With the current economic conditions the way they are, many finance companies and banks are taking active steps to help keep their current customers from losing their cars to repossession. These steps can often involve either extending the time lenders allow before beginning the repossession process or restructuring payments plans to make them more affordable.
According to Rich Apicella, practice manager of Benchmark Consulting which teaches collection agents for finance companies to understand the reason for a person’s delinquency on an account, and then come up with a plan to avoid repossession. “Auto finance sources have an average net loss of about $6400.00 on repossession, so it is in the company’s best interest to keep customers in their cars.” “The first thing is to identify why the customer is delinquent. Is it a job loss, health problem, divorce or decline in income? Once the collector knows what the problem is, he or she can help the customer develop a payment plan. Sometimes, this requires an extension in the payment plan, other times they delay the next few payments and other times they help negotiate a short sale of the car,” says Apicella. Continue reading ‘How Finance Companies Are Easing Policies to Prevent Repossessions’ »