The American Repossessor

WYOMING – The neighbor appeared on her front porch in Wyoming as a winch dragged a sport utility vehicle up the angled bed of a rollback truck in her driveway.

“Is my van in the way?” she innocently asked Bob Sheridan, owner of D&S Auto Sales Inc., in Scranton. “Would you move it for me?”

Sheridan took the keys and quickly moved the van, clearing more space in the driveway for two of his employees to hoist the SUV on the truck. As he returned the keys, the woman offered to tell her neighbors that their vehicle was being towed.

It wasn’t necessary, Sheridan told her. Within minutes, the rollback pulled out of the driveway.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sheridan said. “The last thing I’m going to do is tell them I’m the repo man.”

A finance company had commissioned the repossession because the owners hadn’t made a payment in 75 days. Nationwide, rising unemployment and the stalled economy are accelerating car loan delinquencies, driving up demand for repossession services.

“Car sales are down but repos are up,” said Sheridan, whose company sells, tows, repairs, repossesses and salvages vehicles. “We’re probably up 40 percent from last year.”

Mike Magnotta, owner of 5 Star Protection Personnel & Investigations, a Greenfield Township security agency, said he and another recovery agent he works with have repossessed $15 million worth of material in the last two years. The haul includes luxury vehicles, boats and expensive earth-moving equipment, such as bulldozers and excavators.

“That’s up 80 percent from what we usually do,” Magnotta said. “It’s crazy.”

Car loan payments at least 60 days overdue were up 28 percent in the first three months of the year, compared to the same 2008 period, according to TransUnion, a Chicago credit reporting agency.

GMAC Financial Services, a Detroit car-financing giant, repossessed 22,252 vehicles in the first quarter, a 4.5 percent increase over the first three months of 2008, spokesman Michael Stoller said. Between January and March, GMAC repossessed 3.62 percent of the vehicles it financed, he said, up from 2.73 percent in the year-earlier period.