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Repo Man With Soft Spot Helps Elderly Couple Keep Their Car

(CBS) -- A repo man downstate has been in the "asset recovery" business for 20 years, but this week he did something out of character for a repo man: He helped a couple keep their car.

The couple is elderly. She's in her 70s and he's in his 80s. They live in Red Bud, Illinois, south of St. Louis.

It's not as if they owed so much on their car. It's just that they couldn't pay it.

And the bank called on 41-year-old Jim Ford to do what he does: repossess vehicles.

The couple invited him in.

"She's talking to me about how her prescriptions have all tripled in price. And on a fixed income, you can't do anything when something like that happens," Ford says.

Ford did his job. He took the car.

"I drove about a block. I called the bank and said, 'Hey. How about if I just pay this thing current right now?'"

And he ended up starting a Go Fund Me account, which paid for the car in full within hours.

Now he's kept the account open to help pay for the couple's prescription drugs.

 

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