I needed a vehicle repossessed out of state. I searched for and called some companies that were advertising in OH. After calling around I decided to use repo-world. They quoted me a price of $350 and guaranteed they would pick up our vehicle. The person I talked to sounded very professional and helpful. I was told that someone from their dispatch office would call me and get the information that they needed to proceed. I was contacted by Eric Brown. I gave him the information I had including an address to where the vehicle was located.
We also discussed the price again and I was quoted the same amount as before. $350. Over the course of about 2 weeks I contacted Eric many times with new information and a different address. I was able to get a new address after talking to the customer and they agreed that we could come pick the vehicle up. There was no skip-tracing performed by Eric or anyone else at repo world.
All information that lead to the repossession of the vehicle was done by myself. Eric called me the next day and told me that they had recovered the vehicle. I asked him for the address and who to make the check out to: assuming they had the vehicle with them in OH. I was going to send a driver from our Company to pick it up. Eric then told me he would fax and invoice with instructions on how to pay them. This is where everything went wrong.
I received a bill for $1600 that included a charge for keys and a charge for skip tracing. Of course I was surprised. Ive used many repo companies and have never been charged so much. I called Eric back and told Him about the "mistake" since they did not do any skip tracing and they did not need to make a key as the customer gave them the keys when they picked the car up.
He explained to me that I signed their hold harmless form and that it explains that I would be charged a percentage of the vehicles value for "skip-tracing". I then reminded him that skip tracing was not done by his company because it was not needed and I expected the charge to be removed. Eric said that the fact he had to drive around a little was considered skip tracing. He also told me that it was a courtesy for them to retrieve the keys from the customer and thats why I was being charged a fee for the key. (The key that was freely given to them.) I did not accept his answer and promptly called his supervisor Frank.
Frank cussed me immediately. I assume he was trying to intimidate me and has been trained to do so. He told me that he didnt care what I thought, that was the fee and I have to pay it or I will never get our vehicle back. After some time arguing back and forth he agreed to take $200 of the bill that was supposed to be $350 to begin with. Frank also explained to me that the only way to pay them was to wire transfer the money to a bank account in Canada. They would not tell me where my vehicle was until I wired the money.
I told him that would pay him cash or certified check when I came to pick the vehicle up. He gave me some lame excuse about not being bonded to take any other form of payment. I found out later that the reason the cant do this is because they actually dont have the vehicle themselves. Apparently they sublet the work out and call a local towing agency or another repo agency to pick the vehicle up for them. At this point I asked my owner to call himself. He ran into the same roadblocks. He was also cussed out and threatened with the loss of our vehicle. These guys are thieves. No other way to describe it.
They have stolen our vehicle and are holding it for ransom after lying about what it was going to cost. Do not use them. They sound sweet over the phone but this is an outright scam. I found out later that they do business under many different names. ICU inc. Is the main company but they do business under repo-world, speedy repo and also tracer services. Those are just the ones I know of. Stay away. Make double sure you are dealing with someone local especially if you are not in the state that your collateral is located in.
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