In China, Credit Card Debt Enslaves. Anyone Surprised?

It isn’t a big shock to find out that the credit craze and panic is exploding around the world.

The credit craze and panic works like this:

Stage One: Craze – apply and get approved for credit and go crazy racking up the balance.
Stage Two: Panic – after you’ve expended your credit resources you panic as you try to make payments you can’t afford and attempt to avoid collections.

Today I bring to your attention China, the fourth largest country in the world. It appears debtors in China are having similar debt problems to the likes of Americans and other citizens of the world. Apparently it is no longer the Year of the Tiger in 2010 but rather the Year of the Debt Collector.

As with any other credit card society in this day and age, as the number of credit accounts opened increase as do the amount of defaulted accounts.

AsiaOne recently released an article entitled “More ‘credit card slaves’ trapped by crushing debt“. This article outlined different scenarios of debtors in China that are being harassed, embarrassed and threatened by debt collectors.

Many have had collectors phone friends, family, employers and in some instances mere acquaintances of the debtor in attempts to collect on the debt. Some spoke of instances where collectors posed as lawyers and police officers to try and collect. And many reported they have been harassed and threatened if they do not make payments and most are living in fear.

On July 1, Zhong Zhaofeng, a white-collar employee who owed 6,000 (currently about $885) yuan to a bank, went on a date with a cyber-friend. However, when he arrived at the rendezvous, three men surrounded him and compelled him to go to an office where he was detained until police arrived. The cyber-friend was in fact an employee of a debt collecting company.

Unfortunately, for the Chinese, there is no sort of consumer protection or set of rules on how collectors can collect debts like we Americans have with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).

As awful as these acts are, I think it would be more shocking to hear of these events if they weren’t happening across the globe. It’s a credit craze and panic epidemic!

Coming soon to a city near you.