RISC fires back at the ARA

Response to Les McCook’s ‘Open Letter’ on behalf of ARA

GUEST EDITORIAL

RISC has taken a long-standing stance not to debate untruths in public. With that said, due to ARA’s leadership, RISC has been forced to clarify inaccuracies and provide clarity.

Although both RISC and MBSi were both named, RISC will only respond to allegations about RISC Pro membership and the CARS national certification training program. RISC is not owned by MBSI. RISC partnered with MBSi as they have software that validates compliance down to the field agent level.

Read the ARA’s Original “An open letter from the ARA to Agero, MBSi and RISC”

RISC does not mandate lenders require RISC Pro membership. UNLIKE, ARA who encourages and promotes to lenders that their vendors join ARA to meet ARA’s compliance requirements. https://www.autoremarketing.com/subprime/ara-finalizes-partnership-bridgecrest-acceptance-training-and-vendor-vetting.

ARA is more expensive than RISC Pro membership. ARA is at minimum $1000 more annually than RISC Pro. RISC Pro is a voluntary membership that provides many member benefits including education discounts. Does ARA membership provide the same benefits? Only their members can determine value. https://www.riscus.com/agentservices/riscpromembership/

RISC does not promote compliance costs be pushed down to the agents. RISC has lender clients that pay for vendor oversight, onsite inspections, and owner background checks. As such, RISC provides services to lenders and national forwarders where the lender establishes contractual terms. RISC’s staff ensures those contractual terms are met. RISC licenses MBSi’s Vendor Connect software to assist in the management and oversight.

RISC is helping set a single compliance standard for lenders. RISC continues to promote standards for vetting and onsite inspections saving recovery agents and lenders time and money. RISC encourages clients choose a standard that meets their oversight obligations. This is not unlike ARA’s stance. We continually encourage lenders to pay for third-party vendor oversight and NOT promote to lenders that they push oversight costs onto agency owners. This is where ARA and RISC differ.

ARA misrepresents that their training is free. Nothing in their environment is free. https://repo.org/membership/membership-levels/. How are their services ‘free’ if they’re forcing lenders to mandate membership and also charge for additional services and listings?

Why CARS is considered the Industry Standard? The CARS program has been endorsed by lenders and clients across the country for years. Even ARA endorsed CARS as far back as 2012 and 2013 when RISC was offering ‘FREE’ training seminars for the benefit of ARA members and the Industry. https://repo.org/?s=risc RISC has always been an inclusive open organization providing Industry solutions to both lenders and recovery agents. RISC partnered with MBSi so real time education validation could occur down to the field agent level for those lenders who wanted that level of oversight.

CARS training has been around since early 2000. RISC has always promoted that training costs be borne by the agent due to the movement of agents from job to job. We’ve had countless agency owners discuss this very topic as owners are upset paying for their employee’s certification only to see their employee move to another company. As such, RISC training for agents is available ad hoc or at a substantial discount to RISC Pro members at the company level.

By their own admission ARA wants only their program accepted. Thus, the question isn’t about an education standard, it’s a question about ARA’s education not being the accepted standard.

In ARA President Dave Kennedy’s own words, “We still believe repossessors should only have to choose one training service, but until our compliance program is accepted by everyone, we are determined to provide the best value.” So, if ARA knows their training is not universally accepted why would recovery agents choose to take it?

In closing, RISC remains vigilant in its mission, which is to provide best in class value to both clients and recovery agents through its core offerings: RISC Pro, education, on-site inspections, and third-party oversight.

Respectfully,

Stamatis Ferarolis

RISC Founder and CEO