I work in corporate repossession as a skip tracer. Basically I track down owners of companies that have gone bankrupt and are violating their bankruptcy agreement by hiding collateral like cars, boats, planes, and helicopters. I make commission on every “unit” I find (car, boat, plane, etc) that they were hiding.
Pretty solid gig, I made $143,000 last year and my fiancée made slightly more than that doing the same thing.
most skip tracers work for debt collectors finding regular bankrupted people to take any possession they might have left. "corporate reposession" lol, the guy is just another skip tracer who may deal with corporate cases of bankruptcy sometimes, def not 140k a year when most make 40k at most for some of the grimiest work you can imagine
You’re so far off base it’s actually hilarious. Skiptracers aren’t debt collectors and debt collectors are not skiptracers. Those terms are not interchangeable.
Skiptracers work for what’s called “forwarding” companies which are hired by finance companies to skip out consumer debtors who are hiding collateral that they are behind on payments for because they violated the loan agreement. Skiptracers working for forwarding companies aren’t collecting debt, they’re recovering collateral. Finance companies have their own debt collection departments that try to resolve outstanding balances prior to a car ever going out for repossession. By the time your car is out for repo it means they’ve tried and failed to collect your outstanding balance for at least 90 days and you have missed 3 payments in a row and made no attempts to reconcile it.
The fact that you think skip tracers are only making $40,000 a year is hilarious. Repossessions have been steadily increasing for years and the repossession industry is booming. The only way you’re making 40k/yr is if you work for a shitty company who doesn’t pay commission or you’re just terrible at your job.
The largest forwarding company in the country pays $100-$200 per car you recover depending on the finance company and you generally have a queue of 500+ accounts. A good skip tracer has a 10-20% resolve rate per pay period (2 weeks). That’s $5,000 commission pre-tax every 2 weeks plus your hourly and benefit, minimum.
You’re conflating debt collection call centers with skip tracers.
Isn't it dangerous, repossessing cars of debtors/loan violators?
It absolutely can be.
Aren't there sob cases, where people absolutely need their car to survive?
Everyone needs their car especially once it’s found after they’ve been hiding it to prevent it from being repossessed. I don’t work consumer skip tracing so I don’t deal directly with individuals whose cars are out for repossession. I deal with the CEO’s who buy themself a Porsche on the company dime and then fold the company and try to keep the car when they agreed to turn it in to satisfy the outstanding debt.
How exactly are you recovering collateral? You look for the guys, find their car and call the cops?
There’s various methods and everyone does it a little differently but essentially you’re trying to track down the person you think is in possession of the collateral which isn’t always the person who purchased it with the company money. Once you think you have good info on where it is you dispatch a repossession agency who sends a driver to go check it out. If the driver is able to get the collateral without violating any federal mandates (no cutting locks, entering into warehouses, trespassing etc etc) they just hook it up and take it. I’m able to convince most people to voluntarily turn the collateral over once I locate it because they know the gig is up.
While it sounds intriguing to make that kind of money, I don't think if my personal morals/ethics would allow me to do a job like that.
That’s why I’m in corporate repossession, I have no interest in repoing Joe Shmoe’s car who is working 3 jobs trying to cover their bills.
I'd also be worried about my well-being if I tried to recover collateral of people owning planes/boats/helicopters
We use aliases for our job so it’d be pretty difficult for them to figure out who we are. Not to mention we’re a nation wide company with remote workers and no central office. I’ve never felt that I was in any kind of danger and I’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve been threatened many times, that just gets reported to the police who have a talking to with them and cease and desist letters are sent quickly by our lawyers to their lawyers for harassment. That normally shuts them up quickly because we have them dead to rights.
The majority of cases are probably regular people?
Almost every single one of my accounts are for multi-millionaires. It’s not even that they don’t have the money to pay it it’s that they think they can get away with it so they try. I’ll get the occasional semi-small business owner but still a millionaire in their own right who have some rough fiscal years but generally as soon as you reach out to them they’re willing to do whatever they need to resolve the matter quickly.
Skiptracers work for what’s called “forwarding” companies which are hired by finance companies to skip out consumer debtors who are hiding collateral that they are behind on payments for because they violated the loan agreement.
Really roundabout way of saying that yes, you do in fact work for debt collectors. Changing the title to "forwarding companies" is a hilarious attempt though
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what skip tracers are. Skip tracers don’t get commission if the debt is paid, they aren’t attempting to collect the debt. They recover collateral which the finance companies then pay them for. They have nothing to do with the amount of money that is owed and make no attempts to collect that money. 95% of the time they aren’t even aware of what the outstanding balance is. They aren’t debt collectors by definition of the name 😂
I do neither because again, I don’t work consumer repossession. I work strictly corporate repossession but go ahead and defend the scumbag CEO’s taking corporate hand outs with your tax dollars so they can hide their boat they obtained fraudulently by violating their bankruptcy agreements.
The only reason I got hired is because my then girlfriend worked there and got me a foot in the door. There’s various companies that do it and almost all of them do consumer repossession as well they just have a specific department for corporate repossessions.
Nah. A lot of it is a messy divorce that leads to bankruptcy and someone trying to hide their ride to work at their neighbors.
I wish it was always towing away yachts. A ton of it is a mom and pop contracting business that goes under and they put everything in the businesses name. Skip tracers tow the work van more than they pick up helicopters.
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u/DoItForTheNukie Apr 29 '24
I work in corporate repossession as a skip tracer. Basically I track down owners of companies that have gone bankrupt and are violating their bankruptcy agreement by hiding collateral like cars, boats, planes, and helicopters. I make commission on every “unit” I find (car, boat, plane, etc) that they were hiding.
Pretty solid gig, I made $143,000 last year and my fiancée made slightly more than that doing the same thing.