Asset Retrieval

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local here with Mark Huggan, Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. Vancouver's best couriers, one of the top 100 fastest growing companies in British Columbia, probably in the top 10, the way  things have been going. How're you doing today Mark? 

Mark H: Hey, doing well. Thanks. 

Mark: So, what happens when somebody isn't paying their stuff, do you guys actually go and get it. Paying for their products that they're leasing or supposed to be paying on and they've stopped?

Mark H: 100% . We've been doing it for years. So asset retrieval is the norm a lot of times. So, you know, like an easy one would be say, there was a partnership and somebody had something to belong to the other person, but it's like a shotgun agreement. You know, they're both pointing guns and somebody in the middle, that's us.

So we will drop off cheques. And so a simple case scenario, drop-off cheque pickup key, you know, super simple. Or it might be something more elaborate. Say a company has a lot of remote workers that something happened and you need to retrieve all those assets can say their workstations for an animation studio and there could be like 40 of them and they're randomly all over the province. You have to go get those. There's a lot of exchange going on, a lot of hard feelings or remote area ones. We did a Sechelt pickup and you know, it didn't go as planned. 

So we were in the middle, like, well, he was expecting X and they got Y so we have the item we're supposed to do an exchange. So we have to get in the middle and negotiate. And it's a lot easier when it's us, because we're just a face doing a job. And people are kind of irate and they're losing their mind, but we can say, Hey, we're just a courier, you know, like you're going to shoot us, but we're just here to do our job. And yeah, we can communicate as a go-between and we get a lot accomplished.

So that's just this week, we've done a lot. In fact, we did the Gibsons, which was not easy. North Van, super easy, but we did Edmonton and Calgary and a whole milk run between Calgary and Edmonton for a  Calgary client. So we do that all the time and it makes it easy. 

Mark: So why would somebody call a courier? Wouldn't be the first thing on my mind to do this kind of thing. How did this kind of evolve? 

Mark H: Well, you're right. You know, people are like, I don't know who to call and  it's something we do. We do it all the time. We always have done it. But they kind of just call us because we do solve so many problems for businesses. And it's a natural cause. Like we are sort of like just the go to, we'll call Phantom. Maybe they do it. Like, yes we do do that. We can do that. We will do that. We'll figure it out how to do it for you. 

Because we are like, a courier is like a concierge. You know, if you're busy, you're just going to call downstairs and get the concierge look, Bill, I need you to go pick up my shoes. Done. You know? So they do call us on the whim. They just get used to having us solving problems and it gets it done. So those kinds of things naturally evolve. 

We've had people, interesting story, but a divorce, you know, wasn't it going well, and we had back in the days of the two-way radios, I had a young courier, 19 years old, Lindsey on one side of the door broadcasting, a crying fit. Between the door and Lindsey was like, calming down the woman telling her like, yes, it's not going well for you, but I won't leave. I'll just hang out with you until it goes well. So she made the best of a bad situation that I'll never forget that, but it was like, yeah, the paperwork wasn't going well. And it relayed to the office to the other party and kind of got straightened out. And in the end, nobody was happy, but they weren't as upset. So, you know, we can do that stuff. We'll calm you down.

Mark: Bridging the gap. So what other kind of stuff are you guys picking up? 

Mark H: Well you name it, I mean, we, you name it. We had to go pick up like this heirloom today, but the big problem was somebody was holding it and when we got there, they didn't want to wrap it. Like they didn't want to package it up. Cause that was like their last final, like, you know, jab at you, like here take this, but it's like, Holy man, you can't just like drive around with this, this, you know, it's an old heirloom is it's going to fall apart. It like an antique thing. 

So of course we had to come up with a solution. We're always handed the hot potato. That's our life, you know. Ding dong. Hire the hot flaming hot potato. Can you just deal with it? So we usually have a trick up our sleeve where we can fix things up. We're always good at problem solving. It's just a good thing. We did. It's crazy thing too. 

Mark: So there you go if you've got a hot potato, if you need some assets recovered, if you have some stuff that somebody stopped paying for and you need to get it back, or you want a third party...

Mark H: And we'll try and track it down too, like manhunt, we're good at that. We are good at following the clues. We can find where people move because a lot of times there'll be forwarding mail that the person in the house will just be like, Oh, Hey, by the way, take this with you. If you ever find Joe, this has been forwarded. And sometimes you just call a few of those places and they're like, Oh yeah, we've got the forwarding address for this guy already. And boom, we're on our way. It's like a little detective job. 

Mark: Phantom Couriers, (604) 899-5447. Outside of the lower mainland +1 844-899-5447. They'll get your stuff back. Thanks Mark.

Mark H: Outside of the box, too. Right? There you go.