Operation Repo first aired on TruTV in 2008 and continued till 2014, finally ending a rather successful run of 285 episodes. In fact, it first began as a Spanish language TV series called Operación Repo and ran on Telemundo before making the language and the channel shift and had plenty of fans before things began to get questioned by the viewers.
The show focuses on the professional and personal lives of a family-owned and operated vehicle repossession company based out of San Fernando Valley in California. If you have ever watched the show, it’s an OTT nightmare filled with violence, bad words, and dramatic behavior from the repo team and their “victims”, the latter often resorting to strange, demeaning, and sometimes violent tactics to save their car from being taken away. Obviously, like it is with all reality TV and car reality shows, viewers often questioned if the show is actually a true one, or showing mostly fake stuff.
In retrospect, there are plenty of questionable things about the show. So here is what is fake about Operation Repo, and why…
The Show’s Premise States "Facts"
There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of the show that states that it is “based on actual events”. This statement in itself should give you a pretty big hint that what you are watching may be derived from reality and real-life happenings, but that doesn’t mean that it is reality TV.
The full disclaimer of Operation Repo reads, “The stories that are portrayed in this program are based on real events. The names of the characters were changed to protect their identities… and some honor.”
Then again, the show’s cast, while using their real names, do not seem to have any such repo company registered to their names and most do not have repossession licenses. So if the company does not exist, clearly the entire premise of the show is likely to be fake as well.
The Absolutely OTT Behaviour
Never have we seen so much outrageous behavior coming from all the people whose cars the team goes to repossess, and of course, from the team itself.
None of the Operation Repo team wear uniforms identifying themselves as a repossession team. They also resort to violence rather easily, throwing punches, getting into tussles, and wrestling their “victims” to the ground as a last resort. Viewers also recalled episodes where pepper spray was the weapon of choice by the team.
If all these fights were truly real, they would probably be at court every day, getting slapped by a whole host of lawsuits for excessive use of force and more. As one actual repo man wrote in an online forum about the show, “I'm a real repo man. REAL repo men are not allowed to lay a finger on ANYONE, nor can they randomly spray people with pepper spray, or even act confrontational AT ALL. Repossessing is serious business. This show makes anyone in the business look like a clown."
This very forum also had a viewer share how the tow truck shown in the series is a Ford F-250 with a makeshift towing assembly in the bed of the pickup, not the actual kind of heavy-duty stuff that vehicle repossession teams use, which to anyone in the repossession business is laughable.
Some Of The Cast Are Actors
Luis ‘Lou’ Pizarro is one of the producers of the show, and supposedly the head of the repo company as well. While this may be a little murky, guess something like this could be true. The lead star of a reality TV series could in fact be the producer of his own show.
But then again, some of the cast are actors with plenty of experience. For instance, in the later seasons of the show, Ronnie Tyrone Lee joins the team as a repo man. But in 2012, the same year he came on the show, he was also an actor in the TV series, Major Crimes. In fact, Lee has also been credited for parts in various other series as well as TV movies. In his online resume, he is listed as an actor, producer, writer, and director. No sign of being a repo man there.
During the time Lee was on the show, his friend Carlos Lopez Jr. also joined the “repo team”. Like Lee, Lopez also had various other roles and credits to his name, including extended guest roles on CSI: Cyber and iCarly. He also played a CIA Station Chief in the 2017 Tom Cruise movie, American Made. Sadly, Lopez was found dead of a gunshot wound at his home in 2018.
And yet, read Luis Pizarro’s IMDb profile and it states that he got into the repossession business and it's his experience of 13 years, coupled with his interest in film making, that made him create the Operation Repo show.
Real or fake, there are plenty in the audience who liked the show, reason enough to had it filmed for some 285 episodes, grating as they may have been. As one viewer put it, “real or fake, it's fun watching stupid people do stupid things on TV”. Enough said!
Sources: BrianMallasch, BluetoothDouchebag, Deadline, Angelfire