Hong Kong debt collection gets ugly
By MARGARET WONG
Associated Press

HONG KONG - First came several dozen annoying phone calls. The next day, the anonymous debt collector became more persistent, phoning Albert Ho's law firm more than 300 times to scream obscenities, play pornographic tapes or just stay silently on the line.

On the third day, the number of calls shot up to 687.

"It was extremely disturbing," said Ho. "It jammed the normal calls, keeping my clients waiting and affecting my business."

And Ho wasn't even the target.

The husband of an employee had gone bankrupt, leaving his office at the mercy of Hong Kong's often unscrupulous debt collectors, who have gone on a rampage as the economy worsens and bad loans multiply.

Collectors have been known to throw snakes, or a swarm of grasshoppers into an apartment to hasten debt repayment, or to hang the carcasses of dogs and cats outside.

Banks, credit card issuers, telecommunications companies and other lenders employ debt collectors who sometimes threaten the lives of debtors and innocent third parties, including friends, relatives, business partners or credit references.

Cases of personal credit delinquency jumped 53 percent to 105,815 in the second half of 2001, from 69,208 in the first half.

Bankrupt property dealer Alan Chan recalled foul-mouthed debt collectors pestering him outside his home and office and sending threatening letters containing fake paper money from the "Bank of Hell."

Tsang Fan-kwong, a senior medical officer at the Castle Peak Hospital, recalled a woman who tried to kill herself after a debt collector moved into the family home, demanding food every day until she paid her gambling debts.

"She couldn't stand it," Tsang said. The woman was rescued, then referred to him for treatment of clinical depression.

While a few big players run Hong Kong's debt collection services in a professional and ethical manner, many smaller, unscrupulous agencies employ hoodlums or poorly qualified people who work partly on commission.

In 2001, police received 1,959 reports of debt collectors resorting to such tactics as assault, arson, robbery, kidnapping, splashing paint on debtors' homes and jamming their door locks with glue.

In one particularly gruesome case, three men tortured and dismembered a 23-year-old nightclub hostess and stuffed her head inside a Hello Kitty doll. She allegedly owed $2,560. The men got life in prison.

Police statistics also showed a 118 percent increase in reports of non-criminal harassment tactics between 1999 and 2001.

In July, Hong Kong's Law Reform Commission proposed broadening the categories of harassment to be outlawed. "Many debt collectors are maneuvering in a gray area, and our recommendations aim to narrow that," said Cathy Wan, secretary of the commission's debt collection subcommittee.

Many Hong Kong lenders decline to discuss the issue, saying they know of no improper tactics by their debt collectors.

American Express Co. acknowledged receiving complaints from credit card holders about alleged crude phone calls from collectors. But it found no evidence of such calls in the records, said spokeswoman Catherine Lai.

The reform commission suggested establishing debt collection guidelines and licensing collectors, while allowing creditors to share more information about potential debtors to reduce bad loans.

Some debt collectors fear that would make their jobs harder, saying they already tend to recover only about 10 percent to 20 percent of the bad debts.

Bobby Rozario, co-founder of the debt collection company Communication Business Consulting Ltd., said a vague definition of criminal harassment would put collectors at great risk.

Benedict Wong, managing director of Total Credit Management Service Ltd., agreed.

"If you are talking about phone harassment, how would you define it?" he said. "The debtor could ... say he is threatened and humiliated even if a collector does it in a polite and professional manner."