“It gets their attention.”
— Lionel M. Vead Jr., head of collections at First Castle Credit Union in Covington, Lousiana, on how devices that interrupt a car’s starter, and GPS, have helped him do his job. He says he remotely shuts down cars of people who are 30 days behind in their payments when the cars are parked at their homes or workplaces, according to the New York Times. But the NYT also mentions a case in which a woman who was driving on a freeway had her car shut off; a man on a date received payment reminders that emitted noises like a burglar alarm; and a woman who fled to a shelter for domestic-violence victims was tracked down so her car could get repossessed.
“No middle-class person would ever be hounded for being a day late. But for poor people, there is a debt collector right there in the car with them,” Robert Swearingen, a lawyer with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, in St. Louis, told the NYT.
Illustration from Fresno Bee/MCT archives
