If you’ve even been unfortunate enough to get behind in your car payments a more than a month or so, you may have experienced a car repossession. Banks and lenders employ very skillful guys called repo men whose job it is to find and take your car. They are paid a bounty for each wanted vehicle they get, and they only get paid if they get cars, so you know they work hard. They have ways of finding you and your car and are quite amazing at getting into locked garages and gates and mysteriously disappearing with your vehicle.
Can you hide from them? Can you hide your car from them? Not really. Before the advent of technology, it was possible to hide or move the car to a different area. Some vehicles now include black box technology accessible by insurance companies after an accident. If your car is subject to re-possession lenders also may be able to use the technology, including on-star, to track and find the car.
While out in Los Angeles the other day, I spotted a truck with the latest license plate reading technology, all to find repo-eligible cars, while they’re out parked or driving on public streets. I was on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood when I spotted a pick-up truck with two strange roof-mounted cameras, each facing out and down. I’d seen the cameras before, they are used by parking enforcement to boot vehicles. The little rooftop cameras are pointed down and to the side and are wired to an on-board computer. As the car drives, the cameras scan every license plate they encounter and the user is notified when a problem plate is scanned.
Some police departments are now using the controversial technology on regular patrol cars to scan every vehicle on the road. The police scans check on driver records and related info, giving an alert if the driver is unlicensed, or has a warrant, or the car is uninsured.
So this new technology is also being used by repossession agents. Cars eligible for repossession are probably in a national database. The cameras on the repo guys’ truck scan every license plate the truck passes, they can literally do thousands an hour if they keep moving. If any of those cars, driving, parked on the public streets or parking lots, are on that national database, they get an alert, and hook the car up and that’s it.
So for example, if you live in Philadelphia, stop making your car payments and drive to Los Angeles, thinking they can’t find you there, this is how they can instantly check and repo your car. Even if you hide it in a locked garage, these guys may spot your car driving on the street with the cameras, then follow you to discover where you keep the car.
You really can’t escape a repossession and still use the vehicle. They will find you. Repo guys get into locked garages, anywhere and now with this new technology, it makes it even harder to evade them. Pay your bills, or contact your lender about voluntarily surrendering the vehicle or working out a payment plan. Lenders want your money much more than your car, but they’ll take the car if they can’t get the money.
