My first hand take, Saw massive uptake on this during covid, had flyers all over the place even some being dropped off at expat pubs of all places, this coupled with the line loan apps has meant its way out of control.
Saw a number of people around my soi having to do a runner and still found their online presence and any remaining family abused.
Dual loans were common, i,e on desperate Thai pairs up with an equally desperate thai and co-sign on a loan, one does a runner leaving the other fecked.
Once completely fecked and can no longer pay the interest, the constant hassling goes up a notch (this is often worse than physical violence), they borrow somewhere else or worse borrow and gamble as they see that as only viable way out and dig themselves deeper. Some run and some get into the Friday night vans to Cambodia or Vietnam casino's and call centers to work off but never quite pay off their debt.
The article suggests contacting police, that trust unfortunately is often not there.
It needs an independent group specifically for dealing with loan shark debts.