Ever found
yourself at the bottom of a Lancashire quarry in the rain to
collect a JCB, only to discover no one is qualified to move it?
Perhaps you’ve turned up at a
construction site to collect scaffolding, only to find five other
lessors there to do the same – and no way to tell what’s yours and
what’s not.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Whatever your Collection Nightmare
we at Leasing Life are looking for the worst repossession
tales from the UK and Europe for this diary page, so get in touch
if you have a horror story worth sharing, or perhaps a leasing myth
you’ve heard.
We look forward to sharing your
woes.
Kevin Davidson, managing
director at Premier Asset Finance, joins Leasing
Life on the psychiatrist’s couch to exorcise years of
recollection woe.
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By GlobalData“I think I could write a book of
stories relating to recovery and defaults,” says Davidson before
recounting a portmanteau of leasing horror.
Part one: The
stench
“I remember getting one of my reps
in the 1980s to repossess a car which it later turned out someone
had been living in after splitting from his wife.
“The smell inside the car was so
bad that my fresh-faced rep had literally to drive four miles with
his head out of the window.
“When we got the car back, our
normal valet wanted three times the normal rate to clean it and I
also had to pay for my rep’s suit to get cleaned.”
Part two: Revenge of the
passenger cars
“Once I repossessed a Skoda from a
hotel car park only to find it had four large boxes of pornographic
magazines in it.”
Not a traditional example of added
value.
“On a separate occasion, I ran out
of petrol in the middle of nowhere while repossessing a rare De
Tomaso Pantera sports car.” A frightening roadside wait.
“At another time,” recalls
Davidson, “I nearly crashed a Mercedes G Wagon when someone had
left the drive mode in ‘cross country’.
“The steering lock was so poor in
this mode I ended up crossing the central reservation of the dual
carriageway.”
Part three: The
Beast
“The first arrears case I dealt
with when I became branch manager in Dundee was for someone who
just got out of prison for grievous bodily harm.
“He came into my office and very
politely and calmly told me he would break my legs if I touched his
car.”
“All character building stuff,”
says Davidson with just the slightest falter in his voice. A brave
man.
Got a Collection Nightmare? Contact: grant.collinson@vrlfinancialnews.com
