Zemis, and me, Jessica Mendoza.

Speaker 1 Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley.
Additional music this week from Peter Leonard, Nathan Singapak, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Speaker 1 Fact-checking this week by Mary Mathis.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening. See you on Monday.

Speaker 2 Did you ever have you ever seen the movie Repo Man from the 1980s?

Speaker 1 I haven't actually.

Speaker 1 Is it good?

Speaker 2 Well, I haven't seen it either, but I have been watching some scenes online. And, you know, there's one scene that has a line that a lot of its really strong big fans like to quote.

Speaker 2 Wow! That was intense!

Speaker 2 Repo Man's always intense. Come on, let's go get a drink.

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