A great outdoor site if you live on or plan to visit the Texas Gulf Coast. Gulf Coast Texas Outdoor Magazine. Check it out!

THIS RAY-BAN SITE LOOKS NICE, but on the usability and functionality scale, I give it a really, really sucks. [ Unlike this site where it's functional but looks like crap. -Ed. Exactly!]The site looks like it is a 100% Macromedia/Adobe Flash animation site and is a great example of why 100% Flash sites are not a good idea unless the designer really, really knows what he is doing. Before reading any further, go check out the site real quick and let me know if you agree.

So, did you think Ray Ban dot com sucks, or not?

For one thing, there is no way for me to link you directly to these Wayfarer's I have my eye on. It's a replacement pair. The pair I have are about worn out and I keep losing them. Believe it or not, out of the thousands of pairs of sunglasses that came into my possession during the days of running a repo company the Ray-Ban Wayfarers are by far my favorites and I have hung on to them for probably four years now.

(Yes, the repoman steals your sunglasses. I never did, but I can guarentee every dickhead that ever worked for me stole from me, the debtor, and the client. Some of the guys were so Klepto that even after I'd tell them I was on to them and would watching, I'd catch 'em stealing.)

You can't see the Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses you want to buy at the Ray-Ban site, but you can see the Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses here. Them some bad mo-gators, ain't they?

My wife and kids drive one of these fire traps forty miles everyday.

Minter said his Ford Expedition burst into flames even after he disconnected the faulty cruise control deactivation switch, which was causing the problem.

"The whole car was engulfed in smoke. You couldn't even see the car. It was just completely black smoke. We thought we did everything we had to do to make it safe. Apparently, as you can see, it's not," Minter told Local 2.

Recently the issue of calling in repos came up and made me wonder who all calls in or otherwise reports every repossession to the local authorities. Many locations in the greater Houston metro area requires instant background checks when repos are reported. The larger cities do not have time to mess around with anything more than a DL check, if that. You usually call those in over the phone. During business hours I would have the office staff call in repos to save air time on the cellular phones.

In the smaller towns and villages, though, you often have to present your paper work before ever attempting a repossession. This can be a big hassle. Especially if you have an employee who was less than forthright about the cleanliness of their criminal record. I had one guy get my wrecker and a repo impounded on a hold out of another state. Georgia or something. Poor bastard. But it learned me an expensive lesson. I maintained a complete and accurate database of every city and small town in my coverage area with the reporting instructions for each one. Anyone going to certain known towns were forewarned of the consequences of having lied bout their criminal record. No I didn't do interstate background checks on employees. Getting someone just to work in this field is difficult enough without putting unreasonable constraints on the position.

So, do you think Bubba with a home made wrecker from over at the salvage yard reports every repo?

In some of these newly sprawling suburbs like Alvin and Pearland, reporting to the police station after spotting your target can cost a lot of time and a few gallons of fuel--a significant extra expense over time.

Besides, many of the yahoos out there don't even have a valid driver's license.

So, lets be honest. How many agents out there blow reporting to the cops if they are a go by before and it's a twenty minute one-way trip to the station? Or how about if you made contact with the debtor and had a friendly exchange of keys for personal property, did any agents then blow off the police report?

Was there ever a situation when you ever decided to make contact instead of driving all the way to the police station?

In a high-volume / low-margin operation, lengthy trips and long phone calls to the police station several times a night is a significant expense. Would it be reasonable to ask the clients to pay an additional small fee for repossessing in towns that require a personal appearance and background check?

Is it reasonable to expect agencies being squeezed to death by lower and lower fee requirements not to avoid these costly trips from time to time? Especially when the their main competitors--sub-contractors and wrecker drivers--do not bother with such technicalities.

In retrospect, the advice to "just say no" to lower repos fees, contingency, and free services was bad advice.

Admittedly, I fell for it like many others. Holding firm on price makes sense in a standards-based industry where everyone has similar basic costs, but when the entry bar to owning a repo company is set so low and there is a never-ending supply of dolts willing to work for free, it's simply a lost cause.

Following such advice ultimately cost me my business. Not that I would have chosen to invest the huge amount of money required to re-tool as a high-volume, low-margin operation, in the end there was never really a choice for me. Hanging in there with the "just say no" philosophy depleted my company's cash and devasted it's balance sheet and due to my personal financial position I wasn't willing to put more of my own scarce funds into a black hole.

You can say no for only so long. Eventually a company must make some money or throw in the towel--the ultimate version of just saying no.

Yes, I made a mistake.

Bottom line, we have all seen the pieces of crap that constitute the majority of units put on the lot for sub-prime clients. The lenders rightly figure it is better to just let the collateral go once the payments finally and forever stop. Why add more losses from the remarketing expenses on top of the loan losses (profits)?

Repossessors are used more as a tool to maximize collection efforts than for returning callateral on defaulted loans.

Only when repossessors realize that they are not being paid for the the primary service they provide (on-site harrassment of debtors) will the problem resolve itself.

First repossessions in cyberspace, now bounties for spammers:

The FTC's recommendation to Congress will be that legislation be passed to allow the government to offer rewards of up to a quarter-million dollars to insiders who provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of spammers. The FTC is suggesting that rewards only go to those inside the spam organizations because only they can provide the amount of detailed information the government needs to make a conviction, according to the announcement.

On September 8, 2004, at one o'clock in the morning a repossessor was shot multiple times in the leg and foot. R.C. Simpson was released from the hospital today with almost 100 stitches and six bullet wounds.

The following is an excerpt from a report made by the victim's sister on the industry forum, Repoman.com:

There is a chance that he might lose his foot, he is in surgery right now. For now HPD has not filed any charges because the debtor claims he didn't see the wrecker and that he was only 1 week behind on his last payment. This dead beat is 5 months down and around $2000 behind, also my brothers truck was backed up to the vehicle when the debtor came out on to the balcony, RC told him who he was and what he was doing,and that is when this man just started shooting at him. HPD would not look at any of his papers that showed how far behind this debtor was and to add insult to injury they allowed a family member of the debtor to leave with the car. I will keep everyone updated the best I can and please say a pray that my brother doesn't lose his foot and that justice is served.

In the original thread on repoman.com regarding the recently shot repossessor, the local gun lobby had a nice rejoinder regarding a suggestion about the appropriateness of his "issue" being inserted on the "repoman shot" thread. It is kinda like Monday morning quarterbacking with an agenda. An agenda I don't necessarily disagree with, by the way. But you shouldn't second guess a guy at his wake. Not in polite society, anyway.

To provide context, I excerpt his whole post:

Simply put, if I am ever able to leave a bad situation, I will gladly do so. Now, if I can't get away, and someone shoots at me, I will shoot back in self defense if need be, simple as that. If they hit me, I will be justified to shoot to kill. -And I have no problem with that. Look at the situation described above, they say no charges, case closed. -Screw that. Maybe a few justified shots to the original shooter in return would make people realize that we're not pushovers, and will defend ourselves against these unwarranted attacks. ...Sure looks like we are pushovers now! "You can shoot the repo man here and get away with it!" -Well, the guy apparently did.

I understand what you're saying, but I will never stand by and allow someone the opportunity to hurt me. Nobody has a right to point a gun at me, and damn sure not shoot at me. And if they choose to do so, they will encounter a very willing and able person who will do what he has to do to come home that night.

-Willing and able. If you're not both, then don't carry. And if you don't believe in defending yourself, then stay your ass at home, or take your ass woopin and don't complain, simple as that.

I think a large part of the truth was divulged by Dan Rather as to why the media disdains and ignores the Blogosphere. Its not because they don't 'get it' or because they don't understand it. Its not even so much because they don't like the competition.

Its because we can blog in our pajamas and they cant. Some of us don't even wear pajamas. There is even one group who blog while pronouncing pride of their boobies.

The corporate press, whose members have slaved for years, even decades, in the dog-eat-dog world of corporate idiocy, who have been relentlessly trained to never notice-- much less mention-- boobies, resent the freedom bloggers have when addressing the world. (Thankfully there is always at least one or two gals in every corporate office who still appreciate the necessity of having a nice set of boobies around and are willing to push the 'no-boobies' barrier. Of course they are hated by the boobie-less for breaking the rules.)

Yes, the corporate media hate us because we can blog in our pajamas and they cant.

They hate the fact that we don't have to look good, we just have to get our facts straight. They obviously have always been much more concerned with looking good Ra^ther than getting their facts straight.

A new blog called The Technology Liberation Front has an article about the future of "virtual repomen":

I immediately hit Richard Epstein with the direct question of whether digital media copyright holders should be able to engage in self-help by invading computers and searching for pirated media (as in the Berman bill, or more perniciously, when Sen. Hatch actually said that he favors using technology to remotely destroy the computers of those who illegally download music on the net.). He indicated that any regime of self-help, as opposed to legal help through the courts or law enforcement, must have net positive benefits to society.