The Wired Repo Man: He's Not 'As Seen on TV' By KEN BELSON February 25, 2010
BUSINESSES of every sort have been sucker-punched by the recession, but at least one enterprise has continued to grow through the downturn: auto repossession. More than 1.9 million cars were recovered on behalf of lenders in 2009, a jump of 90,000 over the previous year and the latest in a decadelong string of annual increases, according to Tom Webb, chief economist of the consulting arm of Manheim Auctions. But even in this boom, recovery businesses are trying to do more with less, taking advantage of computers and digital imaging. They are improving efficiency and reducing the need for tedious legwork in tracking skips - those delinquent borrowers who are the hardest to find - using technologies like automatic license plate recognition, which allows them to troll city streets and instantly identify cars whose loans are in arrears. The electronic plate-reading systems may also help to reverse the unflattering image of repossession agents, as they prefer to be called. Lampooned in the 1984 film "Repo Man" and typically portrayed as shifty strongmen on cable television, they are saddled with a reputation for a willingness to do just about anything to grab a car, including staring down pit bulls, breaking into garages or playing the heavy with angry owners. No doubt some of this behavior crops up in actual repossessions. But repo men - sure, there are women in the business, but it is still largely a guy's game - can, at the cutting edge, be smooth-talking computer-savvy entrepreneurs who scour databases and digital maps to track down wanted vehicles. At the core of this technology-intensive trend is a set of high-speed digital cameras mounted on the hood and trunk of a vehicle that snap pictures of license plates while passing other vehicles, even at 80 miles per hour. Photos of the plates (including the time the photo was taken and the car's GPS coordinates) instantly pop up on a laptop computer inside the repo man's vehicle. Optical character recognition software converts the plate numbers to text. The process gets more technical: the plate numbers are checked against an encrypted database of delinquent cars, compiled from lenders and stored on the computer, which is refreshed continuously using a wireless link.In most cases, the license plates photographed are attached to cars with no payment problems. But when a plate on a wanted list is found, the computer screen displays further information, including the make and model, its vehicle identification number, or VIN, and the name of the lender. The data is used to confirm that the right car has been found - scofflaws sometimes swap license plates, for instance. If the car is parked, a tow truck can be called in; if not, the repo man can follow the car and, with luck and tact, negotiate a handover when the driver parks. In their short time on the market, the camera systems sold by MVTRAC, Recovery Tech and others have upended the way repo men do their jobs. Instead of visiting a long list of addresses where a car might be, repossession agents are driving through parking lots, shopping malls and neighborhoods in search of wanted vehicles. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/automobiles/28REPO.html *********************************** * POST TO MEDIANEWS@ETSKYWARN.NET * *********************************** Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
