a fun day at work

[#1Townie]

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/repopics.jpg

we repod the street sweeper last week. there is no reverse as this unit was not taken care of. we decided to winch it up on the low boy to make it easy for the driver to unload it. good times.

[grim]

Are you a tow truck driver?

[#1Townie]

no i do repo. i drive a tow truck but i dont do the road side crap. we do do some of the private parking tow stuff but mostly repo.

[RajunCajun]

Dam, you repo'd a street sweeper??? Is the city in that much trouble?? lol!

[grim]

no i do repo. i drive a tow truck but i dont do the road side crap. we do do some of the private parking tow stuff but mostly repo.

Nice i wouldn't mind that job!

What qualifications do you have to have to take peoples crap they don't pay for?

[mdub]

Dog the Bounty Hunter Mullet?

[#1Townie]

hahaha no mullet for me. things you need is very good people skills..... and by that i mean you need to know how to read people. you need to be able to keep cool. people are going to yell and scream at you. but unlike the garbage tv shows you need to be able to calm them down. EVERYTHING you see those guys on tv is FAKE. we have alot of laws we have to follow and even more in some counties. also truck driving background is not a must but is very important. also its not really a job for a family man. we work..... ALOT! ive been running 12-18 hour days for about a month now. very little time off and even less time to spend with a wife and kids. also working this much lets alot of people come in the way of relationships. your girl may love you but to stay by your side the whole time is far and few between. so it is a lonely time. also you will work a 12-18 hour day and not even make a dime. but other days you could pull a grand in a day. lots of ups and downs and days that will really make you think twice about coming back. i have found that in some peoples eyes my life is not worth a snow mobile or a jeep. so yeah to find out that your life is not even worth 10k can really mess with your head.

[grim]

hahaha no mullet for me. things you need is very good people skills..... and by that i mean you need to know how to read people. you need to be able to keep cool. people are going to yell and scream at you. but unlike the garbage tv shows you need to be able to calm them down. EVERYTHING you see those guys on tv is FAKE. we have alot of laws we have to follow and even more in some counties. also truck driving background is not a must but is very important. also its not really a job for a family man. we work..... ALOT! ive been running 12-18 hour days for about a month now. very little time off and even less time to spend with a wife and kids. also working this much lets alot of people come in the way of relationships. your girl may love you but to stay by your side the whole time is far and few between. so it is a lonely time. also you will work a 12-18 hour day and not even make a dime. but other days you could pull a grand in a day. lots of ups and downs and days that will really make you think twice about coming back. i have found that in some peoples eyes my life is not worth a snow mobile or a jeep. so yeah to find out that your life is not even worth 10k can really mess with your head.

Yea i figured the crap on TV was bs. Your job's ethics don't sound too much different from mine except for the $ part as i am salary with paid overtime. But this company likes to throw very fucked up hours at me especially when they send me off to service calls where i may not come back for 1 to 2 weeks. Next week i get to spend all week in pueblo!

[Mother Goose]

things you need is very good people skills..... you need to be able to keep cool.
So how did you get the job? :eyebrows: ;)

I know I wouldn't be able to do it.

[#1Townie]

yeah i was waiting for that. im not the same at work as i am in normal life. when i first started like my very first week i had a rough one. im a big guy and i had this ant of a person telling me how he would bend me over like a bitch and fuck me. i lost my temper and lost the car. i didnt get paid. didnt get the car. and got punked like a bitch. i vowed to never let that happen again. i play a bit of amind game with people. my goal on every repo is to get the person to shake my hand and thank me. yeah they get to think about it later how they thanked me for taking their car. i have also recieved tips so im very good at this. but i do look like some of those guys on the shows. i have alot of ink and piercings and besides the mullet i basically fit right in with the image of a repo guy.

[mdub]

i lost my temper and lost the car. i didnt get paid. didnt get the car. and got punked like a bitch. that really sounds like a bad 1st week. Getting someone to shake your hand after you take the wheels, whoa....Mastering the Jedi mind trip. sounds like you can be a good psychiatrist for you next career.

[#1Townie]

Haha im picking up a little sarcasm there. Might not sound like much but remember im showing up after months of phones calls during a very stressful time in peoples lives.

[grim]

Haha im picking up a little sarcasm there. Might not sound like much but remember im showing up after months of phones calls during a very stressful time in peoples lives.

Question do you have to find the persons whom which the property belongs to? or can you just take it when you find it?

[#1Townie]

Well both in a way. We have to find the person to find the car. But once we find the car we dont have to make contact to take the car. Wwe call it in to the police and notify dispatch. We do not have to tell you where the car is or anything like that. Also ifcontact isnotmadezndyou zre informed by the police that it was repod they will not tell you what company took your just the info for the bank to contact them and get this worked out.

[mdub]

Haha im picking up a little sarcasm there. Might not sound like much but remember im showing up after months of phones calls during a very stressful time in peoples lives.


it is definitely not for everyone. You have one tough job my man.

[#1Townie]

Its not that bad.

[mdub]

how many bikes have you taken?

[#1Townie]

Lol this week? 4.

[biikChiQ]

lol.. that sucks.

[#1Townie]

We do alot of bikes and other summer equipment.

[The_Jackel]

Yes props to you sir! Can be one stressfull job because 90% of people are just a pain to work with. Just wish they all knew your doing your job and that your not that bad guy. But I know townie is a good guy and wish ya the best man.

[#1Townie]

Yes props to you sir! Can be one stressfull job because 90% of people are just a pain to work with. Just wish they all knew your doing your job and that your not that bad guy. But I know townie is a good guy and wish ya the best man.

Bro i haavent talked to you in a while. How are you doing?

[Frankie675]

I repo'd comcast cable for almost 3 years lol. Made atleast 70k a year and worked my own hours. I also had 5 points as my area :) But I started to realize that the work had completely turned me into an asshole. It definitely gave me tons of experience on how to deal with people.

[#1Townie]

I repo'd comcast cable for almost 3 years lol. Made atleast 70k a year and worked my own hours. I also had 5 points as my area :) But I started to realize that the work had completely turned me into an asshole. It definitely gave me tons of experience on how to deal with people.

yeah i have seen it do that to people. mostly home stuff. have to figure out how to leave work at work when you go home.

[BlueRanger]

Repo Games

[#1Townie]

Repo Games

ummm yeah no. that show is about the worst one of them all. i did play that game once with a debtor. i asked him very personal questions about me. lol. he didnt win.

[Clovis]

I've never heard of Repo Games so I had to google it.

Seriously?

http://www.spike.com/video-clips/325ai1/repo-games-wallace-tries-to-keep-her-car-from-being-repod

[#1Townie]

yeah. lame!

[bornwildnfree]

What's the craziest thing you've had to pick up? I mean a street sweeper is pretty crazy, but what else?

[#1Townie]

umm there are alot of odd things that i have picked up. laptops. lawn mowers. things like that. but one of the best was those little like arcade game things in bars. the ones on the bar. i dont remember what it was called. but you put a few bucks in it and have a bunch of differnt games to choose from. yeah i had to get one of those. basically walked intot the bar seen it messed with it noticed it was not bolted to the bar. walked behind the bar unpluged it and walked out with it.

im sure the next question is what is the most exspansive thing i have picked up. it was a motor home. i got the file and seen it was a 97. over the years i have come to learn that these things the older they are there is usualy something very wrong with them. i got to where it was and seen it and it was not what i was expecting. it was being stored in a barn and getting it out was no easy task. once i got back to the yard i started doing my condition report on and noticed a switch by the bath room that said open/close. i didnt think much of it and hit it. door came flying out of the wall and damn near smashed me. this is a 97 motor home with air operated doors. i started looking it up online and seen that even thow it was a 97 it was still worth 250k. i looked up the new price for it and it was like 1.2 mill. so yeah this thing was really nice. i have pics of it on my face book. besides that a few cars from around the 100k-160k but not a whole bunch. i repod over a mill worth of heavy equipment once. that was fun and a real pain at the same time.

[grim]

Moar stories I enjoy reading this stuff.

[grim]

Also and I'm sure this is a no brained but do you have a concealed permit?

[#1Townie]

actually no i do not carry. not in personal life and not in the truck. doesnt mean i dont like guns. i have a ar for fun. a 40 for home. a couple of shot guns and a few long riffles. most companies will tell you that it is not legal to carry in a dot vehical but that is not true. what is true is that our insurance will not cover anything to do with a gun. also if they find out that we let people carry we would be dropped. insurance is a big thing in this world. we carry over two mill worth. not counting storage lots and things like that. my view with guns is there is no need for them. we can not take a car with guns drawn as we would loose a large court case. also if one is pulled by a debtor we let them know who we are and what we are doing and if it doesnt go away after we do and we involve the cops. let me warn you people pulling a gun a repo guy is actually a crime. we are not there to hurt you. we are not there to hurt your family. the use of deadly force will only land YOU behind bars. so yeah if you ever happen to find yourself in this situation put the guns away.

the thing about repo like i said before is people skills. now having people skills doesnt mean you get along with everyone. most repo guys are very good at reading people. i only need a few seconds to look at a person and i have an idea as the typ of jobs people do. now this is good info into the typ of person you are dealing with. dealing with office people and say construction workers are dealing with two very different typs of people.

office people normaly you dont give them much slack. you never talk down to a person but at the same time you treat them very different then construction workers. labor typ jobs is all about respect. you are dealing with a more confintational typ person. they are willing to scream and all that good stuff and make good threats. most of the time it is just blowing off steam from the months worth of phone calls. thats fine i dont care. get it out. now office people at first look down on people like me. we dress in nice cloths. i would be a moron to wear a pair of $200 pants into a tow truck. we deal with alot of grease and all that good stuff. so at first its kind of like this slob just showing up to steal their car. one of the main things in all this is to let the person get their story out. everyone always has to tell you why this and why that. now lets face it i didnt end up doing repo because my life went great up to this point.

so we all have our storys and letting them get that out is important. it also lets them get alot of anger out in a good way. once you show them that you are not there to judge anyone or make life any harder for them you start to get alot working for you. this is where a basic trust is started.

from here you tell them how everything and most people are under the idea that they are never going to get their car back. people that dont give us a hard time and work with us we do the same for them. i have helped alot of people get their cars back. nothing feels worse then taking a single parents car during the holidays. at the end of the days it is a job and it has to be done. so one thing that has always been very important to me is working with people that are just down on their luck and need a little help. i think i have lost out on something like 10k this year in storage alone to help people get their cars back.

in the three years me helping and working with people has not come back to haunt me yet. either i get the file closed or the unit gets secured. that is a persons only options.

so yeah im nothing like the guys on tv but trust me if you push me to far i know just how to put you in your place. thats one of the biggest things with this job. once you have got the persons attention its time to bring them back down and finish your job.

we are the pros out there. it is up to us to make sure that this job is done safe and legally. i dont brake the law. there are a few gray areas that i will dip into but i will not brake any law to recover a car.

i have to finish up with my work here in the office. when i get home i will get into my first night repo and also one time i was shot at.

[kalibra]

this is exciting stuff

[#1Townie]

Ok so my first night repo. It was the day after i was done with training. I had oly done two repos on my own and they where very easy. I pulled up to a house at three in the morning. I was looking for a f250. Sure enough it was sitting there. It was actually a real easy repo but my adrenaline was cranked. I couldnt think. Took me three trys to make sure the vin was correct. I get the truck hooked and it felt like forever. I dont think i have ever been so scared. I move it down the road about a half mile and start working on popping the lock. Yeah im all shaking and still high as hell from the rush and it takes me abiut an hour to get in. Finally get in and the stearing wheel is locked and the tires are turned. So here i am at four am tired as hell from the adrenaline dump very far away from the yard. Tires being cocked was not something i was trained on so winged it. Here i am driving down i25 with truck cocked and just going with it. Well it ended well and i was all pumped about it. Next day at the yard i could hardly wait to tell my story and the other gyys just laughed at me. It took a few years for the rush to totally fade away. Every now and then i will get it on high risk ones and im flying solo. Makes me feel like a little kid again. Lol

[#1Townie]

Ok last one for today. Three years ago around this time i was out in cuts of del norte. We picked up a f350 in durango so i decided to run this file for a snowmobile. We spend about an hour trying to find the house. Finally find it and the guy isnt home just his wife. He is a over the road trucker. She gave me his cell number and the guy is a really cool dude. Just wanted some stuff out of it and once i gave it o his wife he told me where the key to chain was. So we this mound of snow in a fiel across the street and try using to load this thing as it was heavy as hell and there was only me and my other driver. Its night out but its not late. I think around seven or so. The snow pile was not tall enough to load it so we used a bigger one right on the corner of this like t street. We get the skis in the bed of the truck and i look over to see some random guy standing there. It catches me off guard and i get a bit of defensive. He tells me "i would appreciate if you keep that fucking thing off my property". Im kind of taken back at the ignorance of this as he could see we where loading it. I start to tell him that as soon as we get it loaded we are gone. He cuts me off and tells me no mother fucker keep it out of my yard. Then he tells me he knows im just doing a job and thats fine but to keep it off his property. I get short with him at this point and tell him its not like we are going to unload it just to do donuts in his front yard. We are talking about a shitty trailer with no fense not markers to show property and all the homes are sitting on what looks like two acres. After i tell him that smart ass comment i make another about how as he could see we only have one more good push as he can see snd we are out of there. I end that with cool? He says yeah cool and walks back to his place. It was the way he said it that i new we needed to step up what we where doing. We get it loaded and and i start to tell my driver lets just strap it down the street this guys doesnt strike me as the typ........... and bang. Loud as hell but i could tell it wasnt a big gun and was not a hand gun. Sounded like a smaller gauge shotgun. We go for our separate trucks problem is we are using my upper work lights as it was dark as hel out in the middle of no where. I at first go to get in on the passenger side of my truck but relizing my laptop and a bunch of other stuff is blocking the middle of the truck i know cant get in on that side. My driver side was facing his house and i wasnt sure where he was as it was really fucking dsrk and i had tunnel vision. I duck and run for the door with my head down. As i put the truck into drive he raises the i think shotgun up and aims right at me. It was weird as i thought for sure this was my last moments all i could think was how are they going to tell my loved ones i died because of a snow pile.

Im really tired as i have worked a massive amount of hours. I will finish this in the morning.

[grim]

Tall tale stories of the repo man

That should be the name of your book

[#1Townie]

So i floor it. My f450 pitching sideways like i was in a drift car. I ducked down and white nuckled it out of there. I look back and see my driver turn the other truck around and get out safely. We stop at the next nearest cross street and i call 911. I tell the dispatcher what happened and what cross street we are at. She takes the info and hangs up on me. It takes the s\o a hour and a half to show up. Yeah one cop. She finally shows up and is lke i tryd to call you but my phone never rang. I checked my phone i had full coverage. Even 3g was fine. Well then the officer goes to my debtors house and talks to the wife. Questioning her about us. So yeah we where the suspects. The debtor even calls me to make sure everything is ok. He even asks about the trucks just to make sure our equipment is ok. Like i said awsome guy. So after another half hour the cop comes back to us to run our names. Im taken back that after two hours the suspect has still not been taken into custody. Turns out my driver has a bs warrent and she arrests him. Not only does she arrest my driver but then leaves me out there alone. Guy is still armed and now im alone in the middle no where. I even asked if she would wait for me to get the other truck loaded. She tells me she cant. In only takes three minutes to load a vehical on my truck. Thats straps and tow lights and all. Nope not even another cop comes out. Im pissed at this point and call one of my cspd buddy's and ask him if this how things to work as cops are their to serve and PROTECT. He says no and i need to file a complaint at the jail. So i drive down to the jail and speak to thenofficer at the desk and tell him i want to file a complaint. He tells me they dont have any forms for that i habe to talk to a sargent but none where on duty. I call my buddy back and tell him what i was told and he tells me this is all very very wrong. Tells me to demand for the sargent or i will refer to their internal affairs department. I do this and the guy tells me to take a seat and wait. I do this and wait for another hour. Finally the cop that showed up on scene comes out from the back and wants to know why i want to file a complaint. I tell her that im not going to deal with her and want to to see her sargent. She then laughs at me and tells me and tells me her sargent has her back. What she didnt kniw was i had my cop buddy on the phone at the time and he is listening to everything she says through my Bluetooth. He tells me to get out of there as she was trying to start a confrontationto arrest me. At this point its like midnight and im still five hours from home. I leave knowing the guy was still out there and now i have cops out to get me. Yeah that was a shity night. I tryd hard to get something done about this butnothing ever happened.

The guy did finally get arrested and the day opted to give him a sweet deal. A few months probation and a fine of like 500 bucks. Our repo association along with several other companies sent letters to how displeased we all where and made it very clear how we didnt feel safe enough to come down there and give live testimony. We no longer accept repo files in that town. I will go with other guys but we roll deap. The judge in all this sent my company a letter and copy of the transcript. He told the da how they failed to serve the people in this case and how disappointed in the system he was. He also retired sfter this case. He gave the max sentence to crime that the plea deal delt. Six months with a year probation.


This happened a week after i was damn near ran down in another small town and i had to take a step back and look at how i was doing my job. After going over both situations in my head for several days i relised how i was at fault in both of these. I was braking my own rules sand it damn near got me killed twice. After that shooting i have managed to keep things civil for the most part and use those examples of how when im not doing my job properly things can get way out of line very fast.


So yes i have a few exciting stories but its only because i was at fault. Not legally but morally. Time to get to work. I have a few more but i have to get to work.

[#1Townie]

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/19969_104487746242245_100000430611888_117309_75886 01_n.jpg

Here is the snowmobile and truck at the yard. The guy in is the brother of my driver.

[#1Townie]

found this in a car i repod the other day.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/2012-01-07_16-40-42_35.jpg

[bornwildnfree]

Wow, this is like the best bedtime stories ever! That's really scary and I'm sorry those cops were jerks. What town was it?

[#1Townie]

Del norte. I blame tv. People watch those damn shows and think thats how we really work. Even dumb cops thimk thats how we work. Problem is they know most of what you see on tv would be illegal.

[mastap07]

working as a rent a cop part time, glad i opened this post! keep the stories coming but stay safe out there!

[WolFeYeZ]

Dang great stories. Sounds like a tough job sometimes. Glad you got out of it all safe.

As for that street sweeper... any way you can give that to CSC so we can drive it up and down the canyons? :D

[#1Townie]

sorry that pic is the day they came to pick it up to go to the auction. i think its being sold up in denver.

[#1Townie]

ok as soon as i find all the photos i have a fifth wheel we repod up in the mountains that had all the axels and stuff removed. that was one of the more intersting ones.

[#1Townie]

ok so i get a call from a client about a fifth wheel and he says he doesnt really know what to do with it. at first im like okay...... thats when he tells me the debtor says they took off all the axels and everything. ive been doing this for a while and i have never heard of someone going that far to keep us from getting a file. i tell him to send it and we will deal with it once we find it.

my first trip to the address it is supposed to be sitting at and there is not even a house. i find a box for info to buy the property but no house. nothing. i dont even see a place to park this thing. i spend about an hour looking all over for it. nothing. give up and head back and we decide to make contact with her on the phone. all she tells us is its up there and then hangs up on us.

we start our paperwork on her and get in touch with her bk attorney. he calls her and she finally gives up directions to where this damn thing is sitting. turns out there is a little over 20 acers there and she had it stashed on the back side off another guys drive. they flattend out a area and clear the trees and park it there.


my next trip i get up there and sure enough this is what i find.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/popoutsout.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/inclineuptoroad.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/fromthedirtroad.jpg


ground is very soft as my truck got stuck just trying to pull its own weight out of this area.

i take all these pics and send them to the bank. at first they are ready to give up but us repo guys like a challenge and dont like to give up. we tell them before they write it off let us search around and find some parts and see what this will cost.

so we start digging around and find all the parts for right around 3k. and trust me at first it was not easy as we basically had to say we need everything from the frame down.

bank approves the fee and we start ordering parts. takes about a month and a half to get all the parts and now the bank is worried that we wont be able to get back up in there untill the spring. i did a scout run the weekend before to see what kind of snow was up there as it is now november and we had some storms come in. i found very little snow. this is a go.

we take three trucks and six guys. one truck for the wrenchers and tools one for the parts and to load the 5th wheel and then mine because of the winch incase the truck gets stuck.

2 guys started working on the axels while two guys unloaded all the parts after that they started working on picking locks to get us into the 5th wheel and all the storage compartments. then me and another had to remove a tree that had grown in after the 5th wheel had been parked. we ran a winch cable down to a large tree then used a snatch block to run the cable back up to the little. this was so the tree or the cable wouldnt hit my truck if anything went wrong.



so we get the tree out of the way and hook up a jump box because they had removed the battery. this is when we find they had removed the wiring and built some kind of power box and left out the pop outs. also they took all the hand cranks for the pop outs so they could not be hand cranked back in.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/wiringtwo.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/wiringthree.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/wiringone.jpg

then we started working on the wiring to figure out what wire when where as everything at this point was home done.

[#1Townie]

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/noaxels.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/popoutsout.jpg

[#1Townie]

so with some creativity we finally get everything working one at a time get the pop outs in the axels get put on. tires in place and the next thing you know its time to get it hooked to the truck. as you could see it sat very low to the ground. we had to get the truck up under it and then retract the legs and put blocks under the legs to get it hooked up.

this took about an hour. finaly we get the truck hooked up and finally locked into place but the trailer was hitting the ged of the truck and the tool box. there wasnt much we could do at this point but just pull. so thats what we did. we pulled and with just a little damage done to the bed and the box that kind of had issues before got tweeked. it was ok thow because now the box seemed to work even better. lol

so now that we had it out of there we had two very sharp turns to get out of there and it was kind of iced over and that was a scary moment but everyone on that repo had alot time in this field. me being the youngest to repo with five years.

we get it out and im able to call the manager on this account as we kept it a secret when we went because i didnt want to get his hopes up. i was finally able to tell him after 3 months 3 trucks and 6 guys costing a grand totall of about 4k in fees for everything we had their unit hooked on we where on our way to the yard.

they gave our company a bonus for the repo and coverd all exspenses. i cant say how much the bonus was but trust me it was good. lol.

so yeah we have a saying.... you can run.... you can hide... but we're still going to take your ride... now we kind of add with or without axels. lol.

give me some time with a few more photos and i can point out in them how we took the tree down.

[#1Townie]

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/inclineuptoroad-1.jpg
this is before and after. this pic is the tree. we couldnt cut it as that would have left it there and we would have ran it over getting out.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/removedtree-1.jpg

this is the tree after pulling it out like a weed. that is right where it landed after the force from the cable pulled it out. it was a crazy thing to watch. also the large tree in the background is the one we hooked to. we would not have pulled that tree if we didnt have to. also we cause no harm to the larger tree because we didnt run the cable around it we used a snatch block. these are tools for our trucks that changes the angle of the winch cable. so before anyone yells at me for what we did understand we did what we HAD to do to get the job done.

[mdub]

so what are your areas for repoing?

[#1Townie]

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/popoutsin.jpg
pop outs now in.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/hookingup.jpg
getting the truck hooked up
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/nvrider/axelsinstall.jpg
axels getting installed.