No longer tethered to a tow truck and able to use big data to find targets, the repossession industry is booming at an unexpected time. Although the U.S. economy recently entered its second-longest-ever period of expansion, the auto loan delinquency rate last year reached its highest point since 2012, driven by souring subprime auto loans. It’s evidence of how the economic recovery has not been evenly felt, with some of Americans’ biggest purchases — automobiles — being fueled by unsustainable borrowing rather than rising wages.
.. “So much of America is just a heartbeat away from a repossession — even good people, decent people who aren’t deadbeats,” said Patrick Altes, a veteran agent in Daytona Beach, Fla. “It seems like a different environment than it’s ever been.”
.. Relentless scanned 28 million license plates last year, a demonstration of its recent, heavy push into technology. It now has more than 40 camera-equipped vehicles, mostly spotter cars. Agents are finding repos they never would have a few years ago.
.. The company’s goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns. A plate shot outside an apartment at 5 a.m. tells you that’s probably where the driver spends the night, no matter their listed home address. So when a repo order comes in for a car, the agent already knows where to look.
.. for a while, the job remained mostly the same. He’d prowl around in a tow truck, armed with paper orders and a map, just praying the target vehicle was parked where it was supposed to be.
That all changed in recent years.
.. “Don’t make someone’s bad situation worse.” So he avoided hospital parking lots. But he loved shopping malls, especially the last row of lots, where the employees park. Discount stores were another target.
“For getting a live hit, this is the place to be,” he said earlier, weaving his way past rows of cars outside a Dollar General.
.. In the old days, agents picked up mostly entry-level cars — Chevy Chevettes and Dodge Neons.
.. The only cars still rarely seen are Subarus and Volvos — the unflashy favorites of the urbane upper middle class.
.. More than 4 percent of auto loans were at least 90 days late at the end of 2017 — the highest rate in five years. That number jumps to almost 10 percent for subprime auto loans alone
.. Affordability is one factor. The average new car price has soared 20 percent over a decade, to $35,500, while wages have been sluggish.
.. April was always slow because people made car payments with tax refunds.
.. Repo agents are responsible for the majority of the billions of license plate scans produced nationwide. But they don’t control the information. Most of that data is owned by Digital Recognition Network (DRN), a Fort Worth company that is the largest provider of license-plate-recognition systems.
.. officials in Alameda, California, this year put on hold a contract to buy Vigilant’s technology over worries the scans could be used for federal immigration enforcement.
.. Half of Relentless’s repos are found within the first two days.
Two Camps Assert They Each Have Control Over CFPB
White House budget chief and an Obama-era official both claim rights to lead the regulator
Some experts say there is little incentive for Mr. Trump to quickly nominate a permanent director. Rather, by allowing Mr. Mulvaney a year or longer to serve as a caretaker at the CFPB, the president could ensure several years of Republican control of the agency because directors serve five-year terms once they are confirmed.
.. To allow the CFPB to work quickly, lawmakers designed the bureau to be independent, stating that its single director could only be dismissed by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office” and insulating its budget from congressional oversight... Republican lawmakers and the financial industry have long said the agency’s rules and supervisory and enforcement activities have increased compliance costs and reduced credit availability for vulnerable consumers the bureau was created to protect... The pushback has been particularly strong from industries that had previously been regulated lightly, such as so-called payday and auto lending.
.. Mr Mulvaney, a former Republican House member from South Carolina, once called the CFPB a “sad, sick joke” and has called for an overhaul of the agency, including curtailing its budget. Other possible actions include delaying the enactment of a recently issued rule on high-interest small consumer loans known as payday lending, amending a 2013 mortgage rule that tightened underwriting standards and reassessing pending lawsuits against companies such as student-loan servicer Navient Corp.