Following up on their earlier Press Release, “ANONYMOUS – PRIMERITUS FINANCIAL SERVICES CHOSEN FOR ANONYMOUS STRIKE BY REPOSSESSORS ACROSS THE NATION “, the clandestine group of repossession agency owners who have adopted the name and moniker of the infamous hacker group, Anonymous, has launched their own website ( http://repoanon.com/ ) to broadcast their overall objectives, pending action and a call to solicit repossession agency owners to join in their movement.
While their initial Press Release announced their scheduled strike against Primeritus Financial, within their objective, they take a jab at LPR company, DRN, which appears to perhaps be a future target as well.
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What you all are doing is Illegal and will lead to your demise.. Just wait until Lenders find out who you are. Remember, this is a very SMALL industry and word travels very quickly. Also, don’t think for one minute that there are companies waiting for you to lose all volumes. They are waiting to capture it from you..
Collusion is an agreement between two or more parties, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage. It is an agreement among firms or individuals to divide a market, set prices, limit production or limit opportunities.[1] It can involve “wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties”.[2] In legal terms, all acts effected by collusion are considered void.[3]
You are a very brave man, dissing Anonymous in there own realm
Mr. Les McCook, I appreciate your objection to the Anonymous group and also your comments in the original post regarding the anonymous group strike. My question for you is; What is the ARA going to do if it learns of it’s members participating in this act of Collusion & Antitrust? Will this be tolerated and these members be allowed to keep good standing status with the ARA & other trade associations?
According to the ARA Client Protection Bond, Sec: (2), Paragraph (1) which is shown below in it’s entirety, it clearly states that the actions covered are Dishonest or fraudulent acts with the manifest intent to cause the insured to sustain such a loss…
This means that the ARA Member, “if Anonymous” is to Strike, that is a direct violation and will cause such loss to said customer of ARA Member, which in this case is “Primeritus”..
So there again; My question is, How will the Trade Associations rid itself of Dishonest Members who clearly have Premeditated Intent to harm their own Clients? I believe that a Public Statement from all Repossession/Finance Trade Associations is in order, don’t you?
ARA Client Protection Bond Language–
“2. WHAT ACTIONS ARE COVERED The following actions, causing loss to the Insured, are covered:
(1) Loss of Money, Securities or other property sustained by the Insured, up to the amount of this Bond, resulting directly from one or more fraudulent or dishonest acts committed by any member of the ARA, or an employee of said member, resulting from an assignment by the Insured of a repossession to said member.
Dishonest or fraudulent acts are defined to mean such acts committed by an ARA member, or an employee of said member, with the manifest intent to cause the Insured to sustain such loss and to obtain financial benefit to or for the member of his employee other than the salary, bonus, commission or other benefits or emoluments earned in the normal course of employment and whether acting alone or in collusion with others.”
Windstone–My name is Mike Nikolas, I own Double Eagle Services in Omaha, NE. I have been in the Repossession Industry for 30 yrs. I am a member of ARA, TFA, and AFA. Please identify yourself so we may continue this discussion.
Hello Mike, I am not sure why I am being required to identify myself when the whole discussion is about a group who wishes to remain anonymous. But if it is important to get an answer to my question, I own a small title loan company that does between 75 & 100 repos per month. Historically I have owned my own truck and employed a driver to do my repossessions. However, he is retiring at the end of the year and I was exploring my alternatives. Therefore I visited the ARA website because the organization came highly recommended. I was simply seeking an understanding about how this whole anonymous group would have an effect on the bond and more importantly my business if I were to change course and outsource my recoveries to members of the ARA. Given the fact that nobody seems to want to respond to my question and instead is more interested in my identity – I think I will just continue doing what I have been doing and hire a new driver.
I will leave this comment, at this point we are remaining in a neutral position on this but, Windstone what you are saying in your December 3 post isn’t it about the same thing the forwarding companies and the lien holders are doing dividing the markets set pricing and limiting production, there has been constant pricing controls put in place this last year by the forwarding companies and the financial institution, We are asked to give away our services constantly free transport to auction, we are not even able to charge personal property fees on a lot of recovery’s yet it takes our team an hour to 2 hours to document photograph all the junk in these recoveries, plus we have had some units that you needed a hazmat suit to clean them out. but yet we are told there will be no compensation for that, I will not name any names or call anybody out but there are some serious issues that need addressing in this industry and we don’t get any help from the agent relations people anywhere that I have seen. I always try to be respectful to everyone I deal with but these lenders just keep driving the rates down and I feel we have no representation in the market most days. I think there is a lot of collusion in a lot of places in this industry. I will close with the statement to the financial guru’s of the world. We were not a party to the approval of that loan that you made to the dead beat with the poor credit, so I don’t think it is right for we as a industry should be thrown under the bus every time one of these dead beats defaults, operating cost are through the roof, wreckers cost a lot of money, good employees are hard to find and we must pay them to keep them. That is all.
Dear anonymous why not show your face?? I have no one to strike against because as a company owner I have had the guts to say “NO” to the forwarders. How is hiding behind this hideous mask help you look professional?? Why do you not just say “NO” instead of starting this ridiculous campaign??
Mary Jane Hogan, President
National Locating & Recovery – AL
Windstone
Repossessors have an old saying. “If your mother tells you she loves you, you better check it out”. I asked a simple question. I now question if you are who you claim you are?
I do think you are either confused OR are sharp enough to convolute the ARA Bond with ethics and Free Speech and use it to punch Les McCook’s hot button.
RealDeal – So I take it that you support this anonymous strike, correct? You have obviously never heard of “Lobbying”. For companies to pool their resources in order to fight off pending legislation is perfectly legal and nowhere close to Collusion or Antitrust. They are not acting “Anonymously”. Their intentions are not to purposely tank result as the strike intends to do. That is against all contracts that each agency signed with their clients and if “Purposely Done” along with a group of companies, that my fiend is considered Collusion/Antitrust.
Mark – Not sure I even understand your comment. I am not “Trying to punch Mr. McCook’s hot button” at all. I am asking the question of, Will the associations make a statement against this movement? Also, how will they mitigate their risks against members that are dishonest and intend to cause their clients losses?
You two guys seem to be all for this dishonest way of doing business. Not sure if that’s it or you are just that interested in knowing who I am. I haven’t seen either of you asking who the Anonymous agents are. Why is that?
Hello Everyone,
As an agency owner, I wholeheartedly agree with Mary Jane regarding just saying no. We are not forced to sign any contract. And on that same note, I have sent contracts back annotated with them bleeding red ink and highlighter making notes of things I WILL NOT agree to, and making changes of preferred language. I have been successful in negotiating several contracts to both the benefit of myself as well as my client, forwarder and lender alike.
Unfortunately, there are some lenders who are unaware of what is going on. It is up to us to educate them as professionals and inform them of the reality of the industry. I also feel we need LEO education classes due to numerous encounters with officers in my area that are family or friends with debtors. We have been threatened by sheriffs, deputies, and officers over a customer interfering with the repossession and breaching the peace.
This paradigm shift needed is not only industry wide. It is nationwide, and possibly international as well, because it is a shift that needs to happen socially and morally.
While I agree the fight needs to happen on the forwarder/lender front, the main battle which I believe will win the war, is with the government. Once these problems are addressed to those in power to change it, everything else will follow suit; kicking and screaming I’m sure, but eventually it will.
I personally feel that this anonymous strike is going to do more harm than good. If you don’t like Primeritus, then JUST SAY NO as I did along with numerous other companies.
If other states and eventually the federal gov’t, aided by the CFPB, can get all on board with a professional licensing division, just as you do civil engineers, geologists, building contractors, etc, then we can have a standardized process and education to not only weed out those “fly-by-night” repossessors who cause problems, but also provide requirements that the lenders and forwarders must abide by.
Those that desire professionalism will seek out the proper channels to gain it.
That’s just my 2 cents. Agree or disagree? Doesn’t make a difference to me, I’ll continue on my path to greater professionalism and make the choices that not only benefit myself, but the industry as a whole.
-Danny Redding
Recovery Columbus, Inc.