At 7:00 a.m., when most of us are heading in to the office or getting the kids off to school, Mark Samuelson is arriving home from a tough night on the job. Soon he’ll hit the sack in preparation for what could be another long night ahead. As a repo man, Mark is one of numerous Valley residents who make uncommon livings after dark. This is the first installment in a continuing series, Night Owls, in which we will periodically take a closer look at those whose days get started when the sun goes down.


10:45 p.m.

Tracy Samuelson watches for anyone coming up the drive as her husband Mark pries a long screwdriver into the window seam of a late-model Chevy S- 10. Mark angles the beam of his black Mag-Lite into the crevice and reaches with another device to unlock the door. They’re in. Thirty minutes later, the truck is parked in a Motel 6 parking lot several miles away.

“He’s only been shot at once,” Tracy casually explains of Mark’s adventures in the repo business.

Now in the motel room currently serving as both headquarters and home, Mark and Tracy plan just how they will sneak onto private property and drive away with a handful of other cars tonight.

A Toyota 4Runner, a silver Buick Le Sabre and a Chevy Corsica, $200 a pop. The car-claiming duo has been tracking the Buick for days. Most recently, a sixyear- old former neighbor told them where the owner had moved. That’ll be their first stop tonight.

“It’s an adrenaline rush,” Tracy says of finally driving or towing away a target- vehicle.

“Score,” she exclaims with an elated smile. She’s sitting Indian-style on the double bed in their motel room. Mark sits closer to the TV, eating Domino’s pizza out of the box, his hands and forearms black from grease and oil. The grease is as much a part of his appearance as are his long hair and peppered gray goatee.

In an industry where repo specialists secretly engage in clever covert tactics in an effort to seize vehicles, Tracy and Mark are a favorite for their employers: the banks and dealerships that actually own the elusive vehicles. Short of harming or physically hurting a person, Mark and Tracy will do whatever it takes to find and take a vehicle.

Mark recalls one night when a retiree jumped on the hood of his pickup, his wife screaming from the sidewalk, as Mark was raising it onto the tow truck. “I really thought he was going to cry,” Mark remembers. As usual, Mark took off with the vehicle.

11:45 p.m.

As for tonight’s 4Runner, Mark called the mother of the owner earlier in the evening and said he was an old friend who had borrowed some tools a long time ago. He’d really like to return the tools. Does she happen to have his current address? Sure enough, mom had the address. In reality, several larger repo companies use these same tactics. They just won’t say so. Mark and Tracy don’t mind saying so. The couple used to work for a large repo company that paid them $20 per score. Since the thrill of legalized auto seizure is both their hobby and their livelihood, the duo decided to go into business for themselves. Now they work directly with banks and dealerships, and they cash in between $150 and $200 per repossessed vehicle.

They sometimes get eight vehicles in one long, adrenaline-pumping night. On one exceptional outing, the couple worked 36 hours straight on a hot streak. Other times they say they work when they feel like it, which is normally every day. Sometimes Tracy will wake in the middle of the night, roll over and wake up Mark and say, “Wanna go get one?” Like a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, they’re off in the middle of the night, 93.3 KDKB blaring from their Ford recovery vehicle as they rumble out to take another car.

Mark’s favorite seizures so far: a $50,000 BMW in Scottsdale and a classic Camaro Z-28. Most of the time, the target vehicles are Buicks, Toyotas and Chevys, but regardless of the model, the pay is always the same.

12:30 a.m.

Tonight, after fueling up at a QT gas station, Mark and Tracy pull up to the entrance of a gated apartment complex. They know the 4Runner is inside. Only the security gate stands between them and a successful score.

Mark slides out of the Ford, wrenches the lid off of the gate’s mechanical apparatus and begins loosening something in the motor, finally pulling the gate open.

Tracy drives the truck through, and in less than 30 seconds Mark is back in the driver’s seat. They patrol the entire complex until they find the white 4Runner.

Once found, they match the license plate and VIN numbers. Both check out. Mark slides under the truck to attach a chain and pull it out from its parking spot, tires scraping and squealing. With years of towing experience, Mark gently turns the truck straight and aligns it for the tow.

In the end, Mark and Tracy think they usually land on the right side of the law. After all, they’re working for the good guys. Banks and dealerships hire them to explore the dark crannies where defaulting owners hide cars. Mark and Tracy roam that world, finding such vehicles and fighting the deception with a bit of their own.

“There’s definitely a gray area,” Tracy says of delineating right and wrong, legal and illegal in the repo business. “But we’ll do whatever it takes.”

1:00 a.m.

“She just absolutely loves doing this,” Mark says from the Ford as Tracy banters back and forth with the upset owner of the silver Buick Le Sabre. The man is standing outside now with his entire family. Mark has positioned his truck in place so the man cannot move the car.

If Tracy and Mark can talk the owner into handing the keys over, they’ll make more money and spend less on operating costs, but Mark has no patience for such debates. The car will be towed.

2:00 a.m.

When they’re not taking cars, Mark and Tracy pass the time by casing apartment complexes for potential future hits. Mark simply cannot drive through a complex without casing the joint. On his way home, he stops by a few apartments to investigate.

Red flags catch his eye: a car backed in to hide the license plate, another with an out-of-state temporary paper registration in the back window.

Back at the Motel 6 headquarters, Tracy checks off the 4Runner, now parked outside and the Buick LeSabre, now sitting in a repo tow yard. She thumbs through an accordion-style folder of paperwork on cars they’ve been assigned to seize. The folder is overflowing with challenges for tomorrow and adventures for the following night.