Nobody wants to see their car get hooked up to a tow truck. That slow, sinking feeling when the repo man shows up is enough to make anyone spiral. But most people, when faced with the moment, eventually take a deep breath and accept the situation. Most people.
One man in Panama City Beach, Florida, took a very different approach, and thanks to a bystander with a phone and a TikTok account, the world got to watch every cringeworthy second of it.
The Great Buick Escape That Was Not Great at All
@mandah88 Poor guy just didn’t want his car repossessed. He said he was just trying to reverse 🫣his car while they were attaching it to the tow truck. I’m sorry sir that looks like you were in drive and trying to escape via the side walk. Today was not his day. #pcb #pierparkpcb #badday #reverse ♬ original sound – Amanda Hood
The scene: an Old Navy parking lot. The vehicle in question: a red Buick sedan being hooked up to a tow truck. The plan: apparently, drive away before that becomes permanent.
What followed was less “action movie escape sequence” and more “cautionary tale with a light pole.” The driver threw the car into drive and aimed for the only exit available to him, which happened to be a sidewalk. A light pole disagreed with this plan. The Buick wedged itself between the pole and the side of a building, reversed, tried again, made things considerably worse, and then came to a full and complete stop in the most defeated way imaginable.
The driver climbed out, looking like a man who had just realized he had turned a $300 tow bill into something involving police, property damage, and a very long conversation with his insurance company. His wife and young child were nearby watching, which is the kind of detail that makes the whole thing hit a little harder.
For car enthusiasts out there, yes, it was a Buick. No, not the turbocharged Regal GS. Not that it would have mattered given the parking lot physics involved.
Bystanders called the police while the driver argued with the tow truck operator, as one does when one has just driven into a building.
Why Repossessions Are Happening More Than Ever
This is not just an isolated Florida moment. Repossession numbers across the country have been climbing sharply. Over 2.2 million vehicles were already repossessed through the first part of 2025, with the full-year pace on track to match levels not seen since the Great Recession.
The reasons are not hard to understand. The average price of a new car crossed $50,000 for the first time last September. Loan rates have stayed elevated. Insurance costs keep rising. And car repair inflation is running somewhere between 11 and 12 percent. For lower-income borrowers especially, that combination has become impossible to sustain.
The timeline on repos is also faster than most people expect. Lenders can typically move 60 to 120 days after missed payments, but some subprime or buy-here-pay-here loans can trigger one in as little as 30 days. And critically, repo agents in most states do not need a court order or advance notice to come collect the vehicle. They can show up anywhere, at any time, including your favorite Old Navy on a Thursday afternoon.
What they cannot legally do is use physical force or make threats. And if the owner verbally tells them to stop, they are required to leave and return another time. That is actually why so many repos happen in the middle of the night. Knowledge is power, and in this case, it is also cheaper than a lawsuit.
Experts who spoke to CBS News pointed out something important: lenders would actually prefer not to repossess, because they lose money on the process. That means there is more room to negotiate directly with a lender than most people realize. A phone call before things get this far can make a surprisingly big difference.
As for the man in Florida, the comment section of the viral video summed up the situation with the kind of clarity only the internet can provide. “He just 10X’d his problems,” one person wrote, listing out bail, court costs, property damage, and whatever the tow truck driver was adding to the tab.