Selling merchandise on the installment plan didn’t really get to be a big business, with all the problems that big business has, until automobiles
came along. I suppose that's because most people didn’t have
enough money at any one time to pay for a car and because everyone decided they had to have a car, it was only natural that modern methods
of financing developed right along with the automobile industry.
The very fact that the things have wheels suggest that, not only are they going to get you there faster, but that if you don’t keep up the payments, they’re already equipped to be rolled right back to whoever
really owns them.
In modern-day society, it probably would be impossible for Americans to live if they couldn’t buy merchandise of all kinds on the time payment plan. Our civilization has become tremendously complex, all of us depend on machines and gadgets in our daily life,
and there’s a lot of them that we couldn’t do without.
Then, there’s luxury items which, in a sense, have become necessities. Most of the things we all take for granted, like a color TV set
or a stereo, or maybe expensive sporting equipment or boats, all cost
more than the people who buy them, for the most part, can lump out in one sum.
So, through the budget plan, people in this country have been able to enjoy things that have raised the standard of living that they never could have afforded if the economy had operated strictly on a cash
basis. Installment plan buying has enabled more people to have more things, made it possible for industry to produce more products and
thus create lower prices and the financing of these articles has given birth to a whole new financial complex during the 20th Century that
no one ever had envisioned. Thousands of jobs have been provided through increased production and in the business of financing.
Interest charges have become a multimillion-dollar source of revenue for banks and finance companies (if losses because of deadbeats don’t get too high), while at the same time making it possible for the
average working man to enjoy the use of needed or wanted products while earning the money to pay for them, at a slight extra charge.
The public has bad thoughts of a repossessor. They feel he would do anything to get a job done, which is true. Only they do like the kind of job he is getting done, whether they realize it or not. It’s a
game of cat and mouse, fox and hounds.
In any profession, if you work hard, your talents are recognized.
In the repossession business you can have the talent and do a good job, but it doesn’t make you a good guy in the eyes of the public or probably even society, in general. Yet, in some small way, I think
probably the guy you have outsmarted may instinctively have some strange kind of admiration for your cunning.
It’s a controversial kind of activity. No matter how you go about it, someone is bound to criticize you for what you do or how you did it.
There’s a lot of talk on TV and in the newspapers about the repossession business. I recently read about a situation where they were
trying to determine that repossessing cars without a court order was illegal. They had test cases to prove whether or not it was illegal.
If you’re the type that feels you have to win popularity by what you do, don’t even consider making a career of repossessing. It’s something
that has to be done, often under dangerous conditions, and
you’re dealing, usually, with hostile human beings in your contacts.
Maybe it seems callous for someone to plan how best to “steal” another person’s possessions, even if they don’t rightfully own them.
Yet it would be an awful thing if banks and other institutions couldn’t recover their collateral without going through a lot of red tape.
It would slow things down and that would mean these people
could drive cars longer that aren’t being paid for and it would be more expensive to the financiers to recover their collateral. They would have to charge more interest and there would be less credit given to
the public. This would work a tremendous hardship on millions of people. And, I think if they took away credit, our country would be in
very bad shape. Less money would be in circulation, because everything, nearly everything operates on a credit basis.
The automobile industry, which really made credit big business, would be crippled without the installment plan. It, perhaps, is the most important, the most deeply involved industry. Of course, over the years, I have repossessed diverse things: pigs, horses, German
shepherd dogs, airplanes, combines, diamond rings, hearing aids and tractors, to name a few. All of these things people had financed.
If people can’t buy things then products aren’t going to be made and that puts the manufacturer in a position where he can’t employ
people. It affects the retail outlets, because they can’t hire people to sell. All of these things are connected with keeping money in circulation, so essential to the economy.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that our world literally is suspended
in space by a chain of time payment coupon books. Economically, at least, our society, as we know it, is completely dependent on credit transactions. It simply would be impossible to function in
today’s civilization without credit.
There used to be an old saying that with every rose there is a
thorn. I guess that isn’t true anymore, because I think they did develop a bush that grows roses without thorns. But basically, things were that way in the beginning and in the business world, they still
are that way.
So far as credit is concerned, the classy products that come out of the plants in this country are roses. People buy them by merely signing a piece of paper. When they don’t pay, somebody’s going to get stuck. Since it wouldn’t be very intelligent to let the economy collapse because some people tend to be dishonest in what has become an almost acceptable way, there has to be a thorn in the picture. I
guess that’s the repo man.
No normal person likes to get hurt and no normal human being is going to like the repossessor that tows his car away in the middle of the night. No one is going to like it when you repossess anything that he’s become accustomed to using.
Even though they are dead wrong in thinking that they can hold onto something that they aren’t paying for, they are going to hate the guts of the man that takes it away from them. They’ll cheat, lie, hide, run away, beat the hell out of you and some will try to shoot you dead. These are just a few of the hazards in my occupation.
Hair raising personal stories as told by Bill Bowser and those who worked along beside him. “ The Man Came And Took It Away “ The beginnings of Repossessions starting in the early 60’s. As well as some of Bill Bowser's risky and crazy private detective stories.
Go to www.billbowser.com to request a personalized signed book from Bill Bowser when purchasing a book at his personal website.
