FROM THE INFORMATION DESK AT ARA
“I would encourage you: be informed – knowledge is power.” Matt Bevin
No doubt you are reading online news about the banking, auto
lending, and business world’s response to the Coronavirus, and are considering
how this virus will affect the repossession industry in general…and your
repossession business in particular.
Some smaller businesses will have a tough time surviving a several-week or
several-month interruption of repossession work. However there are steps you
can take NOW to protect your agency:
1.) The SBA is offering low-interest loans to small businesses effected
by the COVID-19 virus. Read about that program
here: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/disaster-assistance Even
if this isn’t something you need to access now, know that this help is out
there, and know where to find it. The repossession industry would most surely
qualify.
2.) Contact your mortgage company, lease company, or finance company to
arrange a 90 day extensions on your financial commitments (“loan forbearance”).
There may come of a time when these loan extensions are mandated by the
government, but this is not yet guaranteed to happen. Reading communications
from the US government, there is a concern to assure long-term survival of
small businesses through concessions by lenders, so this is the right
environment to ask.
3.) If you work for a forwarder or a lender, make a friend in the A/R
Department. The entire repossession vendor supply chain may suffer, but
this would be a very inopportune time for a lender or forwarder to refuse to
pay a service provider for services rendered if it became public knowledge or
known to regulators.
4.) SOP Changes. ARA is in communication with many lenders and
forwarders about the need for our industry to protect our membership. We are
all accessing vehicle interiors constructed of hard surfaces, being driven by
consumers who may or may not be infected. We are working on industry-standard
policies on how personal property inventories and property releases are to be
handled and will promulgate that to the industry very shortly.
5.) Fee Changes. Read #4 above. There is no time in the
recent past where waiving fees on handling personal property makes less sense
than now. Employees that inventory or handle personal property are legitimately
at risk. Our industry needs to handle
repossessed collateral on a HAZMAT basis. There is no time that
better justifies charging the lending community…not the consumer…a fee for
these services.
6.) Most importantly, keep calm. The panic associated with a
pandemic often creates greater suffering
than the disease itself. Keep in mind, too, that vehicle loans (and
the vehicles themselves) are not going to disappear into the ether. When this
passes, the vehicles will still be out there. Even with loan concessions by the
lenders (which were common even before the crisis), the numbers of vehicles
subject to repossession was extremely robust. It will be so again.
ARA represents the strongest, most experienced and professional recovery agents
in our industry. Together we can weather this, and we will come out stronger
still in the end.
J. Patrick Altes
ARA Correspondant
Note:
On this subject, please see distribution sent yesterday by ARA
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