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Joe Dawson spotted the red Pontiac Vibe near a trash bin in the parking lot of a senior living apartment complex just as his night was about to end.
He grabbed a flashlight, hopped out of his pickup truck and checked the car’s vehicle identification number, matching it with the VIN on a piece of paper on his clipboard. He looked at the license plate, and then checked the VIN one more time, just to be sure.
“That’s the one,” he said.
Moments later, Dawson, a part-time repo man for Hinsey Wrecker Services, had a lock fastened to the Vibe’s passenger-side wheel and a tow truck en route to the southeast location.
Though local repossession agencies say business is up slightly since the economy took a tumble, there hasn’t been the boom in towed cars as seen in home foreclosures.
State law requires agencies to report all repossessions to police to eliminate the chances officers are called out to a bogus stolen car report. Through Oct. 28, Fort Wayne police have received 1,181 repossession calls. Police took 1,438 calls last year and 1,315 in 2006.
Other agencies, such as the Allen County Sheriff’s Department and the New Haven Police Department, did not have statistics available.
“There’s been a slight increase in our repossessions, but that may be just the time of the year,” said Eric Hinsey, the former owner of Hinsey Wrecker Services who still works for the company.
Manheim, one of the largest vehicle auction wholesale companies in the nation, is expecting more than 1.6 million repossessions this year, a 10 percent increase from 2007, said Tom Webb, Manheim’s chief economist.
Though many companies in the area aren’t reporting a drastic increase, they say they are taking more cars off the street.
“This time around, the increase is being driven by economic conditions,” said Webb, who added that 2007’s numbers were also a 10 percent increase from 2006. “In past cycles, a lot of lenders made some bad loans.”
Area repo men say that business has branched out from the lower-income areas of town to the entire economic spectrum – they’re towing from the poor, the middle class and the wealthy alike.
“One day we’ll be down on the southeast side of town, the next we’ll be in Cherry Hill or Sycamore Hills,” Hinsey said.
Dawson said a few months ago he would get repossession orders for two or three cars a month in middle-class areas. Now it’s seven or eight. Preferred Auto in Fort Wayne, which now does about six to eight repossessions a month, has also been in middle-class neighborhoods as of late.
“Everybody has been affected by this economy and job situation,” said Ron Stevens, a partner at Preferred Auto. “It’s just all around the area.”
Hinsey said his business has spiked slightly because there are more banks contacting his agency to get cars, but otherwise the company is doing the same amount of repossessions per bank. He said many of the banks aren’t getting all of the money back when the car is repossessed because the cars aren’t selling well at auctions.
People who use cross-collateralization – using credit card accounts as collateral on a car loan – are running into trouble as well, he said. They’ll fall behind on their credit card accounts and will find their car towed, even though they may be paid up on their car loan. Hinsey said they don’t read the fine print saying that if their credit card bill is late, the car can be taken.
Banks lately have been gracious with those who owe money, Hinsey said. As long as borrowers keep in contact or forward a little money, the banks are more likely to be patient, he said.
That may have been the case with the owner of the Vibe, who cleaned out the car before Dawson had it towed away. Dawson, who zig-zagged through 120 miles of Fort Wayne streets looking for cars Tuesday night, reminded her she could call and arrange payments and might get the car back.
She didn’t seem to care, though, as she peeled her “Pray for the Troops” bumper sticker off the back end of the car.
“I told them today to go ahead and take it,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be identified. “I can’t afford it.”
jeffwiehe@jg.net
