In The News

Mixed results for ex-Arrow drivers with lease-purchase deals

Greg Werner had eight months left on his lease-purchase agreement with Arrow Trucking before he was supposed to own his truck.

For four years and four months, he had been paying nearly $500 per week toward his 2006 Kenworth T600. Werner’s records show he only owed $14,000, plus a $100 fee at the end of the lease to change the title over into his name.

However, when Murphy-Hoffman Co. – or MHC – contacted Werner after Arrow’s chaotic collapse on Dec. 22, 2009, he was given a different amount that was owed on his truck.

“I was told that ‘Yes, this is a bad situation, but that we need our trucks,’ ” Werner told Land Line.

Werner said he was told that Arrow bought the trucks in groups of three and that a total of $130,000 was still owed on those three trucks.

“I was told they divided what was still owed on those three trucks and given a new amount I could finance my truck for,” he said.

The new amount was for approximately $48,000, plus interest. Werner had already paid Arrow more than $126,000 for his truck.

In the end, Werner said he walked away from the truck because after he paid in the additional amount, plus interest for the truck he would have had nearly $200,000 invested on a truck that was only worth $94,000.

“It was a tough choice. My wife cried for days over this because we had worked so hard to get this truck, but I had no choice but to walk away from it,” he said.

In May 2009, Arrow switched their drivers with lease-purchases from a per-mile pay scale to a percentage of the “adjusted gross revenue.” If drivers refused to sign the new percentage lease compensation terms, Werner said an Arrow representative told him his lease-purchase contract would be terminated and the equity he had in his truck would be lost.

So for more than three and one-half months, Werner said he went without a “positive” paycheck, but still managed to hang on to his truck.

“They did everything to try to break me, but I hung in there until the very end when Arrow closed their doors and I was told by the finance company they had the title to my truck and I had no legal leg to stand on,” he said.

OOIDA Member Mark Healy of Rochester, MN, has a much different story to tell about his experience with Arrow Trucking’s lease-purchase program than some of the other drivers who were caught in the company’s tangled web.

In June 2009, Healy said he “saw the signs” that things were coming to an end for Arrow and made the decision then to pay off his International truck and leave the company he had been with for nearly five years.

On June 5, 2009, he paid the $27,000 he owed on the truck and walked away from Arrow. He was told by an Arrow employee that the lien holder would send him a release in two to four weeks.

But that didn’t happen until after the company’s collapse on Dec. 22, 2009. At that time, Healy said he called Navistar to inquire about the lien release for his truck. And to his surprise, Healy said Arrow had actually been paying on his truck and that Navistar would be sending the lien release in the mail that day. A few days later, it was in his mailbox.

“It’s really a miracle of miracles that this worked out so well for me,” he told Land Line. “The sad part is that it didn’t work out so well for others who started their lease-purchases around the same time I did.”

OOIDA Member Mark Miller of Portland, OR, formerly with Arrow, is still battling to keep his 2006 Kenworth T600. He paid off his truck in August 2009 and received a title and bill of sale from Arrow. But attached to the title was a sticky note that stated the lien holder would release it in six to eight weeks. That never happened.

Now he’s finding out that his payments were not being forwarded on to the finance company and it wants the truck back, or will finance him for a new amount.

Miller said that several times during his lease-purchase program with Arrow, he asked employees in the lease department if there was a way that he could see that his payments were being forwarded on to the finance company.

“What I wanted to be able to see is a statement from the finance company that verified that my payments have been made, but was told everything was legal, the titles were good and my payments were being made,” Miller told Land Line. “I knew when I started the lease-purchase I was going to have a higher interest rate because I didn’t put money down, but then to get ripped off on top of that, now that’s criminal.”

[email protected]

www.LandLineMag.com