{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Portfolio Perspective: Managing Risk & Seizing Opportunity","title":"On the Side of the Facts: What Lenders Get Wrong About Repossession Risk","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":4627,"description":"In this episode of Portfolio Perspective: Managing Risk & Seizing Opportunity, Andrew Pace sits down with Mark Lacek, a nearly five-decade veteran of the recovery industry and one of the most frequently retained expert witnesses in wrongful repossession litigation, to explore what actually goes wrong in the field and how much of it traces back to decisions made at the lender level.\nMark performed his first repossession in 1978, back when the work meant Slim Jims and hot-wiring rather than self-loaders and license plate recognition. He built a leading recovery operation, served as president of his state association, founded Professional Repossessor Magazine, and authored the Commercial Recovery Agent Certification Program, which has certified roughly 700 agents to date. Today he reviews case files for plaintiff and defense counsel alike, and he is direct about where he sits: not on anyone's side, only on the side of the facts.\nThe conversation moves from the fundamentals of self-help versus judicial repossession into the places where those fundamentals break down. Mark explains why any objection to a repossession, verbal or nonverbal, triggers an immediate duty to retreat, and why contingency fee structures quietly push agents to keep going anyway. He walks through the litigation he currently has on his desk, the pattern he sees behind most of it, and why he puts a meaningful share of the blame on lenders who select vendors on price rather than on certification, insurance, training, and facilities. Andrew brings the commercial and equipment side into the discussion, including a case where an agent was ordered by police to drop a loaded machine on a public street, and the two of them work through what a real strategic partner looks like versus a vendor who simply pushes assignments out the door.\nFor anyone running a portfolio where recovery is part of the process, this is a look at the downstream consequences of upstream decisions. Mark's closing argument is that...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/YAp1sD8605iAhnj8hdb-ZqxhPWIeBVU1K5D-1nxaW4Y/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mNWJj/NzczNGQxNzczMmFi/MmY2MjYwYTY4NDRl/MWUwNC5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}