The Myth of the Voluntary Repossession

The Myth of Voluntary Repossession

Every culture has its myths.  There’s a new show on TV called “Finding Bigfoot” which is getting a lot of press. And, we just went through Christmas, a time when the mythical Santa Claus is paraded around as a legitimate being.  Some myths are pretty persistent.

A persistent myth in our culture...the world of auto repossessions...is that of the existence of “voluntary repossession” (or at least the belief that they are significantly easier than a self-help repossession). The reality is that the chances of finding the easy, should-be-done-cheaper voluntary is as difficult to find as Sasquatch.

Let me hit you with a Debbie Downer moment; several of the recent repossession-related deaths that have been documented in the press lately were on “voluntaries”.  And other deaths have occurred when the repossession had supposedly transitioned from being confrontational to the customer appearing to become cooperative (a recent situation in Florida, the customer went in to get cardboard boxes to get his property out of the car, and then came out of the house with guns blazing.The repossessor was killed). 

Why is that?

Well, first off, many of the accounts assigned to repossession agents as voluntaries never should have been assigned as such. The phone conversation in which the debtor yells at the collector “yeah, go ahead and send your #$%& repo guy out tomorrow and I’ll be waiting for him!” gets lost in translation, and becomes “please go to the address tomorrow, our customer promises to meet agent there with the car”.  All to save maybe $100.00 on the repossession fees?  This is more common than you could ever imagine.  

Also, it puts the customer more in control of the time, place, and manner of surrender. Since its based on the customer’s cooperation, there’s the possibility of no-shows (commonplace) and re-scheduling. The customer can force the repossession to happen at a time when he and his buddies have knocked back a case of brewskis, and they are all sitting around waiting for the arrival of the recovery agent.  

But its bad for the lender, too.  With a voluntary, we often find the car sitting on junkyard wheels and tires, or with a hole in the dash and doors where the stereo was…situations the client could have controlled if handled after the car was safely in possession of the agent. The $100 savings in repossession fees translated into a $1000 hit on the car’s residual value.


You might like to think that voluntary repossessions are friendly exchanges, like old friends meeting over coffee. Those do exist, but they are a rarity. Ask your repossessor; I am sure they will tell you.

There might be some internal reporting benefit to the creditor to consider an account a “voluntary” , but the potential costs to their repossessor or even their own collateral seems far too high, in my book. 

Repossessing A "Spot Delivery" Deal

We occasionally get a panic call from a local new-car dealer, asking if we help them with a emergency repossession account.

It usually goes like this...customer came rolling in the dealership in their rusted out Lebaron, and after dancing with the salesman,  drives off in a new Chrysler 300, thinking they have a deal.  


However the dealership can’t get the deal run through any financing entity.....customer fibbed about actually having a job, let's say. And in the meantime, the dealership might have complicated the situation by selling (or junking) the customers LeBaron.  Ouch!


The dealership calls the customer and asks...and then demands.... he/she bring the car back, because the financing fell through.  Of course, Mr New Car Owner says “no”....a deal is a deal.  Plus they've been showing off the new ride to the neighborhood. 


So the dealership is calling us, the recovery agent, to insert ourselves in this super tense situation (often with verbal threats having been thrown around from either side), to repossess the new car "sold".....and now "unsold" on this “spot delivery”.

Well, the Federal Trade Commission is holding a series of round tables to surface information about abusive lending and collection practices, and on Nov 17th, they were advised by a leading consumer-advocate attorney that this is a practice that needed to be shut down.

Time to Crack Down on Conditional Car Loans, FTC Is Told
"Yo-yo" loans are prevalent enough to warrant new consumer protection rules
ConsumerAffairs.com


It's time for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to crack down on abuses of conditional car loans, consumer advocates testified at a recent Washington hearing.

"In no other area of our commerce can someone sign on the dotted line, deliver the product, and then cancel the transaction and insist on the product being returned because the final credit transaction did not produce the hoped-for income," said Ian Lyngklip, a Southfield, Mich., attorney.

"It's like I walked into a supermarket, purchased an apple, walked outside and took a bite only to have a clerk run into the parking lot and insist the apple be returned," Lyngklip said.

The practice of issuing conditional loans, known as spot delivery or yo-yo loans in the car industry, is prevalent enough and harmful enough to warrant FTC protective regulations and enforcement action, Lyngklip said.

"It is unconscionable that a dealer would sell a car and then, because the final credit terms are unfavorable, send the repo man out to repossess the car and refuse to give back the down payment or reimburse for payments made," added Lyngklip.

A spot delivery, or yo-yo sale, happens when the car dealer sells the consumer a vehicle and completes all the steps necessary to sell the car including executing a contract of sale, signing title, taking a down payment and turning over the keys.

After the transaction is finished, the dealer calls the consumer back claiming the deal has fallen through. In some instances the dealer uses fraudulent means or forcible repossession to take the car back.

The FTC Roundtable was entitled "The Road Ahead: Selling, Financing & Leasing Motor Vehicles." Lyngklip was one of five experts participating in a panel which discussed "Which Practices, If Any, Cause Significant Harm to Consumers, And What Are Potential Solutions."




We don't like losing business, but on this one, we have to agree. The customer is told its a "done deal" when they roll out.  We know the dealership is anxious to get the customer behind the wheel, have him start smelling the new leather and start jamming to the Bose sound system....but it seems like a dicey proposition for all involved...including the repossessor, when a deal is forcefully "unwound" on a consumer. 


Just sayin'. 

Portrait of a Good Repo Client

I've focused a bit on what's gone wrong with how some auto lenders are treating the repossession industry. But its not universally true....there are some good clients out there.


What does a good client look like? At least from the perspective of a repossession agency? 


A good repo client gives you information.  Lots of it.  
How many cars are sitting at the "address provided"? Only a fraction of what there used to be. So it's often what's being untold that is resulting in missed repo opportunities. The creditor might know why the debtor is in our area ("he's looking for work...he's a plumber"....or "he's down here with girlfriend"...or "he's really into bowling...").  There a million little factoids that might be useful for an intelligent investigator to use in his hometown to find more information about the debtor. Cars are often repossessed from locations we surface, and it takes data (even seemingly unrelated data) to do that.  Even knowing the vehicle's color or tag is huge. It's in your best interest to tell the repo agency everything you know about the debtor. 


A good repo client treats our staff well. 
Man, I know it would be frustrating being a collector for an auto lender. Customers lying to you all day, upper management pressing for better numbers, a minefield of legal issues to navigate with every collection call.  It would be tough.  But we appreciate it when a collector sets all that aside and relates to our staff as being "on the same side", because we really are. People in the repo business really do go to the wall for a client they appreciate.  That means more cars recovered, and less loans pushed into charge-off.  Think of the repossessors as your football team, and you, Mr. Client, as the coach. It takes positive motivation and team spirit to get your agents ready to hit the streets.


A good repo client pays a fair fee. 
I am repeating myself from previous posts.  But...paying a reasonable repo fee means that the agency really will give each repo deal their best efforts. Its that simple. 
Trust me......you don't want to be the client whose accounts get worked "only when we're in the area". Priority accounts receive better attention, and clients that pay fairly get prioritized. 
Also paying a close fees justifies the agency's investment in Accurint reports, or running Carfax's, or even paying to get a tag number to input into their own ALPR systems...on a no-repo-no-fee basis, agencies will quit spending on those accounts knowing that's only more money out the window.  You will get more cars from agencies that you pay a close fee, and more of the same if you allow your agent to charge a skip fee on a legitimate find. 


A good repo client says "thanks".

I know its not your own personal car that we've recovered. But when you sense we've gone the extra mile, and kept hammering away on an account by checking the address a million times, or recovered the car from some other address we surfaced, please feel free to say "thank you".  Good will and appreciation pays dividends in any relationship, even business relationships. 


Its not all about the money, although that's a part of it.  And I'm not saying a good relationship with your repossessor will make or break your organization. But it will make a difference...a huge difference.....in your organization's bottom line.  But even more importantly, this has to do with cooperation and respect....which are good ways to interact with people no matter what activity you're engaged in.

Mayhem Is Everywhere!

Most TV commercials suck, really. But you got to admit that the latest rounds of Allstate Insurance commercials are incredibly funny. Click on this one to see if you agree: 

   They make a great point...."mayhem is everywhere!" Mr Mayhem proclaims in one commercial.  And in this clip he snarls: "If you named your own price for auto insurance, you could be paying for this yourself!"  You gotta laugh at how smug and irritating this guy is. 

But its a perfect case in point for the repossession business. Can you think of any line of work that has such a potential for mayhem? I can't.  

Mix big heavy cars with bigger and heavier tow trucks. Toss in a few angry customers and financially-desperate repossessors. Throw in some alcohol and a few handguns (somethings with the customer or, worse yet, with the repo agent!)  Stir together under a lot of pressure, generally in the middle of the night. That's a recipe for mayhem. 

When price becomes the sole criteria (or even the MAIN criteria) for a service like ours, and you ignore every other factor, you do encourage mayhem. 

This could simply sound like a plea for higher repo fees. It's not.  

We all nod in agreement when someone says "you get what you pay for!" So its true in the repo business, too:  to get good, intelligent people  to do this job using good equipment, with lots of training and lots of insurance, it takes more money than what some of the too-big-to-fail banks want to pay. And the result has been "accidents" like this in which consumers or repossessors have shot each other, run over each other, rammed each other, or committed various other acts of "mayhem".  

Several lawsuits from all of this are winding their way through the court systems right now. In 2011, lenders will pay out tens of millions of dollars for death or injury claims over repossessions, the majority of which involved repossessions handled on a no-recovery-no-fee basis. The two go hand in hand, and its getting scary.  

And in most cases, unnecessary. 

Horrible Bosses

There's a movie out right now called Horrible Bosses.  I haven't seen it but it looks like it would be pretty funny.


I have, however, worked for horrible bosses over the years.


When they were rude or greedy or unfair, did I give them my best work? Would I ever get the Employee-Of-The-Month parking spot working for one of those kinds of bosses?  Heck no.


I needed a job so I could put gas in my car so I could get to the beach that afternoon.  I would swipe hamburgers (I worked at McDonalds) or surf wax (I worked at a surf shop). You get the picture. Horrible bosses create horrible employees, and although I am reformed now, I was a bad employee working for bad bosses.


A report came out today, the results of a survey of a cross section of the repossession agencies across America done by CU Collector, an independent credit union organization.


Around 72% of repossession agencies reported that they do work for forwarders (the majority of which forward under a no-repo/no fee basis). That is a surprising number. However of these same agencies, only about 22% report that this is a satisfactory arrangement. 


So in other words, MOST of the agencies that work for these cheap-o contingent forwarders think their bosses suck.  Horrible bosses, really.

When you don't like your client (hey, it happens) or they don't pay for extra effort, then guess what? Their assignments make their way to the bottom of your clipboard.


No extra trips to the house when diesel fuel is bumping $4.00 a gallon.


No need to run database searches for new info...its just going to come out of your pocket if you don't get the car....


And, why knock on a door to determine where the debtor DID go, since you're not going to be paid for the "close" anyway?


I know us repo guys aren't rocket scientists, but humans are human.  If we think our bosses are being greedy or unfair, we (as an industry) simply don't perform well...and the numbers bear this out.


We are hearing that forwarder's recovery ratios are 20-40% less than what would be consider industry standards. Nationwide that amounts to billions of dollars in lost cars, simply because too-big-to-fail creditors are using too-cheap-to-be-fair forwarders.   


The repossession industry can and does work hard, and can pull good solid numbers for clients they like. And the clients they like play fair, pay reasonable fees, and reward extra effort. 


Good bosses bring the best out of their people.  And horrible bosses get the results they deserve. 

Stupid Stuff Clients Ask Us To Do

Note that I said "stupid stuff".  There are no stupid clients; they only ask us to do stupid stuff at times. Well, pretty frequently actually.


Don't get me wrong, we love our clients. They help us put fuel in our trucks. But it does surprise me some of the things that people ask us to do...people that I would normally think were way smarter than me, a graduate of the local community college and now repo guy.


So here's some of the stupid things clients ask us to do:


1. Can You Follow the Debtor in Traffic?  Dude, you've been watch too many old Miami VIce reruns. It would requested for situations where the car is in a parking garage or gated community, and the client wants us to park at the entrance and then follow the debtor's vehicle through traffic and repo it while the guy is in Starbucks getting his Caramel Macchiato.  Have you ever tried to keep on someone's rear bumper through traffic, even driving  a normal car? Its crazy dangerous.  Try it in a tow truck.  And, by the way,  don't you think the debtor is going to see a stealthy black Ford F450 Superduty with a tow lift, belching diesel exhaust in his rearview mirror?  ("Hmm...wonder what THAT guy is up to?"). Oh, and no one is willing to pay for the extra hours to even try this.  Bad idea.

2.) Can You Pay A Neighbor To Snitch on The Debtor?  Okay, check it out.  We're in the debtor's driveway with our tow truck, and debtor isn't home. We stroll over to Joe, the nosey next-door neighbor. "Hey, we'll pay you $50 to call us when the car...er...the debtor shows up".  Joe looks at us, looks at the tow truck, looks at us again. We're obviously the repo guy, effectively violating the customer's right to privacy. We might as well have erected a billboard in the debtor's yard:  "Repo Man Missed You...We'll Be Back!". Next thing you know we'll be federal court defending ourselves against any number of laws that guard the debtor's right to privacy regarding debt.


3.) We have GPS on The Debtor's Vehicle. Will You Work Cheaper? Listen, last time I heard, these were the rules of the repo game: Mr Client, you give me the best possible address you can give me, and I'll do my darnedest to get your car. Your side of the deal is to tell me what you know to begin with...it's your car you want back, right? Also, the car having GPS doesn't turn bullets into marshmallows...its still a repo deal, with the possible hassles and dangers associated with that.

4.) Debtor Has Two (or more) Cars That Need To Be Repossessed. Can I Get a Deal?  I shop at Publix, which is a gorcery chain here in the Southeast. I love Publix. They even will carry your groceries to the car if you want them to. But the coolest thing about Publix is their "Buy One, Get One" deals they have every week. Deodorant, almonds, paper plates....you can get all these kinds of Buy One, Get One deals. Makes me feel like I am making money just walking in the door of the place. But the problem is, those things are commodities. Its not much extra effort for General Mills to push out an extra box of Lucky Charms. But that's not true with repossessions.  Two at a time is actually MORE than twice as hard. We often have to check an address a bazillion time before we spot the car there. Should we send two trucks around each run? And what happens if we just take ONE? The other car enters the witness protection program. So doing a multi-car deal is more like planning a strategic strike on an Al-Qaeda compound than a stroll down the aisles of Publix. 


In case your keeping score, the right answer to each of the above would be "no". We're trying to keep ourselves out of the hospital, out of jail, and out of bankruptcy. 

Auto Lenders' Collection Departments' Dirty Little Secret

 

Okay, here it is: when creditors try and get "cheaper" repossession agencies to work for LESS (or contingent), they are actually blowing away thousands...  even millions...  of dollars.


This is not a joke, or even a modest exaggeration.


Creditors are often not paying attention to the one number in the equation that makes the biggest difference of all.

So it might go like this. Some accountant upstairs tells the collection department to "get their repossession costs down",  period. So the collection manager decides to start assigning repo accounts on a "contingent" basis in order to get lower repo costs. Seems like a less costly option, right?

 The problem is this: that, statistically, this lowball process loses hundreds of thousands of dollars in small portfolios...and millions in a larger ones.

Let's look at a small repossession portfolio of, let's say, 200 cars in a year.  NIADA says the average used car is worth $23,000, but for this experiment, let's use a number of $10,000 as the average residual return on each of the repossessed cars.

If a client goes through a "contingent" forwarder, and has a recovery ratio of 45% (which is an actual number that's used), the contingent forwarder would recover 90 cars, worth $900,000 total. Since they work for $275 "contingent", you don't pay those pesky close fees, and the total recovery fees are $24,750.00. Through this proceed, after repo fees, you recovered $875,250.

Falcon International is an investigation and repossession agency with a certified recovery rate of 68%.  We do charge a close fee, and we don't work contingent. This means we get to work with true fellow professionals, and good businessmen & women who value service over raw price. So you would think using a firm like ours simply "costs too much".

But.....with this same portfolio, we would recover 136 of your cars, worth a total of $1,360,000. You would have paid us around $40,000 more to get those numbers (which is what the accounting department would historically be focusing on).


Falcon International would have recovered an additional $420,000.00 in assets even on this tiny portfolio. 


In other words, paying a close fee to a real professional "saved" you $380,000!


What's the takeaway?  The number that really matters the most is the recovery ratio.  The difference in overall repo fees winds up being almost insignificant.  Even if a  forwarder only charged the creditor a $35 repo fee contingent, using a company like Falcon International would still come out ahead. By a long shot. 


Pull out your calculator and check it out yourself!

You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys

A business truism like “you get what you pay for” is never more true than in the auto repossession business.  Take “contingent” repo assignments.

Virtually every repossession industry leader has spoken out against the practice. Court-appointed professionals have testified that this process is inherently dangerous. In addition, it marries your organization with an unprofessional supply chain of people who “can’t do the math”.

Falcon International’s recovery statistics bear this out. We neither accept contingent assignments nor ask our agents to work contingent. And our certifiable recovery statistics are 10% higher than the average “direct” agent, and over 20% higher than “forwarders” who assign on a contingent basis. 

Falcon's Recovery Stats are 10% Higher than Industry Average
  

Can any client read afford to lose 10%-20% of their auto-recovery portfolio? Using a practice that's proven to be dangerous to the consumer?

We don’t work contingent.  Most good agencies don't.  And we will recover tens (or hundreds) of thousands more of a client's collateral than accounts assigned through a contingent forwarder.

And that’s not peanuts.

Can We Contact By Email Or Facebook?

This article in this month's Auto Remarketing News is....well...unclear.  Everyone agrees we repossessors don't come under the FDCPA...still we make an effort to keep it within the lines (good repossessors do, anyway).  But can we contact our "customers" via email or Facebook?  I think the answer is still..."maybe".

AFSA Recaps Latest FTC Discussion about Consumer Rights Regarding Debt Collection
May 9, 2011 | WASHINGTON, D.C.
By Auto Remarketing Staff

Clear direction about whether a repossession agency or lender can contact debtors through some of the latest technology methods such as cell phones or social media remains uncertain, according to the American Financial Services Association.

AFSA staff members recently attended a workshop hosted by the Federal Trade Commission on consumer protection related to debt collection and new technologies. With advancements in technology, AFSA pointed out that debt collectors are relying more on pre-recorded messages to contact consumers and are expanding communication to third parties, such as relatives, employers and neighbors about the primary borrower, which can cause problems for the consumer.

“Most of the new methods for debt collectors to communicate with consumers — e-mail, cell phones, and social media — are either not regulated or lack clarity in current regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act,” the association asserted.

“Several panelists said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should take over governance of consumer protection regarding new technologies that debt collectors are using to approach consumers and gather loan data,” AFSA added.

Along with sharing the overall assessment of the workshop, the association ran down several points raised during each of the panel sessions. Here are some of the highlights:

Panel 1: Obtaining Information about Persons: Skip-Tracing and Beyond

AFSA recalled that workshop discussion pointed out that skip-tracing technology helps avoid the collection of incorrect data, but it has become easier to not contact consumers in-person and allows, in many cases, collectors to contact third parties other than the primary borrower, such as relatives, to find out information about the borrower.

“There should be a limit as to the resources that are available to contact the consumer. This could be done through personnel training. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act addresses this issue, but it is important to scrub the data collected to be able to contact the right people,” association officials noted.

“With increased level of accuracy in place, the industry should stop using Social Security Numbers, balancing accuracy with mitigating the risk of ID theft,” they continued.

“FTC has privacy measures in place, but there needs to be clarification that skip-tracing firms must follow these safeguards. Also, there are no dispute mechanisms in place if the loan data is inaccurate,” they added.

Panel 2: Telephone Technologies: Dialing, Talking, and Texting, in an Age of Enhanced Mobility

AFSA mentioned the moderator for this session expressly clarified that the panel was not going to focus on the TCPA or FDCPA. The discussion intended to address consumer protection generally.

“Sometimes when a collection agency calls a consumer, the agency’s phone number is truncated and omits information such as the agent or debtor's name. This poses a problem for a consumer that was erroneously contacted and is not the debtor because of in an automated message they cannot get a hold of the agency,” association officials recollected.

“One of the panelists stated that an average debt collector makes 183 calls a day to consumers to collect a $200 debt,” they interjected.

“It was suggested that the first call made to a consumer should be done by a real person to verify they have reached the right person and that the FTC should clarify how many calls a debt collector can make to a consumer,” they went on to say. “However, industry panelists argued that it is impossible to contact a debtor directly because loan volume and technology have changed.”

AFSA also pointed out results of a 2010 Pew Research Center’s 2010 study that determined cell phones have become the device most used to communicate during the past 10 years. The study indicated eight of 10 U.S. adults use cell phones.

Panel 3: Managing the Flow of Information: The Intersection of Collector

AFSA noted that much of this discussion stemmed from a case in Colorado.

“Many of the consumer complaints to the Colorado attorney general deal with verification of a debt,” officials noted. “The industry explained that attaching all debt-related information when communicating with a consumer is not economically feasible, but issuers are taking it more seriously.

“Also the exportation of data might not be advanced for that collection agency; and creditors do not have a lot of incentives to keep loan data after it is passed on to debt collectors. However, creditors are required to keep the data for two years,” they went on to say.

AFSA thinks frustrations consumers are facing in Colorado have to do with skip-tracing and dialer software.

“If a consumer who is not the debtor corrects this information, and it is removed from the dialer, in many cases, the skip-tracing software will continue to populate the same erroneous information which will be again used by the dialer to contact the same consumer,” association officials acknowledged.

“The AG’s office has seen this erroneous data being removed/re-introduced 10 times for one consumer. Skip-tracing should permanently block erroneous information and phone number from being repopulated,” they recommended.

Panel 4: Communication by E-mail

AFSA calculated that just 2 percent of debt collectors use e-mails or text messages to communicate with consumers, but the association said it is becoming more common for consumers to initiate e-mail communication with debt collection agencies.

“There is no clarity on current regulations as to e-mails,” association officials declared. “The FTCPA does not clarify the ‘medium’ through which the debt collector conveys information to a person regarding a debt.

“The industry needs mechanisms to solve the issue of consumers saying they did not receive an e-mail,” AFSA insisted. “Some of the panelists thought that e-mail was a convenient way for a consumer to get a communication from the debt collection agency because they decide when to open it; it is a better way to reach the consumer; it is not confrontational; there could be a record of confirmation of consent; more accountability via e-mail than versus phone and lower cost for consumers and the industry.”

Panel 5: Using Social Media for Debt Collection

AFSA believes people should not have an expectation of privacy when they publish information on public sites.

The association explained digital footprints, classified as first degree, is voluntary information people post about themselves. And secondary, is information about a person that someone else posts — such as tagging in a picture on Facebook.

“Likelihood of a debt collection agency incorrectly identifying a consumer through Facebook is quite high because there are a lot of people with the same name, unless the debtor has a really unique name,” AFSA contends.

“Most panelists agreed that it’s not wrong to get information from social media if it is used appropriately. However, it is troublesome that consumers do not know that their information is used for debt collection,” the association went on to mention.

“Any regulation that stifles communication between debt collector and consumer is bad for consumers,” AFSA stressed. “The FTC should provide guidelines. The main goal is the individual’s right of privacy, and to not be harassed, but it is important to balance the legitimate right of creditors to get paid while safeguarding the borrower’s right.”

Auto Lending UP, Delinquencies DOWN

Well, this is good news for America, and not quite good news for the repossession industry.  It is good that more money is being put "on the street"....we just have to wait for the rise in delinquencies...

"Equifax Sees Auto Loans Spike


May 10, 2011

ATLANTA — Equifax announced this morning that it is continuing to see auto lending increase with average loan amounts generated through auto finance companies up 88 percent over 2009 levels.

The total number of auto loans originated in January 2011 is up nearly 24 percent over January 2010 originations. Those sourced through auto finance companies grew by 40 percent, and those sourced through banks, credit unions and savings and loans grew by 9 percent, based on Equifax's National Credit Trends Report for March 2011.

Borrowers with Equifax Risk Scores of 640 or above represented nearly 84 percent of all new auto loans sourced through banks, credit unions and savings and loans in January 2011; while this same group represents nearly 65 percent of all loans sourced through auto finance companies.

Additionally, the industry continues to see a decline in write-offs, with January-March 2011 auto loan write-offs at a five-year low at $5.5 billion, representing a decrease of 35 percent from January-March 2010 levels, the company reported.

"The number of new auto loans represents the largest increase among tracked lending sectors within the Equifax Credit Trends Report," said Michael Koukounas, senior vice president of special client services for Equifax.

"The data also reflects declines in write-offs, with delinquencies falling to 2007 levels --following their peak in 2009. This, paired with increasing originations, underlies the beginning of auto portfolio growth," he added."