The Repo Man Is Busier Than Ever

库存经理比以往任何时候都忙碌

The Journal.

2025-11-15

22 分钟
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The repossession business is booming. More Americans are falling behind on their car payments, a sign that lower-income consumers are struggling. WSJ’s Scott Calvert recently joined a night shift with two repo men and learned that despite a record number of cars now marked for repossession, finding them is easier said than done. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - For Millions of Student-Loan Borrowers It’s Time to Pay - The 20,000 Steps to a Walmart Manager’s Six-Figure Salary Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • Last month, our colleague Scott Calvert spent the night out and about in a tow truck.

  • We went out.

  • It was a Wednesday evening.

  • It was in a part of Maryland that's roughly between Washington and Baltimore.

  • And we were on the road for hours just driving around with these repo men.

  • Repo men.

  • It's their job to repossess vehicles when their owners can't make their car payments.

  • If you see them in your driveway, something's gone wrong.

  • And they are going from location to location, and they are essentially on the hunt.

  • You know, the whole time, they are looking for cars that are eligible to be repossessed,

  • and when they find them, they hook them up to their tow truck and drive them back to the lot.

  • Scott joined a repo man named George Dowdy on one of his hunts.

  • George is 47.

  • He's been a repo man for about a decade.

  • That night, George had an assignment.

  • He was looking for a Chevy Trax.

  • George got out of the truck and double-checked that it was the right car.

  • He checked the license plate, the vehicle identification number,

  • the make, model, and color, everything.

  • I think, I think that's it.