Riding with the repo man (update)
Planet Money
NPR
4.6 • 30.5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A record number of Americans with poor or just okay credit are behind on their car payments. And once last year’s numbers are tallied, an estimated 3 million cars will have been repossessed in 2025. That would be on par with how bad it got during the Great Recession. What’s going on? And why now?
Today on the show, we focus on the micro part of the story to answer the macro question. First, we hear a favorite story of ours from 2019. We follow the lifecycle of a delinquent car loan from three different perspectives: the salesman, the driver, and the repo man. Then we’ll hear an update from them in 2026 as we try to find out why so many Americans are behind on their car payments.
Subscribe to Planet Money+
Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
This episode is hosted by Kenny Malone and Preeti Varathan. It was originally produced by Darian Woods and edited by Bryant Urstadt. Our update was reported by Vito Emanuel and produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and edited by Planet Money’s executive producer, Alex Goldmark.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Planet Money is going on tour. |
| 0:07.0 | To celebrate the release of our first ever book, |
| 0:09.5 | we are holding about a dozen events around the country. |
| 0:13.0 | Details on cities and dates at planetmoneybook.com. |
| 0:17.3 | That's planetmoneybook.com. This is Planet MoneyBook.com. |
| 0:28.7 | This is Planet Money from NPR. |
| 0:34.8 | This seems like a pretty nice neighborhood. |
| 0:35.6 | Yeah. |
| 0:39.3 | Every house here, the lights are all out, so people are asleep. |
| 0:43.2 | And we're sneaking up quietly on the car. |
| 0:45.8 | Larry Baker is a repo man. |
| 0:49.2 | We're crammed in a surprisingly small tow truck, |
| 0:51.1 | creeping through the suburbs in Ohio. |
| 0:54.6 | Tonight, Larry's job is to find and repossess a black Chevy cruise. |
| 0:56.8 | The person who bought that car is about six payments behind |
| 1:00.4 | and the finance company wants its car back. |
| 1:03.3 | It's right there. |
| 1:05.3 | What's that? |
| 1:06.0 | It's right there. |
| 1:07.8 | Okay. |
| 1:09.0 | Let me see, I thought I seen lights on here. We pull up to like a charming little house. There's a little garden, there's a couple of bird feeders in the yard. The Chevy is sitting right in the driveway. The house is totally dark. What time is it? It's about one in the morning. Yeah, I'm not going to knock on the door. Okay. Yeah, I'm just gonna grab it, and I'm gonna drag it out. Okay. |
| 1:28.3 | Well, my heart is genuinely pounding pretty hard. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.