Following the completion of a four market pilot program, American Recovery Service, the original nationwide automotive repossession and skip-tracing firm, has selected RISC – Recovery Industry Services Company as their partner to perform compliance inspections for the entire ARS collateral recovery agent network. RISC has performed in-depth inspections on ARS Agents in Miami, Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston. Inspections are currently being prepared in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, with the remainder of the country to be completed shortly thereafter, all at no cost to the repossession service providers.
ARS is the market leader in nationwide repossession services, which means setting the bar high with respect to their agent network. As part of their industry-leading risk management platform, ARS is dedicated to the ongoing vetting of their entire network of collateral recovery specialists through a well qualified, independent third party. ARS chose RISC for the compliance inspection portion of their vetting process due to RISC’s expertise in the repossession process, knowledge of current compliance requirements, as well as their ability to deliver a superior inspection product. Steven Schelk, Chief Risk Officer of ARS, explains, “RISC is a natural partner for this undertaking; as the recovery industry expert in professional training and certification programs, we can ensure that the inspections are performed by quality, well informed inspectors who understand the businesspeople they are interacting with.” Patrick K Willis, Founder and Chairman of PK Willis adds, “We feel it is our responsibility to partner with our repossession service providers and assist them in understanding the changing regulatory landscape while also providing them with a cost-effective tool they can use to prove that they are compliant.”
While the costs of some compliance programs are significantly impactful, ARS and RISC believe that compliance should be a manageable cost and a shared responsibility. ARS and RISC have negotiated a very low rate for these inspections, which will be performed biannually, while ARS has also committed to covering the cost of the first inspection for each one of their collateral recovery specialists. Stamatis Ferarolis, President of RISC stated “We are excited to see ARS’s proactive approach. They understand that compliance and training will mitigate risk for their clients and their commitment shows how serious they are about partnering with their vendor network. Those vendors who are interested will also have access to RISC’s Agent Alliance Program, a full compliance management suite.”
About American Recovery Service & Patrick K Willis Company (http://www.pkwillis.com) ARS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Patrick K Willis Company Inc., provides nationwide asset repossession services, skip-tracing, impounded asset retrieval, license plate recognition (LPR) recovery, and online remarketing to the country’s largest banks, auto finance companies and credit unions. From the 1970s, when founder Patrick K. Willis built his company from the ground up, often performing repossessions himself, to the 1990s, when ARS originated the National Repossession business model, to more recent times when ARS pioneered the LPR Staging model and improved accessibility with ARS Mobile technology; ARS has been a constant leader the Repossession Industry. Through superior technology and business processes ARS’s success translates into $2B in recovered wholesale asset value for their clients each year. ARS repossesses a vehicle every 3 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
