Repossessions flower as economy withers

Strapped owners are seeing lots more cars and trucks go on the hook

In the middle of the night, the diesel rumble of Steve Mozingo and Brandon Taylor's trucks prompts excuses for why the car payment is past due and driveway pleas for more time.

And in the current economic slowdown, there are a lot more excuses for the two drivers from Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery. Repo men across the country are towing away a steadily growing number of cars and trucks from owners who have fallen behind or defaulted on their loans.

As many as 1.6 million cars and trucks may be repossessed nationally this year, the most in at least a decade, according to the Manheim wholesale vehicle auction service, which touts itself as the country's largest. Large banks have yet to report a large increase in car loan defaults, but the anecdotal evidence is growing among smaller lenders and repossession companies such as Mozingo and Taylor's employer.

Based in Wendell, Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery, named for the Wake County community, has gone from repossessing 20 to 30 vehicles a week last year to 50 a week now, according to owner Ron Shirley. In Benson, Don's Auto Sales issued about 25 repossession orders in 2007; in the first seven months of this year, Donald Young said he has already matched that.

"People are falling behind more, so there is a greater need for repossession," said Young, owner of Don's Auto Sales.

Many banks and other lenders begin contacting borrowers within 60 days once payments have stopped, resorting to repossession only after several months when the expectation of recouping money has vanished. Lenders have begun shortening that leash and are trying earlier to avoid repossession, according to the American Financial Services Association.

"Companies are reaching out to borrowers early. They're communicating early to try to help them to reach a workable arrangement sooner rather than later," association representative Lynne Strang said.

For some consumers, the calls and repossession efforts can begin just a day after a missed payment, and repossession efforts are not limited to lower-income consumers who took out subprime car loans, Shirley said.

"We get mostly middle-class Americans," Shirley said. "We're mostly repossessing nice vehicles. I see a lot of nice $20,000 and $30,000 vehicles coming across these days."

Lizard Lick repo men cover a large swath of central North Carolina, blending a flair for diplomacy and detective work. But the car repossession business can bring notoriety and trouble to its practitioners.

The Wake County Sheriff's Office charged Shirley with encouraging an employee to impersonate a law enforcement officer March 20. A felony aiding and abetting extortion charge related to the case has been dismissed, according to Wake County court records. A misdemeanor charge of aiding and abetting the impersonation of a law enforcement officer is pending.

On commission

Although salaried, Mozingo and the other repo men employed by Shirley earn commissions for each vehicle, which helps explain Mozingo's eagerness to rack up 200 miles in Tuesday's predawn hours driving from Wendell to downtown Raleigh to Wake Forest to Rocky Mount, Wilson and back.

"You have more problems trying to find younger people who spend their nights bouncing around the clubs," Mozingo said. "Now, once you found Mama, then you're usually all right."

Nine hours of driving through suburban neighborhoods, mobile home parks and downtown Raleigh netted him a Pontiac Firebird in Wendell, a Chrysler Sebring in the Nash County town of Castalia and a Ford Expedition in Rocky Mount.

Although he said he has a permit to carry a .45-caliber pistol in the truck, the former biker-bar bouncer typically gets by with an imposing physical appearance accentuated by his shaved head and a large spider tattoo stretched across his left forearm.

Before midnight Monday, the sound of Mozingo's truck rumbling up the unpaved driveway set off a chorus of barking dogs from a fenced-in kennel, followed moments later by less-imposing yips of a smaller dog from inside the ranch home on Wendell's Watkins Road. As he lowered the truck's boom to extend a pair of claw arms around the Firebird's rear wheels, Mozingo could see the blue glow of a large television.

Mozingo knocked on the door and explained to the annoyed older man who opened it that he was there to repossess the Firebird. The man grumbled about a time when another car was repossessed, blaming a shady auto dealer who sold it to him with a false title. A 21-year-old woman, identified as the car owner by the lien holder, came out and spent 10 minutes pulling out beach towels, folding chairs, compact discs and a duffel bag of personal effects from the car.

Tears fell down her cheeks, but she didn't say a word to Mozingo until she finished emptying the car, peeling a large decal of E.T. the movie extraterrestrial from the rear window.

"These ain't the best times for nobody," the older man said as Mozingo finished tying straps across the car's rear wheels.

"Sorry for the inconvenience," Mozingo told the young woman.

"It's not your fault," she answered in a low voice.