Repo Man with a Heart Buys Back Old Couple’s Car

An elderly couple from Red Bud Illinois couldn’t make their car payment, and repo man Jim Ford was sent to take it away.  Ford, who has been repossessing cars for about 20 years was forced to take the 1998 Buick from Stan and Pat Kipping.

But Ford says the couple reminded him of his late grandparents, and he could see that they were  struggling to make ends meet.  So Ford started a Go Fund Me page with the goal of raising $2,120 to pay the car off..

In just three days, Ford paid the car's debt off. On Monday, he returned the car to the Kippings, and he even had the oil changed and the interior detailed.

"They'd fallen behind because of the price of her husband's medications that have doubled over the last year," Ford said. "I was told he has the beginning stages of dementia and that they couldn't even afford to get a few of his scripts this month because of the price increases."

The additional money is being used to help pay for the Kippings' increasing medical expenses, and for them to have a bountiful Thanksgiving.

“We owe a drug store $500,” Pat Kipping told KTVI-TV. “We owe IGA, our grocery store, money. And then this happened. It’s made me think that there are very good people out there, and it’s not all bad.”

As of Wednesday morning, 174 people had donated $6,875 to help the Kippings.

Here's Jim's message on "Go Fund Me":

So most everyone knows that I’ve been a repo man for almost 20 years! I’ve seen just about everything you can imagine from being shot at to butt naked 500 pounders and everything in between... This past week I had to repo a elderly couple that were around 80 years old! They'd fallen behind because of the price of her husband’s medications that have doubled over the last year! I was told he has the beginning stages of dementia and that they couldn’t even afford to get a few of his scripts this month because of the price increases! I can’t list the name of the debtor for legal reasons or the bank but after talking with Lee tonight we figured we need to do something to help these people out! the payoff on the car is just over 2000 dollars plus repo fee which I’m going to cancel! The car is a 98 Buick that’s in great condition and I can tell they have always taken care of! I figure that if everyone I’ve tipped 100.00 would throw in 10.00 we could pay it off asap! This is there only car and they have no relatives that live close so I wanna try to get this paid off by tues or weds if possible!! Please help me out on this and thanks in advance-Jim