Child taken while sitting in Repossessed car

Common Sense, written by Renee McAbee, 11-17-05 president and CEO of www.procra.com and www.nsrecovery.com

Today, I came across an article in the Ozarks local news that had a story based on what the journalist who wrote it heard from the two major people involved, a mother and a recovery agent.

The reporter gives quotes that seemed to be diametrically opposed to each other.

It seems that the mother of a three year child, who is out of work and behind on her car payments, claims that the recovery agent made her child cry when he repossessed her car that had her unattended child (that she left in the car) asleep under a blanket in the back seat. The mother admits to the journalist that she did do this then going inside her boyfriend's residence.

I cannot help but wonder if this mother has been under a rock and missed all the recent local news coverage concerning the sex offender's lists for Greene County. I checked before beginning this article and there are 506 people listed in Greene County on the sex offenders list. Of these 506, 4 are within a few blocks of this mother's boyfriend's house, 1 apparently is on the same street, South Kings Hwy. in Springfield. Sex offenders are not the only people who prey on children, but they are the ones who have been heavily covered in the Greene County media recently. Clearly it must have been very important to her to make this stop. Sometimes as parents we have to stop and ask ourselves what is of utmost importance. For those who have children, which would you leave in the car unobserved, your purse or your child.

What this reporter did not know or find out is how much training and experience some recovery agents go through to ensure the professionalism of themselves and their agency. The particular agent involved is certified through a program called Certified Asset Recovery Specialist or C.A.R.S. Joe Taylor of Matrix Education Systems who is a very well respected as founded this program and an expert witness in repossession related litigation. This certification-training course is rigorous and multi-faceted. It is dedicated to insuring physical safety for everyone involved as being the paramount goal. The recovery is secondary. The agent is taught how to recognize things that any "tow-truck driver" would not even think to check. The agent never wants to put anyone in harms way, the asset is never worth any physical injury to anyone. It is the responsibility of lenders to hire qualified repossession agencies. That is a challenge that repossession companies have stressed to smaller lenders for many years. Lenders are advised to hire only recovery agencies which are insured and certified anything less places your financial interests at risk. Clearly there are many repossession agencies operating on a daily basis who are not properly insured or certified, Midwest Adjusters, Inc. does not appear to be one of those companies.

The recovery agent states that he looked in the windows for a car seat and saw none. He states that the keys were left in the ignition. A spokesman for the local police department has said that the police don't believe there was any wrongdoing on the recovery agency's part.

The mother states she took the keys inside with her yet she admits that she left her child unattended and asleep. Society cannot police moral but clearly someone needs to.

About the author:

In addition to owning one of only a few female owned repo companies http://www.nsrecovery.com, Renee is also a licensed Private Investigator in South Carolina and the owner of http://www.procra.com which is an acronym for Professional Collateral Recovery Agents. Procra is a repossession community housing over 700 members. Procra has an online repo agent directory for lenders to use when searching for a repo agent

Written by: RC McAbee