I don’t get it. I really don’t.
Some creditors don’t want to pay close fees. I believe their argument is that they want to “pay for results”. To that I would say “investing $50 in diesel fuel to check an address you provided IS a result“. Also as a private investigator, even “killing” an address as being no longer valid is also a result. And, surfacing information where the customer might have gone is a result.
So even refusing to pay close fees really cuts the legs from under otherwise intelligent investigative efforts that would be made at the best possible address that you, Mr Creditor, has on file. I know clients would like to believe that repo guys do all this fancy CSI investigative services for free on each deal. Spoiler alert: they don’t. And the creditor is losing lots of their $10,000 cars in the process.
And now some clients won’t pay resolution fees. Those are the cases where the repossessor makes such an valiant effort that the customer winds up paying the account current. The creditor actually has the best case scenario…customer still in the car, account UTD, no hassle in selling the repo’d car for a loss, all that. Creditor wins! Victory dance!
Wait a second….now you’re not going to reward this effort? Isn’t that the American way?
It was the repossessor’s efforts that hauled hundreds or thousands of dollars back into the creditor’s coffers. That service actually should be worth the same fee as an actual repossession. But they get nothing?
Guess how much effort not-so-stupid repossessors are going to devote in resolving their accounts?
They’re going to drive by a few times, that’s it. If the cars in the driveway, and contact might result in a non-paying “close”, the repossessor is going to keep rolling, and hope for a repo…maybe…..on another day. Meanwhile the account rolls towards being a charge-off.
No door knocks. No extra skip tracing. No extra effort….at all. In fact, the client has set up a system that penalizes the repossessor for giving them the best possible outcome.
How is that good for anyone?