By Jennifer Bjorhus and Nicole Garrison-Sprenger Pioneer Press
It's 3 a.m. — do you know where your car is? If you're late on payments, your local towing company probably does.
High and rising auto-loan delinquencies, now above 2001 recession levels by one measure, are speeding up action in the repossession lane. Some Twin Cities car and truck towing companies are reporting a significant uptick in orders from lenders, which they attribute to mounting economic pressures on stretched borrowers.
But accelerating debt collection by lenders appears to be another factor in the rise of repossessions. The country's top auto lender, for instance, said it is cracking down on delinquencies and "moving up the timeline" on recovering unpaid debt.
It's not just the auto industry that's getting more aggressive. Some department stores and retailers are accelerating action on delinquent accounts, according to a Twin Cities debt collectors association, because they too need the cash to pay bills.
All Corey Albertson knows is business is hot after a slow winter.
"Probably in the last four weeks our fax machine started kind of getting bombarded with more repossessions," said Albertson, president of American Towing and Recovery in Hastings.
Auto lenders pay Albertson $300 to $500 to tow away cars and trucks, typically after borrowers are 90 days late on payments. Like other companies, his crew usually works from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.
"That way, most people are in bed and don't see us coming," Albertson said.
Many of the car owners Albertson deals with are families with two or more vehicles who are prioritizing bills and let the extra car slide, although he recently repo'd the cars of a husband/wife Realtor team in Shakopee who lost their Cadillac and Jaguar. Albertson said he's repossessing more SUVs and trucks than before, which he attributes to the escalating cost of filling up the tanks.
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Along with the uptick go disputes. At least one Twin Cities attorney reports more wrongful repo calls coming in. Tom Lyons Jr., president of the Consumer Justice Center, a Vadnais Heights law firm, said he's preparing to file two such cases. In one, a Hugo woman alleges she climbed into her car in her attached garaged to go to work early one recent morning, and after she opened the garage door, a repo crew raced in and dragged her out of the car.
"I think the banks are getting more aggressive on their willingness to wait for consumers to catch up," Lyons said.
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http://www.twincities.com/ci_9239497?source=most_emailed
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