A trucker faces repossession in action. Left to right: Jon Kizziah, Terry Ransey (in the truck), Dwayne Kizziah, a cat named Dog and Jerry White. Good repo agents keep the situation from getting out of control by acting professionally when confronted by a truck owner.

Professional recovery agent Jamie Blackburn was hunting a year-old yellow Freightliner when he spotted it stashed in the middle of an Iowa cornfield.

He approached the truck, checked that the VIN number matched the paperwork from the lender and knocked at the door. When nobody answered, it took him less than 20 seconds to pick the lock, start it up and drive away. But suddenly, he heard a ruckus in the sleeper.

“Something was back there, but I didn’t know what it was,” says the owner of Advanced Recovery Florida, a recovery and repossession company located in Bunnell, Fla. The rustling got louder, and about 2 miles down the road, Blackburn spotted the metal cage stashed in the lower bunk, where an agitated 18-ft. boa constrictor resided. “I pulled over to the side of the road and called the owner-operator, told him to come pick up the rest of his property,” Blackburn says. “And he did.”

In his 18 years a repo man, Blackburn has picked countless trucks, and he’s encountered all kinds of things left behind – blow-up dolls, ferrets, dogs, cats and even a gun or two. “The snake wasn’t the strangest thing,” he says, “but it did cause a memorable adrenaline rush.” Most repos aren’t nearly as exciting.

Repos rising
The repo business is booming, and as fuel prices continue shooting up, things are only getting more intense. Blackburn says he’s sympathetic toward owner-operators who’ve hit hard times, but like all of us, he has a job to do. “These days,” he says, “I’m more likely to be greeted with a sigh of relief and handed a set of keys.”