My OperaSpanish Debt Collection Company Humiliates Debtors Into Paying Up
Monday, June 7, 2010 8:20:19 PM
Would you be mortified if a man in a tuxedo and a top hat followed you into a restaurant and silently joined your lunch date? How about a three men with more to love dressed up like superheroes begging your neighbors for donations to help you in your financial situation?
In Madrid, make sure that your bills are paid or you might be visited by one of these crazy characters. The recession has slammed Spain. Official figures show that the unemployment rate has sky rocketed, reaching 19.3 percent. That's one of the highest rates in Europe. About four million people aren't working. That's the same number of jobless people as France and Italy combined. One business is flourishing however, that business is debt collection.
Spanish law is pretty relaxed when it comes to paying debts. They permit 95 days to settle bills unlike the 30 in other parts of Europe. This, coupled with the fact that Spanish courts give the matter low priority put collection companies in high demand.
One agency, El Cobrador del Frac - which translates as "The Debt Collector in Top Hat and Tails" - has more than 250 collectors, and an equal number of secretaries and investigators.Their goal is to work out some deal and retrieve money, not to go after people without the means to pay.
For them, new business is coming from constructive trade which is suffering from a huge slowdown. Homeowners owe money to contractors, contractors owe money to construction companies, construction companies owe equipment makers, and so on and so forth.
Last year, the agency was contacted by a wedding company who had a couple who did not pay the $83,000 bill for their extravagant wedding. The agency got their hands on a wedding guest list and began calling up guests one by one on the phone and asking them if they had the chicken or the lobster, and then asked them where to send the bill. Eventually the shamed couple paid up.
These ideas are interesting, (I guess that's one way to describe it) but they won't be this effective in due time. In this time of crisis, too many people have debts and they honestly can't pay. And to these people, it doesn't matter how much you humiliate them.
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