Ever found
yourself on the runway of a developing nation’s airport about to
repossess some long-sought asset, only to be surrounded by a
private militia wielding former Soviet machine guns?
Perhaps you’ve turned up at a premises in
Middlesbrough to collect a car only to be threatened with grievous
bodily harm by a former client turned menacing
Neanderthal.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Whatever your Collection Nightmare we
at Leasing Lifeare looking for the worst repossession
tales from anywhere in Europe for this diary page, so get in touch
if you have a horror story worth sharing, or perhaps a leasing myth
that you’ve heard.
We look forward to sharing your
woes.
This month, Mark T Jones,
director at alternative lending firm the Business Funding
Portal, reflects on darker time when there were no mobile
phones, cheques were bouncy and the police waved disapproving
truncheons.
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By GlobalDataJones found himself tasked with repossessing an
operational taxi in the haunted, gothic environs of Salisbury,
Wiltshire.
“The customer had proved to be very slippery,”
Jones unburdened himself on the Collection Nightmares
couch.
“Freely handing over rubber cheques and making
all sorts of promises, none of which materialised.” A terrifyingly
familiar start to many a lurid tale of leasing woe.
After much toing-and-froing and struggling to
penetrate the dense mists rolling in from Salisbury Plain, Jones
has is comrades located the asset and went about trying to
repossess it.
“Finally, we got a key cut and found the car
parked outside the customer’s house.”
In a testing twist of fate, however, the key
did not work.
“We deflated two his tyres and drove off to
phone a tow-truck to tow it away (obviously no mobile phones in
those days).”
Hampered by the need to locate one of the late
twentieth century’s many public telephone boxes, our hero’s cunning
plan was thwarted.
“By the
time we returned he had driven off with flat tyres,” recalls Jones
with a flicker of retrospective frustration just visible beneath
the look of steely determination which, in end, made the difference
in this nightmare narrative.
“Finally we resorted to reporting the car
stolen; the driver was pulled over with a fare on board, admitted
defeat and handed the car back.” Victory; sweet victory in the face
of adversity.
But not quite. “The police weren’t best pleased
at our tactics,” admits Jones sheepishly.
And as we all know, the only thing more
frightening than an elusive defaulting client is an uninvited
encounter with a disappointed English bobby.
Got a Collection Nightmare? Contact: grant.collinson@vrlfinancialnews.com
