Are advertisements for quickly resolving overdue debt reliable? “Anti-collection” investigation of illegal products

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“For those of you who can’t pay back your debts, here’s good news for you. For those who owe you money or bank cards, I want to congratulate you. As long as you have various overdue problems, you can click on your avatar or swipe left on the video now. Receive your repayment plan, listen to me, don’t ignore it anymore, don’t borrow it again, we provide one-on-one professional legal guidance, customize the repayment plan, no consulting fees, no entrustment, no fees.”

“New policy for online loans in 2024, don’t be in a hurry to repay these 20 overdue loans. If you are temporarily unable to repay your × bei or online merchant loan, and are about to become overdue or have already overdue, take 3 seconds to try. Click the link below. The gold medal legal team is online 24 hours a day, with high efficiency and timely responses. We can quickly provide solutions for various overdue situations to protect your rights and strictly keep your identity information confidential. Now just tell me your overdue situation and I will be there immediately. You can get help from professional legal personnel.”

A reporter from the “Rule of Law Daily” found that in recent times, advertisements for negotiating overdue repayments of various credit cards and online loans have flooded social platforms. The advertisements describe the various dangers of overdue payments and promise to provide free solutions to help users solve their repayment problems. To overcome the financial worries, many organizations have endorsed film, television and sports stars to prove their credibility.

Is it reliable to find a debt counseling agency for online loans or overdue credit cards? What are the risks? In this regard, the reporter conducted an in-depth interview.

　　Selling negotiation skills online

　　The repayment plan is full of loopholes

How do debt counseling agencies allow debts to be extended or even only the principal to be repaid? Or is it false advertising?

In order to find out, the reporter contacted a teacher Zhang from an organization who claimed to have helped more than 30,000 debtors “go ashore” and said: “I borrowed 30,000 yuan in online loans and it is now 4 months overdue. The other party said If you don’t want to expose your address book, is there any way you can help me?”

Teacher Zhang replied: If you are overdue for such a long time, you may face the risk of being sued at any time. In your case, online loans are suitable for extension. The longest extension can be one to two years. There is no need to repay during the extension period, which can relieve your pressure and stop violent collection. , to avoid prosecution.

“There are internal practical techniques and one-on-one counseling to guide you in solving debt problems. The fee is not high, 498 yuan. If you think clearly, you can sign up.” Teacher Zhang said that there are no secondary charges and only 498 yuan can completely solve these problems. .

After paying the fee, Teacher Zhang sent the reporter to another assistant, Teacher Wang. Later, Teacher Wang sent internal information, which was actually various courses recorded by Teacher Zhang. Most of the content taught people how to extend extensions and past successful cases. At the same time, they also “motivated” debtors: Overdue is not terrible, and the experience is complete. The process of collection and prosecution is actually a life treasure. Although the above courses are divided into many sections, most of them contain repetitive content.

Teacher Wang said: “After you have learned the most important sixteen-character policy, you can come back to me if you don’t understand anything.” The reporter noticed that the so-called sixteen-character policy refers to online loans and credit cards that can be easily searched online. Overdue negotiation techniques: objective factors, magnifying the impact, magnifying the pain, and I will pay back the money.

“In the early days, I made three phone calls a day. I spent 20 minutes each time talking about your difficulties and the impact that debt had on you. For example, you were so worried that your hair turned gray, you were so worried that you couldn’t eat, etc. No matter how miserable it was, you could only Only when you are in trouble will others give you policies. Remember not to expose your demands. Only in this way can we give you good policies.” Teacher Wang said.

For 498 yuan, all he got in exchange was so-called encouragement for the debtor and blunt negotiation skills. In addition, the reporter also noticed that in the link sent by the assistant, he could be upgraded to a partner of the institution for free, and he would receive a 180 yuan share for pushing the course. The reporter also encouraged the reporter to push the course to more debtors in need.

“What’s the current price for overdue consultations from other companies?”

“There are also those with five or six hundred, and there are also those with one or two thousand.”

“The quotations are so confusing and so expensive, how should friends who are overdue make a choice? Let us know and we will start the online quotation inquiry service now, and the consultation fee will be free of charge.”

Under the advertisement link, after the reporter filled in the relevant information, a Ms. Zhou who claimed to be “×× Legal Firm” quickly called. After learning the relevant details, the other party quickly gave a personal debt planning plan: Delay for one to three years, and no repayment is required during the extension period; avoid prosecution and being included in the list of dishonest persons; reduce or exempt interest, penalty interest, and liquidated damages arising from overdue payments. The legal specialist will meet with the expiration date to negotiate and settle the loan in one go, and Obtain a settlement certificate issued by the platform; resolve issues such as collection harassment, harassment of the person and contacts, and exposure of address books.

Ms. Zhou said that although there is no charge for consultation, subsequent service fees need to be charged. The charging standard is 8% of the total amount owed. For example, if they owe 50,000 yuan, they will be given 4,000 yuan.

The reporter found that this so-called plan was full of loopholes. Not only was the loan interest rate exaggerated and inconsistent with the facts, but the name of the lending institution was also wrong. The other party said that if they agree to the entrustment, they need to pay 500 yuan first, and then a contract will be sent. If they are satisfied with the contract content, they will make up the remaining money and they can operate. It is worth mentioning that after questioning, the reporter found that if the contract was not satisfactory, the other party would not refund the 500 yuan.

　　Claiming to be able to suspend pending accounts

　　Not necessarily possible

Are these debt counseling agencies really that magical? During the investigation, the reporter found that some debtors never heard from the other party after paying the money, or did not achieve the promised results at all. However, such contracts are often not protected by law and have no way to complain. They also spent a lot of money to make the debtors Adding insult to injury.

Zhang Shan, a lawyer at Beijing Yinghe Law Firm who has been engaged in financial business for a long time, told reporters that their team has also noticed that there are some anti-collection black and gray industries on the Internet packaged as so-called “legal companies” and “legal consulting companies”, etc. It claims that it can suspend interest rates, temporarily stop charging interest on unpaid principal, extend the repayment period, and provide services such as “debt negotiation” and debt optimization, attracting many overdue financial loan debtors.

“Some so-called legal firms promise that they can suspend interest payments, defer repayment to three years, and only repay principal without interest, etc., but this may not be possible in fact.” Zhang Shan said that the so-called suspension of interest payments is not a legal concept. , professionally it should be called “personalized installment repayment”, and the legal basis is the provisions of Article 70 of the “Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Credit Card Business of Commercial Banks”.

Zhang Shan said that this needs to meet three conditions: there are special circumstances that cause the amount of debt to exceed the cardholder’s repayment ability; the cardholder has a strong willingness to repay and can actively negotiate with the bank for repayment after it is overdue. repayment matters; the bank and the cardholder can reach a practical repayment plan. On the premise that these three conditions are met, the bank can reach an installment repayment agreement with the cardholder.

Mr. Yi, who has been engaged in financial credit business in Shenzhen for many years, revealed to reporters that the so-called legal staff of such debt consulting institutions were actually debt collectors. After leaving their jobs, these people spent hundreds of dollars online to register a consulting company. , which claims to be a professional team of lawyers that can solve all debt problems, and some even ask not to negotiate with them for debts of less than 30,000 yuan or 50,000 yuan (because they can’t make much money).

“Most of the so-called legal services for debt negotiation are to pretend that you are personally negotiating with banks and online loan platforms.” Mr. Yi said that what these debt consulting agencies do is simply to ask you to send the mobile phone card reserved in the bank to They also have personal information, and then pretend to be you to negotiate with banks and lending institutions. If necessary, they will provide false certificates in your own name, such as disease certificates, unemployment certificates, etc., to prove that you are really unable to repay the loan. It’s not that you don’t return it intentionally. Needless to say, there is a risk of personal information leakage. In serious cases, it may even lead to fraud.

“The extension method used by many debt counseling agencies is to continuously make malicious complaints in order to achieve personalized installments. This can easily lead to some parties’ reputation being damaged without knowing it, and thus being blacklisted by the bank.” Mr. Yi said.

Zhang Shan said that the private information provided by individuals to these institutions is likely to be resold by these institutions for profit again. After the information is resold, the risks faced by the debtor will be more severe. After personal privacy is leaked, you will face endless harassment from high-frequency marketing text messages. If the information is obtained by criminals, it may become a target for criminals to defraud or steal funds, and the debtor will most likely be dragged into a deeper quagmire.

　　Anti-collection has become an industrial chain

　　Strengthen supervision and precise punishment

Some bank customer service and loan platform staff revealed that they have never entrusted any company to negotiate debts. If overdue debtors want to negotiate, they directly contact the debtors, and there is no third-party agency negotiation.

During the investigation, the reporter also found that some people pretended to be lawyers for publicity, and some people disappeared after receiving consulting fees. Some consultations could be handled for free but they spent consulting fees to find so-called specialists to handle them. There is a market for overdue debt negotiation. All kinds of chaos.

Zhang Shan said that in fact, according to their team’s understanding, “anti-collection” has developed into a complete black and gray industry chain. Under the guise of legal affairs, these consulting companies publish false advertisements to induce customers to pay service fees, and instigate customers to use illegal tactics such as forging false materials and making malicious complaints to evade debts.

“What’s more, without any factual basis to support it, they launch unprovoked attacks on financial institutions and lending platforms, deliberately anger customer service and collection personnel, try to fabricate the fait accompli of violent collection, and then complain and threaten financial institutions and lending platforms; or Instigating customers or directly complaining to regulatory agencies on behalf of customers through letters or hotlines, falsely claiming to have received violent collections from banks or collection agencies, threatening and intimidating them, making visits to outlets, spreading false information to the media, etc. to put pressure on them, so as to cause them to lose their jobs or lose their jobs. Extortion based on false information such as depression and loss of reputation is suspected of being a crime,” Zhang Shan said.

In January this year, the Public Security Bureau of Yunmeng County, Hubei Province carried out simultaneous crackdowns on the black and gray industries that opposed debt collection in Wuhan and Yunmeng. At the same time, more and more financial companies are also using network data monitoring to identify anti-collection advertisements, and promptly report to relevant platforms to remove relevant advertising links.

How can we solve the chaos in the overdue debt negotiation market? In this regard, Zhang Shan suggested that the system should further amend and improve relevant laws and regulations, issue targeted judicial interpretations, clarify the legal responsibilities and penalty standards for malicious debt evasion and debt evasion such as “agency complaints” and “anti-collection”, and increase the cost of illegal acts; The financial regulatory authorities should improve the accuracy and effectiveness of their work, carefully screen unreasonable complaints, and not give any opportunity to institutions and behaviors such as “agency complaints”, “anti-collection”, and “credit repair”.

Zhang Shan reminded that financial institutions and lending platforms should strengthen their awareness of compliance operations, improve consumer rights protection mechanisms, and further unblock channels for consumer complaints, credit objections, etc.; various media and online platforms should increase the awareness of relevant laws against the harm of anti-collection publicity.

“The most important thing is that consumers should establish a rational consumption concept, develop a living habit of living within their means, and avoid over-consumption. At the same time, they should also proactively identify and reject illegal organizations and behaviors such as anti-collection and agency complaints, and properly protect personal information and Privacy to avoid being illegally used, leaked or traded by black and gray industry organizations and suffering greater economic losses,” Zhang Shan said.

If a personal debt is overdue or about to become overdue, what is the correct way to handle it?

Zhang Shan believes that once a personal loan or credit card becomes overdue, it is recommended to contact the financial institution directly, express demands in accordance with the law through formal channels, defend rights rationally, and communicate with creditors yourself, which will always be more direct and effective than a third party. If the process is really If you encounter problems, you should also seek legal help from formal institutions.

“Debt overdue consultation means calling and negotiating with the other party. Consulting institutions can fight you, so there is no need to risk personal information leakage and spend money to find unreliable services.” Mr. Yi said.

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