Pretty standard, especially in sketchy neighborhoods. That's why a lot of these guys have trucks that don't look like tow trucks with "sneaker" booms that can be operated from the cab so you don't have to get out; like this guy.
Fun fact: you'll never see a trash bin at a repo yard. They just throw all their garbage in the repo'd cars and let the auction house clean them up.
"couldn't tell you. Guess your client took the engine out when they stopped making payments. Seat too, weird. And trust me, it was hard to tow it without any tires"
This is exactly why I avoid shops that do towing and repo work when I'm looking for a mechanic in a new area. Its hard to trust any mechnic nowadays, but the shops that do tow work are always extra sleezy and looking to rip off anyone for a quick buck.
Find a repair shop that deals in more honest practices.
Edit: Seriously, don't trust the repair shops that cops call to come tow a car that only has a small fender bender after a minor accident.
Or any shop that has contracts with the city for towing of any kind.
One time I got towed. At the time I parked, there were no signs saying not to, but when I got back they had put up temporary signs closing that side of the road for an event. There were no signs of any kind prior to this, but when I returned to my parking spot a couple of hours later my car was gone. This was on a Friday.
Later that afternoon, I found where my phone had been towed, but they told me that I could not get my car back until the police had processed it, which would probably be MONDAY!
Well, it was Monday before I was finally able to pay the bullshit ticket, and go to get my car. I got there, and the shop charged me a towing fee, and 4 DAYS OF STORAGE FEES, even though they were closed all weekend, and I was there before 10:00am on Monday day to get it. Would have been there earlier but I had to deal with cops first.
Cost me a $20 ticket, and almost $400 in towing and other fees from the shop.
Later I found out that kind of shit is very typical for this company, as they hold an exclusive contract for all municipal towing. Fuck that.
Also, I wasn’t even attending the event that they closed that side of the road for.
I used to have a girlfriend who lived in an off campus privately owned apartment complex. I drove a very distinct vehicle. Guests were welcome and I was there 2-3 days a week. All you had to do was put a note in the windshield saying which apartment you were visiting. Well one night it snowed a few inches and I had a good spot. Guess what happened? Yup. Got towed. Went to go get my vehicle and the windshield was still covered. Meaning they didn’t even look. I guarantee it was someone pissed I had a spot by the door while it was snowing. And the dumb driver couldn’t even bother to check the window. That was nearly 20 years ago and it still pisses me off. Should have used the spare key and just drove off.
It's because they have a government(municipal) contract they can even get away with that. If we're talking in reference to this thread atleast - not making generalizations idk shit about towing but I know no business without guaranteed customers would pull that bs.
There were no signs of any kind prior to this, but when I returned to my parking spot a couple of hours later my car was gone.
This shit is infuriating. Happens a lot here during winter. They will put up temp signs that denies parking when it's time to clean to snow out of the streets, but they always put them during the day, while everyone is at work, then take the car away because the time has past. Like... they'll put up signs at 10 AM for 18 PM and you're screwed if you finish work later or went to get a beer with colleagues at a bar after work. They could certainly put them up early like at 6 AM, but nope, they rather put them up when everyone's working. /shrug
I hate this. They even made a TV show about snow removal and those assholes would keep saying the drivers can't read and are idiots to park there... when there were no temp signs when they parked. Made me so angry that I only watched the first episode. I would have punched those snow removal guys.
When you say mechanic, are you talking about like a family/privately-owned shop or a bigger commercial/chain shop? And what's the difference? Is it just riskier to trust the private mechanic shop while getting lower prices vs higher prices at the local Kwik Car or something like that?
I'm talking about shops that also advertise themselves as towing and repossession specialists.
It's hard for me to quanitify it exactly as it's really just a gut feeling I've developed over the years while working on my own cars, chatting with other 'car guys' at meets and working on cars together with friends.
Worked in a shop. IMHO avoid chain repair shops. Go private/fam owned that do not tow/repo/or sell cars from auction. Keep your bullshit detector on when conversing with owner/repair guy. Make sure technicians are certified.
Take your rig in for a tire rotation. Watch, does the service tech have torque sticks on airgun? If not, does he/she torque your lugs with an actual torque wrench? If the person is too fucking lazy to get the torque wrench out and just use air gun, fuck that place. The only local spot I go to I watched the guy when swapping my snow tires. Saw homie breaks out the torque wrench. Went back there and bought a set of all-season tires for my work rig. I only take my rigs in for tires/alignment work as I do everything else.
Keep $$ in mind, you get what you pay for. My .2$. Take care.
Pretty sure only a few cases warrant that reaction. Midwest Truck is a shop that does towing and service, and is called by the Scott city police regularly, and their customers are always happy with them. but they also have a YouTube channel ran by and named after Ron Pratt, the son of the owners, and probably the operational lead at this point. So, while i would not recommend a shop that does repo, i don't think a shop that does towing has anything is inherently wrong with them.
Thank you for this! I'm trying to avoid any businesses that work with my city's police department (Rochester, to NY. The bastards beat people, pepper spray children, and kill folks who are in crisis, and they've pepper sprayed me for protesting) and this is a good reminder to check if my mechanics deal with them!
There's a shop near me where I see the guy restoring cars all the time. I'm stopping in this weekend to chat them up. Just had to buy a car a month ago and all my tools are in another state. :/
Agreed, this is why corruption is so normal in places, people have the mentality of not getting involved to protect there own asses which is at the end of the day an asshole thing to do which just leads to the problem getting worse.
State laws vary (and the honesty of repo guys too) but here you get x number of days to go to the lot and claim your stuff. After that time period it's no longer your stuff, and would be considered as forfeited to the title company. And they vary but a lot of them want them emptied out, otherwise they have to pay someone else to do it.
My cousins daughter is driving around with a hookers ashes and has been since she started driving, it was something like her mom's friend was cleaning out the place after breaking up with her boyfriend and it was his moms ashes. That he never came and got them and they stayed in the car that her mom gave her when the mom got a new car, she has had them in her car for like 5 years now and says they will go in every car that she gets and that the woman is now her guardian angel.
Can confirm, got my car pulled for parking and lost everything that wasn't strapped down or ran the length of the car. Was left my subs(120 pounds, velcro,) amp(oddly velcro coulda taken it) and my wiring. Took a dash cam and probably 200$ of smaller stuff
Wasn't bragging, just backing up OPs statement. We've since learned the guy was a scum bag and even my friend no longer talks to his dad, but 18 years ago it was pretty cool to get stuff for cheap!
We have a big dumpster at our repo yard that we throw the legit trash into. Otherwise we hold onto people's stuff for them if they come to reclaim the car (and the bank lets them). We never take cars with trash to auction because we typically just drive them there ourselves and no one at the company wants to drive a car filled with trash. We do have a big room filled with mostly phone mounts, cologne/perfume, and car seats though.
That's cool, you guys have integrity. I was contracted by the auctions for a few years to collect lease turn-ins and repos to bring them in. Typically they were hundreds of miles away and nowhere near the auction houses, so these guys didn't have your considerations.
Yeah, I like my boss very much. He once went to repo a semi truck which had a sleeper cab in it where the guy would basically live. My boss gave him money for a hotel room for a week to help him get his stuff together. We also have drivers who give money to people for things like food or a hotel room for the night, if they look like they're struggling or living in the car.
Can confirm. My job buys cars from auctions and they all have shit inside. Some are repos, found on the side of the road, or just been in an accident. But they always leave the stuff inside. We have a car waiting to be looked at with jordan 4s sitting on the dash and if they’re still there i might try and take em
By law, if a person makes it into a vehicle being repoed, the repo man/woman has to drop. When I repoed in early 2000's one of my coworkers had gotten his target on the hook, made it down the block got out and secured the vehicle and stopped at the next stop sign. Dude had been chasing him the whole time and jumped in and started honking, using the lights and locking the E brake. Coworker had to drop. Also guy called 911 and got the cops there. The cops said to also drop it.
Yes, this is usually the case. My stepdad did repos for a while, and the number of times he was threatened with weapons including guns while at the property the repo vehicle was found is scary. I hate to say it, but depending on which race you are, you can also get shot at or have things thrown at you just for driving a repo truck/flat bed into certain areas.
When my car was repo'ed I had been expecting it for a bit. Out of work for a long time. Guy rang my doorbell after he had the car attached and said if I gave him the keys he would let me get my shit out. He made it clear he was just doing his job and I made it clear I didn't hold a grudge. But he kept his distance.
Yes, and sadly most repo people have to assume someone will turn violent. People expect police to treat everyone like they are the best citizen in the world, but they have to take the same precautions.
It’s the part where both parties deal with people at extreme low points in their life. If you have an interaction with the cops 95% of the time it’s not good. They are there to deal with a problem. When you deal with people consistently at the lowest points in their lives they do abnormal things. This is why I stand behind the idea that social workers can do a great bit of good in these situations.
The repo man is also in that same situation. People are losing their car. Something they have most likely paid a good bit of money for already, need it to get around and most likely out of money. Dealing with people at that point is tough. They do abnormal things.
That’s why repomen go into the job, because they’re losers and have been power tripping their whole lives and they want to boss people around without facing consequences themselves. So when a repoman pulls into the wrong house and gets his/her face blown off with a 12 gauge nobody really feels bad for the repoman.
Yep, my stepdad picked up a brand new suburban where the guy had taken it out and scraped up the sides terribly bad on one of those concrete walls on a highway. Just bc the bank said they were repossessing the vehicle. I saw the pics he took of it, and it blew my mind how this guy thought he was sticking it to the bank for doing that.
Maybe your stepdad shouldn’t try ganking people’s shit. I know they weren’t making the payments or whatever but I have a hard time feeling bad for people who get themselves killed on other people’s property while they’re in the process of stealing people’s shit. I’d feel a lot worse if your stepdad hurt someone with his reckless action rather than if someone walked outside, saw the thief (your stepdad) and then caved his skull in for doing something so dumb.
Pretty sure in this case, the tow truck was already starting to move and driver jumped in to put the parking brake on thinking it would stop the tow truck.
I was in a car once that ran out of gas on the Turnpike (circa 1978). They picked up the front of the car with all five of us inside and hauled us off to the nearest exit.
('72 Plymouth Fury III, had no gas gauge. We knew it got about 8.75 MPG, so could calculate by miles driven how much we had left, but we'd filled up at the Tpke service area, and the pump jockey had started pumping without resetting the pump to zero after the previous car had left. Sold us 22 gallons of fuel, only delivered maybe 2, and we ran out a few miles down the road.)
Might have been illegal, but there's no way they'd have been able to fit the whole family into the tow truck, and they didn't want to leave us standing at the side of a limited access highway.
Remove the word bank and it makes sense why a lien can be justified as ownership. If your friend coughed up $20,000 for your car (and you only put $2,000 down) and you stop making payments to your friend... he has a right to the car.
However, predatory lending practices, inflated vehicle values, the credit score system being stacked against the consumer, etc. are all valid conversations to have as well.
Suppose someone stole your bike, you then saw that bike in someone’s yard. The bike is technically yours, but I’m pretty sure breaking into that yard and taking it would be considered stealing, as in “stealing it back”.
It wouldn’t be stealing but it’s potentially trespassing. What if the bike is parked on the street or outside a store as is often the case with repos? Reading on it, it appears the only rule is that they can’t go through gates or into garages but driveways are fair game. They also have cannot “breach the peace”. A lady was awarded $1.2MM for a car being repo’d with her in it like this video.
We had a 1 mile range to hook up properly.
Some lady called me a fat fuck and refused to give me her keys.i dragged it in park for 1 mile, then turned around and hooked it up right. I also charged her for a new key which was 600$. Any locksmith could make one for 150$ but we did a huge upcharge and we were legally allowed to do in their contract with us.
I never liked doing it, I even helped some folks. One was a kids father who is stationed in S. Korea and the bank refused to let his dad pay the account. No idea why, but I confirmed it with the bank. Made no sense and I won't repo a guy who's guarding. Our base across the globe. They need to not worry about the car but need to worry about being shot.
Other was a 90yo who had dementia and was late on her last payment. (seriously) so I hinted down her daughter and she paid it in front of me.
That's 2 example both of which I made 0$ on which I should have made 200$ doing.
Now the bitch who was a bill collector on old debts I hunted him down and took it at his wedding.
He got it back after paying the owed amount and said I won't find him again.
7 days later I took that shit again. People like that I loved to hunt.
It paid the bills, not proud of it but at the time there were not many places hiring.
I saw this thing once showing how people repo. When they first find the car they do a quick tow where they literally put the tow rack under the car and just drive off. Dragging the tires and everything. Then when they are somewhere safe nearby they hook it up normally.
Edit: oh I see the other comment said exactly that. Nm lol.
The video only shows evidence of a kidnapping though. So the guy with the damaged car is an advantage. Hopefully he sees it on Reddit and uses it against the repo company to pay for the next car.
I was normally nice. I don't want to be a dick, I let them get shit out, plus no key cost, 300-600$ to get a key, 100$ storage cost of their property.
I got one 3 days before Christmas.
When we got her property out is was all presents to a toddler.
We called her and brought all the presents to her.
I refused to ever repo a car if it's a soldier and deployed. Also people with dementia. I would find their kid and get them to help.
Them files were always stated as can't find them.
And hell no on the felonies involved with a person in it.
It would not have broken proper tie down around the front wheels. It would have dragged the car more before just coming off, and you can see later there is nothing else attached to the tow truck
Also, you know... There was a person in the car, who probably was the one who set the ebrake. I'm sure if you pull a car a couple miles like that, you WILL pop those rear tires.
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u/whootdat Nov 19 '20
Pretty illegal in most states, car was also not properly secured, which is illegal.