11 ms·

How technology has redefined the job of the repo man

99 points by fern12 8y ago

nostromo 8y ago
> The company’s goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns. That's horrifying. It reminds me of how social security numbers evolved from something narrow in purpose to something that can be used to track an individual's every detail. Now license plates are evolving into a tool that is used to build databases of every individual's movement.
- sambull 8y ago
  That's how the mafia used to work. Watch people during their fun times. Reveal patterns, then extort them.
  - vertexFarm 8y ago
    Used to, eh?
nimbius 8y ago
I work as an automotive mechanic, and while I maintain a relatively neutral opinion on repo men, sometimes the amateurs that crawl out of the weeds are absurd. Ive had repo agents posing as customers looking to "get their car," which is pretty funny, but ive also seen agents harassing the front office staff with demands for a vehicle being worked on. Sometimes a driver will park their car to suddenly find theyve been "hitched up" to a seedy looking tow apparatus on the back of an often ironically leased light duty truck. Repo agents in this case show up as "innocent" middle men while a driver pleads and begs over the phone with a lender to not tow their car for any number of humiliating excuses. Ive also had cars towed to the shop i work at complaining that the vehicle does not start, which are sometimes the saddest jobs to work on as automotive dealerships typically install an ECU interlock somewhere in the vehicle to remotely disable or neuter certain features of the car if you dont make a payment. I usually remove the devices, not out of a kindness to the customer but because they can make diagnosing real problems with vehicles infuriatingly difficult. They can also be triggered to honk the horn at random or odd intervals as a reminder to pay the piper, which turns a regular shift in the garage into a massive headache trying to track down the upset BMW or Mercedes that wont stop making racket in the lot.
- foobarian 8y ago
  > which turns a regular shift in the garage into a massive headache trying to track down the upset BMW or Mercedes that wont stop making racket in the lot. Wow, that is wild.
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  > Ive had repo agents posing as customers looking to "get their car," which is pretty funny, but ive also seen agents harassing the front office staff with demands for a vehicle being worked on. Sometimes a driver will park their car to suddenly find theyve been "hitched up" to a seedy looking tow apparatus on the back of an often ironically leased light duty truck. Repo agents in this case show up as "innocent" middle men while a driver pleads and begs over the phone with a lender to not tow their car for any number of humiliating excuses. So, are these not actual repo men, but just people trying to steal a car?
- lazerpants 8y ago
  > automotive dealerships typically install an ECU interlock Is there somewhere where I can learn more about this? My quick Google search didn't lead to much, mostly people talking about ignition interlock devices for DUIs...
saagarjha 8y ago
Wow, everything in this article is horrifying: > the rising deployment of remote engine cutoffs and GPS locators in cars Wait, so people can remotely track my car or turn it off? This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all. > The companyʼs goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns…“Itʼs kind of scary, but itʼs amazing,” said Alana Ferrante, chief executive of Relentless. No, it's just scary. > Repo agents are responsible for the majority of the billions of license plate scans produced nationwide. But they donʼt control the information. Most of that data is owned by Digital Recognition Network (DRN), a Fort Worth company that is the largest provider of license-plate-recognition systems. And DRN sells the information to insurance companies, private investigators — even other repo agents. As if you couldn't make a bad situation worse: let's give all the information to a private company that has every reason to resell all that data.
- Eric_WVGG 8y ago
  > This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all. It's been done. https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/ https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...
  - StanislavPetrov 8y ago
    As Michael Hastings well knows. >Hastings, an acclaimed war correspondent and vocal critic of government mass surveillance, died in the early hours of Tuesday, June 18, 2013, when his Mercedes C250 Coupe apparently lost control and burst into flames before slamming into a palm tree. >Witnesses to the accident, which occurred around 4:25am in the leafy Hancock Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles, said the car appeared to be travelling at top speed and was creating “sparks and flames” before it went off the road. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzWHZngfONo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzWHZngfONo
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      If one has that sort of enemy, one should drive a manual transmission.
iampims 8y ago
Disgusting. We need to rethink “privacy and surveillance” in the age of 24/7 cameras and image analysis.
modzu 8y ago
unrelated, but REPO MAN (1984) is an excellent film.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  I watched it, and don't get all the fuss.
  - Finnucane 8y ago
    The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Repo Men (2010) is even better. In the future, beyond repossessing cars, why not also repossess artificial organ replacements?
  - X-Istence 8y ago
    Repo! The Genetic Opera IMHO is even better with a similar premise.
  - tzs 8y ago
    >> unrelated, but REPO MAN (1984) is an excellent film > Repo Men (2010) is even better That's not a very widely shared assessment. Repo Man (1984): 98% on RT, average rating 8/10. Ebert 3/4. IMDB 6.9/10. 75% Metacritic. Repo Men (2010): 22% RT, average rating 4.2/10. Ebert 2/4. IMDB 6.3/10. 32% Metacritic. 1984 had a lot of science fiction movies: The Terminator, Dune, The Last Starfighter, The Adventurers of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Starman, Repo Man, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; Night of the Comet, The Philadelphia Experiment, 1984, The Ice Pirates, Supergirl, The Brother from Another Planet, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Dreamscape, Firestarter, Electric Dreams, C.H.U.D, The Return of Godzilla, The Toxic Avenger, and more.
wallflower 8y ago
At least 10 years ago, a friend forgot where he parked his car in the Airport parking lot after a long trip. When he went to the booth embarrassed to tell them this, they said it was no big deal and did a quick tap-tap-tap on the keyboard using his license plate number to determine its exact location. They apparently scanned all the license plates in all their lots twice a day.
- EmployedRussian 8y ago
  In 2001 my car was towed from LAX parking lot because they checked the plate (they told me they scan all plates daily) and it came back as registered to a different make. Turns out the dealer made a single-letter mistake in VIN when registering the car with DMV, and there is no check digit to reject invalid VINs.
  - gruez 8y ago
    >there is no check digit to reject invalid VINs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number#Check-digit_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number#... ?
  - phil21 8y ago
    There is a check digit. Most likely someone at the dealer copy/pasted the wrong VIN into the form.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    Even when you've got a check digit, if you make 100 typos a year only 90 of them will get caught.
  - Bromskloss 8y ago
    In whose interest is it to scan and tow such cars?
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > They apparently scanned all the license plates in all their lots twice a day. I'd bet this is to prevent people from claiming they lost their ticket after parking in the garage for a month in order to pay the daily max rate instead of a month's worth of fees.
alexpotato 8y ago
Good time to point out that all cars entering or exiting New York City via a bridge or tunnel are scanned.
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  Why tunnels and bridges, specifically?
  - _salmon 8y ago
    I assume that's where the scanners are mounted.
  - nkrisc 8y ago
    Wild speculation: Bridges and tunnels are more sensitive infrastructure, this is done for security reason. In case of some kind of emergency they could tell how many people/who might be in there. Collect data on usage that might be relevant to the unique maintenance needs of bridges and tunnels. On an island like Manhattan, for example, bridges and tunnels represent many of the ways in and out, so would be natural places to surveil for various reason.
  - alexpotato 8y ago
    They act as natural choke points since Manhattan is an island. In turn, that means that you know who entered or exited Manhattan and can therefore deduce who is currently still there. I would imagine in the event of an incident related to a vehicle, you could start with the list of recent entrants and use it to start building a timeline.
djrogers 8y ago
I honestly don’t get why anyone goes in to debt to buy a car in this day and age. You can buy a car (or truck) for $3000 that will last several years without requiring any huge mechanic bills or exotic maintenance - heck, I’ve done it. I would much rather take the bus/bike/walk and save up $500/mo for 6 months to be a free man than buy or lease a car for $500/mo and be a space to my creditors. Besides, hoopties can be charming :-)
- montecarl 8y ago
  I will be in need of a car soon. I don't drive much but just need something that works and is safe. Do you have any tips on how you find your $3000 cars? Are you a car guy?
  - ncallaway 8y ago
    My general approach is to look at craigslist (one example query: https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=used+car&sort=rel&max_price=4000 https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=used+car&sor...) to get a sense of the market. Spend a little while (maybe a week) checking in on a search like that to get a sense of the market. Once you feel like you've got a sense of what "normal" prices are for cars in your price range, get a consumer reports subscription†. Use CR to evaluate the make, model, and year of any car that you're considering for safety and reliability. Reliability is a pretty important indicator for cars in this price range, because you'll tend to be looking at things with higher milage. Then, watch craigslist for vehicles that seem like a good deal. With the information you have, you should also be in a good position to call local used car dealerships and tell them what you're looking for. You should have enough information to tell when they're offering you a reasonable deal. If you have the time and can afford to try and be a little picky. Obviously, if you need a car you need a car, but if you can afford to take your time it'll usually be worth it. Prefer cars that seem like they've been well-maintained over their life and prefer cars that come from people who have kept documentation of maintenance performed on the car. Finally, no matter where you're considering buying from—dealer or individual—take the car to a mechanic for a pre-sale inspection. This is a common service most mechanics offer. Make sure you're the one selecting the mechanic and the one paying the mechanic. That ensures that you should get a fairly objective assessment of the car itself. This step isn't as important if you're familiar with cars, but if you're not a car guy (as I'm not), it's totally worth the price to find out if there are any immediate or upcoming service issues that will be necessary for the car. †I _think_ you can get a monthly subscription and cancel after one-month, but you should double-check that. If you can get it for a single month, the $7.95 is totally worth it. If you have to get it for a full-year at a time, evaluate the cost/benefit based on your budget.
clumsysmurf 8y ago
> DRN sells the information to insurance companies, private investigators ... I wonder if anyone in the insurance industry could comment on how this data is used by them.
- patio11 8y ago
  Not in the insurance industry, but as someone who is aware of how they price risk: the zip code you park in at night heavily influences loss rates (and therefore premiums) and self-reports of it are not always accurate.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    Different types of insurance price comprehensive in radically different ways. I was considering getting classic car insurance from a different company than my regular insurance. They heavily penalize you if you park in the city, and especially without an individual locked garage. That kind of makes sense, but my regular insurance penalizes you if you park somewhere other than you live, even if it's in a low-crime suburb and not exposed. They are fine with parking in the middle of the city. So the optimal strategy depends on which insurance you go with because they have very different prejudices.
anfilt 8y ago
Not a fan of the guy but it makes sense why steves jobs would "supposedly" keep buying a new car to avoid getting license plates.

99 points by fern12 8y ago

> The company’s goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns. That's horrifying. It reminds me of how social security numbers evolved from something narrow in purpose to something that can be used to track an individual's every detail. Now license plates are evolving into a tool that is used to build databases of every individual's movement.

sambull 8y ago
That's how the mafia used to work. Watch people during their fun times. Reveal patterns, then extort them.
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  Used to, eh?

nimbius 8y ago

I work as an automotive mechanic, and while I maintain a relatively neutral opinion on repo men, sometimes the amateurs that crawl out of the weeds are absurd. Ive had repo agents posing as customers looking to "get their car," which is pretty funny, but ive also seen agents harassing the front office staff with demands for a vehicle being worked on. Sometimes a driver will park their car to suddenly find theyve been "hitched up" to a seedy looking tow apparatus on the back of an often ironically leased light duty truck. Repo agents in this case show up as "innocent" middle men while a driver pleads and begs over the phone with a lender to not tow their car for any number of humiliating excuses. Ive also had cars towed to the shop i work at complaining that the vehicle does not start, which are sometimes the saddest jobs to work on as automotive dealerships typically install an ECU interlock somewhere in the vehicle to remotely disable or neuter certain features of the car if you dont make a payment. I usually remove the devices, not out of a kindness to the customer but because they can make diagnosing real problems with vehicles infuriatingly difficult. They can also be triggered to honk the horn at random or odd intervals as a reminder to pay the piper, which turns a regular shift in the garage into a massive headache trying to track down the upset BMW or Mercedes that wont stop making racket in the lot.

foobarian 8y ago
> which turns a regular shift in the garage into a massive headache trying to track down the upset BMW or Mercedes that wont stop making racket in the lot. Wow, that is wild.
Bromskloss 8y ago
> Ive had repo agents posing as customers looking to "get their car," which is pretty funny, but ive also seen agents harassing the front office staff with demands for a vehicle being worked on. Sometimes a driver will park their car to suddenly find theyve been "hitched up" to a seedy looking tow apparatus on the back of an often ironically leased light duty truck. Repo agents in this case show up as "innocent" middle men while a driver pleads and begs over the phone with a lender to not tow their car for any number of humiliating excuses. So, are these not actual repo men, but just people trying to steal a car?
lazerpants 8y ago
> automotive dealerships typically install an ECU interlock Is there somewhere where I can learn more about this? My quick Google search didn't lead to much, mostly people talking about ignition interlock devices for DUIs...

saagarjha 8y ago

Wow, everything in this article is horrifying: > the rising deployment of remote engine cutoffs and GPS locators in cars Wait, so people can remotely track my car or turn it off? This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all. > The companyʼs goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns…“Itʼs kind of scary, but itʼs amazing,” said Alana Ferrante, chief executive of Relentless. No, it's just scary. > Repo agents are responsible for the majority of the billions of license plate scans produced nationwide. But they donʼt control the information. Most of that data is owned by Digital Recognition Network (DRN), a Fort Worth company that is the largest provider of license-plate-recognition systems. And DRN sells the information to insurance companies, private investigators — even other repo agents. As if you couldn't make a bad situation worse: let's give all the information to a private company that has every reason to resell all that data.

Eric_WVGG 8y ago
> This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all. It's been done. https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/ https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...
- StanislavPetrov 8y ago
  As Michael Hastings well knows. >Hastings, an acclaimed war correspondent and vocal critic of government mass surveillance, died in the early hours of Tuesday, June 18, 2013, when his Mercedes C250 Coupe apparently lost control and burst into flames before slamming into a palm tree. >Witnesses to the accident, which occurred around 4:25am in the leafy Hancock Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles, said the car appeared to be travelling at top speed and was creating “sparks and flames” before it went off the road. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzWHZngfONo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzWHZngfONo
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    If one has that sort of enemy, one should drive a manual transmission.

iampims 8y ago

Disgusting. We need to rethink “privacy and surveillance” in the age of 24/7 cameras and image analysis.

modzu 8y ago

unrelated, but REPO MAN (1984) is an excellent film.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
I watched it, and don't get all the fuss.
- Finnucane 8y ago
  The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Repo Men (2010) is even better. In the future, beyond repossessing cars, why not also repossess artificial organ replacements?
- X-Istence 8y ago
  Repo! The Genetic Opera IMHO is even better with a similar premise.
- tzs 8y ago
  >> unrelated, but REPO MAN (1984) is an excellent film > Repo Men (2010) is even better That's not a very widely shared assessment. Repo Man (1984): 98% on RT, average rating 8/10. Ebert 3/4. IMDB 6.9/10. 75% Metacritic. Repo Men (2010): 22% RT, average rating 4.2/10. Ebert 2/4. IMDB 6.3/10. 32% Metacritic. 1984 had a lot of science fiction movies: The Terminator, Dune, The Last Starfighter, The Adventurers of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Starman, Repo Man, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; Night of the Comet, The Philadelphia Experiment, 1984, The Ice Pirates, Supergirl, The Brother from Another Planet, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Dreamscape, Firestarter, Electric Dreams, C.H.U.D, The Return of Godzilla, The Toxic Avenger, and more.

wallflower 8y ago

At least 10 years ago, a friend forgot where he parked his car in the Airport parking lot after a long trip. When he went to the booth embarrassed to tell them this, they said it was no big deal and did a quick tap-tap-tap on the keyboard using his license plate number to determine its exact location. They apparently scanned all the license plates in all their lots twice a day.

EmployedRussian 8y ago
In 2001 my car was towed from LAX parking lot because they checked the plate (they told me they scan all plates daily) and it came back as registered to a different make. Turns out the dealer made a single-letter mistake in VIN when registering the car with DMV, and there is no check digit to reject invalid VINs.
- gruez 8y ago
  >there is no check digit to reject invalid VINs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number#Check-digit_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number#... ?
- phil21 8y ago
  There is a check digit. Most likely someone at the dealer copy/pasted the wrong VIN into the form.
- michaelt 8y ago
  Even when you've got a check digit, if you make 100 typos a year only 90 of them will get caught.
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  In whose interest is it to scan and tow such cars?
ceejayoz 8y ago
> They apparently scanned all the license plates in all their lots twice a day. I'd bet this is to prevent people from claiming they lost their ticket after parking in the garage for a month in order to pay the daily max rate instead of a month's worth of fees.

alexpotato 8y ago

Good time to point out that all cars entering or exiting New York City via a bridge or tunnel are scanned.

Bromskloss 8y ago
Why tunnels and bridges, specifically?
- _salmon 8y ago
  I assume that's where the scanners are mounted.
- nkrisc 8y ago
  Wild speculation: Bridges and tunnels are more sensitive infrastructure, this is done for security reason. In case of some kind of emergency they could tell how many people/who might be in there. Collect data on usage that might be relevant to the unique maintenance needs of bridges and tunnels. On an island like Manhattan, for example, bridges and tunnels represent many of the ways in and out, so would be natural places to surveil for various reason.
- alexpotato 8y ago
  They act as natural choke points since Manhattan is an island. In turn, that means that you know who entered or exited Manhattan and can therefore deduce who is currently still there. I would imagine in the event of an incident related to a vehicle, you could start with the list of recent entrants and use it to start building a timeline.

djrogers 8y ago

I honestly don’t get why anyone goes in to debt to buy a car in this day and age. You can buy a car (or truck) for $3000 that will last several years without requiring any huge mechanic bills or exotic maintenance - heck, I’ve done it. I would much rather take the bus/bike/walk and save up $500/mo for 6 months to be a free man than buy or lease a car for $500/mo and be a space to my creditors. Besides, hoopties can be charming :-)

montecarl 8y ago
I will be in need of a car soon. I don't drive much but just need something that works and is safe. Do you have any tips on how you find your $3000 cars? Are you a car guy?
- ncallaway 8y ago
  My general approach is to look at craigslist (one example query: https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=used+car&sort=rel&max_price=4000 https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=used+car&sor...) to get a sense of the market. Spend a little while (maybe a week) checking in on a search like that to get a sense of the market. Once you feel like you've got a sense of what "normal" prices are for cars in your price range, get a consumer reports subscription†. Use CR to evaluate the make, model, and year of any car that you're considering for safety and reliability. Reliability is a pretty important indicator for cars in this price range, because you'll tend to be looking at things with higher milage. Then, watch craigslist for vehicles that seem like a good deal. With the information you have, you should also be in a good position to call local used car dealerships and tell them what you're looking for. You should have enough information to tell when they're offering you a reasonable deal. If you have the time and can afford to try and be a little picky. Obviously, if you need a car you need a car, but if you can afford to take your time it'll usually be worth it. Prefer cars that seem like they've been well-maintained over their life and prefer cars that come from people who have kept documentation of maintenance performed on the car. Finally, no matter where you're considering buying from—dealer or individual—take the car to a mechanic for a pre-sale inspection. This is a common service most mechanics offer. Make sure you're the one selecting the mechanic and the one paying the mechanic. That ensures that you should get a fairly objective assessment of the car itself. This step isn't as important if you're familiar with cars, but if you're not a car guy (as I'm not), it's totally worth the price to find out if there are any immediate or upcoming service issues that will be necessary for the car. †I _think_ you can get a monthly subscription and cancel after one-month, but you should double-check that. If you can get it for a single month, the $7.95 is totally worth it. If you have to get it for a full-year at a time, evaluate the cost/benefit based on your budget.

clumsysmurf 8y ago

> DRN sells the information to insurance companies, private investigators ... I wonder if anyone in the insurance industry could comment on how this data is used by them.

patio11 8y ago
Not in the insurance industry, but as someone who is aware of how they price risk: the zip code you park in at night heavily influences loss rates (and therefore premiums) and self-reports of it are not always accurate.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Different types of insurance price comprehensive in radically different ways. I was considering getting classic car insurance from a different company than my regular insurance. They heavily penalize you if you park in the city, and especially without an individual locked garage. That kind of makes sense, but my regular insurance penalizes you if you park somewhere other than you live, even if it's in a low-crime suburb and not exposed. They are fine with parking in the middle of the city. So the optimal strategy depends on which insurance you go with because they have very different prejudices.

anfilt 8y ago

Not a fan of the guy but it makes sense why steves jobs would "supposedly" keep buying a new car to avoid getting license plates.