Experts gave advice on how not to fall for the deception of anti-collectors and debtors
In Russia, the annual volume of the market for debtor services—companies that promise Russians to “get rid of debts legally”—is about 50 billion rubles. This data is provided by the ABC agency. Those who are also sometimes called anti-collectors receive this money from borrowers who find themselves in a difficult situation, hoping with their help to forget about their debts forever. How can turning to such pseudo-lawyers affect a person’s fate, how do they disguise their “services” and what can be advised to victims of such sophisticated fraud — in the material of MK.
Irina from Murmansk is 35 years old, she works as a manager in one of the commercial companies. And for the last two years he has been living in fear: “Several years ago, scammers issued a loan in my name for 100 thousand rubles. I don’t know where they got a photo of my passport from. Just one fine day I received a message on my phone from collectors. It contained threats against me, and they also promised that if I did not repay the loan, then my family and friends would be in trouble.”
According to the Murmansk woman, everything was written in such an incorrect form that she thought that she was simply being scammed. And for about two months our heroine did not react to all these messages. But the scammers did not calm down and began writing angry letters to her friends. “They threatened that my photos would be posted on dating sites, in communities offering the services of girls with low social responsibility,” Irina complains.
All this time, the woman did not share this problem with anyone, she did not even tell her husband. But at some point I couldn’t stand it and told him everything: “He, of course, scolded me, but he promised to sort it out himself. No police intervention. First, he contacted the credit bureau to check my credit history. And what do you think?! It turned out that unknown people tried several times to issue microloans in my name, but they were unable to carry out this scam. True, after a while they still managed to “hang” this ill-fated loan of 100 thousand rubles on me.”
Irina’s husband turned out to be not a timid person and began to dig further. He called the same microfinance organization, which confirmed to him that such a loan existed and it was issued online. The story didn’t end there: “I don’t know why, but my husband decided to turn to a company that helps get rid of all these loans and microloans. But in vain. We had no idea what we were getting into.”
First, the company's managers asked a resident of Murmansk for 10 thousand rubles for their services and gave her to fill out documents indicating that Irina allowed them to represent her interests before debt collectors. But this money turned out to be not enough. A month later, company representatives asked for another 15 thousand rubles for their help. The married couple paid and greatly regretted it: “In the end, we didn’t receive any help. This sharashka office stopped answering our calls, and when we arrived at the address where this company was supposed to be located, we simply “kissed” the tightly closed door and left with nothing.”
Irina went to the police and wrote a statement, but it didn’t help much either. After some time, the threatening calls started again. This time not only to Irina, but also to her husband: “They called not only during the day, but also in the middle of the night. My husband began to get nervous and blame me for this whole situation. But the collectors did not let up. They called and said that if we don’t close the loan, they will go to court. Our debt became known to our neighbors. They began to tell us that in our absence an unknown car came to our house. My husband and I have already stopped sleeping. The collectors called our friends, intimidated them, told them what would happen to them if they did not force us to pay. It got to the point that one of the collectors somehow waylaid me near my work. I explained the situation to him, but he didn’t believe it, promising to return.”
Unable to withstand the pressure, Irina persuaded her husband to move to another area of the city. And just close the apartment. But nothing came of it; the collectors found “debtors” there too. And they even ruined the door lock for them. The police, as Irina notes, were unable to find the scammers who put the loan on her.
Calls from collectors began to arrive less frequently, but the heroine secretly saves money from her husband to close a loan that is not hers, and, finally, start sleeping peacefully.
The Murmansk resident advises everyone who finds themselves in the same situation as her to under no circumstances show their fear to debt collectors. Communicate with them calmly and firmly, based on all existing laws. And the very first thing, of course, is to file a complaint with the police.
40-year-old engineer Mikhail from Penza was much less fortunate. Having taken out a small loan of 70 thousand rubles from a friend last year, the man never expected to fall into the trap of debt collectors: “I agreed with my friend on an installment plan. Naturally, he did not sign any documents confirming our conditions. And it backfired on me. A few months later, he sued me, indicating in the lawsuit the full amount of the debt. And then the collectors got involved.”
It all started with a call. An unknown man invited Mikhail to a meeting. Our hero, fearing for his life, took with him a friend, a former special forces soldier. All three met in the center of Penza in one of the cafes. The collectors, according to our hero, were dressed rather unkemptly. One looked like someone who had just been released from a place not so remote, the second looked like he was approaching retirement age. “Having reminded me of the debt, one of the people who came handed me a paper about transferring the debt to a certain collection agency,” says our hero. “I was not at all afraid and answered that, according to the law, only bailiffs, but not collectors, could deal with my case. As a result, we did not reach a common denominator in the conversation in a raised voice, and went about our business.”
From that moment, the collectors began to follow Mikhail: “I immediately noticed someone else’s car near the house. Probably, their plans were to attack me, for example, near the entrance or cause significant damage to my car. I even somehow plucked up courage and, meeting them near work, tried to talk to them. To which they began to threaten me in a rather rude manner, using obscene expressions.”
Having learned that Mikhail, apart from an apartment and a car, owned nothing else, the collectors picked up the phone again. They called not only early in the morning, but also at the height of the working day, and even late at night. And at some point, our hero began to record all conversations on a voice recorder. And then he went with all the evidence to the police: “One of the collectors then called and said: “Do you want to be a victim? You will be!” By that time, for some reason, I went to the Internet and found a person who helped with closing debts. I wrote to him. Previously, I gave him 5 thousand rubles for providing assistance. He began to drag his feet and asked for more money. I transferred another 5 thousand rubles to his card. But the collectors continued to call and threaten.”
And then something happened that Mikhail never expected. Having arrived from a business trip, the man was unable to get into his own apartment. It turned out that in his absence, the collectors inserted small nails into the door lock. And on top of everything else, the car windows were broken.
The Penzen resident wrote a statement to the police. Hooligan collectors were found and fined for damaging other people's property. But they were not afraid and continued to annoy Mikhail. But the person from the Internet, who promised to help our hero, stopped answering calls, and then changed his phone number altogether.
After a while, the collectors calmed down a little: “I told them a couple of times that my uncle works as the head of the criminal investigation department, and he himself will shake anything out of you. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it worked in my case. In the end, I somehow came to an agreement with a friend who lent me money. Now I transfer him 5 thousand rubles to his bank card every month. After this whole story with the collectors, I came to the conclusion that you need to behave with them like dogs: you can’t show your fear, otherwise you won’t get out later.”
By the age of 38, Dmitry from Samara fell into the classic trap with microloans, when he first took out his first loan in order to get through “before payday.” “It was easy: I did everything online, and I was even happy,” the man recalls with bitter irony. He received the second loan to repair a car that suddenly broke down, the third was used to pay off the second and “not spoil his credit history,” and by the fifth loan the man realized that he could no longer simply pay the money back on time. Very quickly calls and unpleasant conversations began demanding payment of the debt. “I knew perfectly well what would happen if I didn’t pay my debts, but there was no expectation of any improvement in my financial situation,” notes the victim. “So I decided to just type something into a search engine on the topic ‘how to get rid of debts’.” An advertisement with a loud promise immediately caught my eye: “Professional lawyers with many years of experience will help debtors.” Since he really wanted to get rid of debts, the man did not notice anything suspicious. “Then I realized that the very ease of such a solution to the problem should have alerted me, but what can I say now!” the Samaritan complains.
The “lawyers” he contacted suggested that the man draw up an appeal to the company where he was taking out microloans, demanding that “all interest” be recalculated and that “debts be written off.” He was assured that such an operation could be carried out on overdue debts and even on long-closed and repaid loans — that is, on all of them. “They promised me to cancel the accrual of interest and even return part of what I had already paid to the microfinance organization. They said that after that they would stop calling me and completely forget about me, which I so passionately desired,” the man noted, adding with regret that in a depressed emotional state he simply “fell into the bait of loud promises.”
Well, the result was logical: the Samara resident’s creditors refused all requests from such lawyers. On the advice of his “helpers,” he even filed a complaint to the Central Bank himself. They asked if he had already contacted creditors. Having studied his statements, the regulator replied that “the complaint was found to be unfounded” and the Samara resident had no right to recalculate or return the money. “This whole rigmarole took me two months of my life and cost 18 thousand rubles, which I had difficulty finding to pay for “legal assistance,” which essentially turned out to be a meaningless mess of papers,” the victim is indignant. Such activity is simply a professional form of fraud. These pseudo-lawyers take money and perform some actions that cannot lead to results and they know it. “But according to the contract, the service was provided and it is impossible to find fault with them, so be careful,” the man warned.
According to the ABC agency, in 2023, the cost of the procedure for the debtor ranged from 15 thousand to 300 thousand rubles. “If you try to create a “portrait” of a client of debtors or anti-collectors, it will be something like this: a citizen of working age, usually after 35-40 years,” says Associate Professor of the Department of State and Municipal Finance of the Russian Economic University. Plekhanov Mary Valishvili. — The profession refers to blue-collar jobs and involves unskilled labor. As a rule, the income is at the subsistence level or the minimum wage, so the citizen has many outstanding obligations to banks and microcredit organizations. The monthly payment on obligations may exceed the level of income received. The average amount of debt exceeds 500 thousand rubles.” In connection with all of the above, a person finds himself in a “trap” and does not understand how to resolve the issue on his own. Due to the lack of special knowledge both within himself and among those closest to him, the debtor does not know that, in addition to debtors, there are professional consultants and lawyers who are ready to explain the rights and obligations of the debtor and creditors, as well as all possible ways to solve the problem. He is not able to distinguish one from the other.
Hiring the services of debtors is quite an expensive pleasure. As a rule, they enter into a subscription service agreement and try in every possible way to delay the process. In most cases, the only option offered by “legitimate” lawyers is personal bankruptcy, but debtors are not explained all the possible consequences: from the sale of property to the inability to take out a loan for the next few years. In fact, a citizen can carry out both the bankruptcy procedure and negotiations with a creditor (bank or microfinance organization) independently without involving additional persons and unnecessary expenses. If necessary, you can get a one-time consultation, including online on various specialized websites, the scientist recalled.
The market for anti-collector services is determined primarily by the need for such services. “At the moment, the debt burden on individuals is quite large; according to various estimates, it in total for overdue loans alone by the beginning of this year amounted to more than 3 trillion rubles,” points out Andrei Girinsky, associate professor at the Faculty of Economics of RUDN University. — At the same time, in enforcement proceedings over the past year, the total number of cases opened was more than 24 million. It should also be noted that the increase in the total amount of penalties for the year amounted to more than 200 billion rubles. From an analysis of a number of the given figures, we see that the situation causes an increased demand for solving problems arising in the creditor-borrower chain, including through the services of debt collectors.” In this case, the generation of supply in the market of two differently directed services continues, one of which is performed by collection agencies, and the other by anti-collection agencies.
How to protect yourself from such “services”? One of the effective ways to solve problems with debts, in addition to filing personal bankruptcy, is the ability to negotiate with a bank or microfinance organization on restructuring or deferment of payments, and you can do this yourself, experts recalled. “Just stop believing in the myths that you can reduce obligations except through direct negotiations between the debtor and the creditor,” advises Elman Mehdiyev. “Well, if there is a need to use such services, then work with those who will do it for you for free or are ready to pay based on the result.”