"If the banks can offer low-interest loans without any major background checks, then many would not need to go to these loan sharks in the first place."

 

Problem with that idea is why would the banks want to take on people with that risk?  Banks are a business and make profits.  Taking on people with no proper background checks means loan defaults and therefore losses.  Banks are not a charity.  Too many people here with poor credit history.  

 

Loan sharks can be dangerous.  Borrowing off Thai mafia or other foreign loan sharks is common.  Serious injury or death as well as property damage are real outcomes.  

 

Very poorly educated and a stupid culture of being desperate to impress others has led to this.  

 

I know of a dumb, greedy bar owner who borrowed money off friends and family members, never repaid, always covering up her inability to repay with lies or just not answering calls.  COVID came and she became desperate.  Resorted to Thai mafia loans.  Next option?  She then went to town swindling and fleecing naive rich and gullible farang of their cash for the mafia, but left others with nothing.  Only threats worked for that vixen.  Seems to be the way here.  The naive farangs left with emptier bank accounts.  

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.

5 hours ago, FarangFB said:

This is the thing, pretty much every broke person I know has spent on something they don't need. Buying things way outside their budget, gambling, partying too much.

 

 

Example, a Thai professor at my old uni, always desperate to impress everybody (especially Thai folks) and deseperate for other folks to think he's important.

 

His salary is not big and never will be, partly because he has very few students because his teaching is less than satisfactory (English conversation).

 

Several years back he bought a 6MBaht house and land in an expensive village in Bangkok, then later a top of the range Land Rover.

 

In regard to the Land Rover last year he went to a couple of LR dealers and asked if they would make up a package of the logos, decorations, title bars fitted to the outer panels etc., and have them all fitted to his now 5 year old LR. All so that people will think he's got a new LR.

 

At home one of the maids (he has 3 plus a cook plus a gardener) is tasked with cleaning/detailing his car whenever it's at the house). 

 

Over the years he's befriended quite a few farang lecturers and other farang. He appraoches all of them regularly for handouts of cash. Most times the fake reason is because his daughter is sick and near death and needs to go to an expensive hospital. 

 

He asked me once, several years back. I quickly responded; 'I'm very short of money myself and I was just going to ask you for a loan or a cash gift'.

 

He changed the subject quickly, never asked again. 

 

 

Edited July 26, 20224 yr by scorecard

1 hour ago, BusyB said:

And they know from the get go that you won't be able to pay it off as well. They're parasites, simples. They prey on the vulnerable. 

Fair point. The objective however is to make money (and not give borrowers a hard time) and I’m sure if they know the borrower has no chance of paying them that they won’t lend them money. They calculate their business model and take into account the risk of default for some hence high interest rates. 

Someone I know does lend money. She only does it for wage earners. She keeps their ATM card where the pay goes in. She withdraws the agreed amount on payday and keeps the card until fully paid. She doesn’t lend more than what she can’t take out of the card. So if they get paid 20k and they borrow 10k she’ll withdraw 10k+ interest and only then return the ATM card. 

Definition of a "Load Shark" When I married my Thai lady way back in 2000 I  found she was lending money wow I was shocked, and knew what a money Lender was a "shark" Well after I found that she only charged 2% on her loans and the banks foreclosing on so many I began to wonder who the real sharks were. I found my good lady was in fact helping the community, rather than robbing them. Now this does not apply to all, but one has to be careful as to what is real and what is not real in the World of deception. It certainly isn't in the bank's interest to say anything good about the opposition. Just my thoughts on the matter, as I have fond the banks to be the bigger Loan Sharks.

9 hours ago, SuwadeeS said:

I remember, that Prayut ordered a crackdown on them....

So, that did not work 

 

Like a lot of his "orders"!

1 hour ago, Noris said:

Definition of a "Load Shark" When I married my Thai lady way back in 2000 I  found she was lending money wow I was shocked, and knew what a money Lender was a "shark" Well after I found that she only charged 2% on her loans and the banks foreclosing on so many I began to wonder who the real sharks were. I found my good lady was in fact helping the community, rather than robbing them. Now this does not apply to all, but one has to be careful as to what is real and what is not real in the World of deception. It certainly isn't in the bank's interest to say anything good about the opposition. Just my thoughts on the matter, as I have fond the banks to be the bigger Loan Sharks.

Thailand is the Onion syndrome.

The longer you are here,  the more layers you get to peal back.

But, sometimes a few layers get skipped. and we have no idea what was there. before.

2% interest on loans, I find that hard to believe.

But great if true. 

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 20224 yr by Orinoco

14 minutes ago, Orinoco said:

Thailand is the Onion syndrome.

The longer you are here,  the more layers you get to peal back.

But, sometimes a few layers get skipped. and we have no idea what was there. before.

2% interest on loans, I find that hard to believe.

But great if true. 

 

 

 

I assume that was 2% per month, the way Thais charge, which if still operating today would be illegal as the max is 15 % pa

8 hours ago, scorecard said:

Example: One of my Thai son's buddies has a mortgage (monthly payment is 80% of his take home salary). Also has 2 car loans and borrowed money to take his wife and 2 kids on a holiday in Japan. Plus he's late paying small school fees.

 

Quickly much pressure from bank and 2 registered finance institutions. He's seriously bankrupt and struggling to feed his kids. (My son and his wife have been giving them a lot of fresh/cooked food.)

 

He contacted a loan shark and after 6 months he's in even further debt.

 

His aunt (who he has little contact with) is a bank manager. She was made aware of his plight and came quickly to see him and she/s made some progress with reducing the overall debt and she's instigated action against the illegal loan shark.

 

But what she's also done is to carefull talk to a lot of local people to tell them:

 

- If you can't pay the full amount of your mortgage, car loan etc., quickly make a small payment but do it every month. After a few months go into the bank / car finance company and ask for a delay or reduction on the interest rate.

 

She revealed that her bank has hundreds of thousands of mortgage/loan holders who are paying very small monthly amounts, the bank understands why this happening and accepts that the small payments are OK until the borrower finds better circumstances  and it may be a long time in the future.

To be honest its hard to have any sympathy for someone who , despite being heavily indebted, borrows more money for a holiday in Japan @!!

An inflammatory post has been removed.

3 hours ago, AustinRacing said:

Fair point. The objective however is to make money (and not give borrowers a hard time) and I’m sure if they know the borrower has no chance of paying them that they won’t lend them money. They calculate their business model and take into account the risk of default for some hence high interest rates. 

Well that's one view. I suspect there's also loan sharks who know that the borrower will have a hard time repaying the loan but they go ahead an lend and eventually make money. 

 

Having said that, every org. that loans money wants it returned as fast as possible so that they have the capital to start another loan. It takes all kinds.

5 hours ago, BusyB said:

Even as they lend the money they know damn fine the victims can't pay it back, and basically they attach themselves as parasites to the income flows of a low earning population who can never pay back the principle.

Not condoning this at all but this is also the business model of banks. Luckily they can't break your legs yet but they like the pharmaceutical industry are happy for you to be paying/buying for the rest of your life.

 

Edited July 26, 20224 yr by Laughing Gravy

2 hours ago, Laughing Gravy said:

Not condoning this at all but this is also the business model of banks. Luckily they can't break your legs yet but they like the pharmaceutical industry are happy for you to be paying/buying for the rest of your life.

 

Interestingly, interest actually has a purpose and some interesting origins (Italy) ... it's all explained in Graeber's book that I touted somewhere on the thread here : Debt, The First 5000 Years. Great read.

 

It's also worth mentioning that I'm retired yet banks still push credit at me. Fortunately I'm not desperate, and if I was in my part of the world I could go to social security. And if things got so bad I could  also come to a legal bankruptcy agreement that would clear me after 7 years as long as I lived according to certain conditions.

 

I know someone who's had to do that after their business went belly up during Covid.

 

Things like that simply aren't available in LOS.

Edited July 26, 20224 yr by BusyB

7 hours ago, Orinoco said:

Yes this is true, but not for all.

You ever been around Thai's and there gambling. ?

Plenty of these debts to the loan sharks are from this.

I know of card games where, pick up keys, condo chanotes, gold jewelry all went in the pot on a card game.

Also plenty of these debts are from buying stuff they just can't afford, but still go sign on the dotted line. they don't change there standard of living, but just carry on spending .

Sure feel sorry for some. but not many.

 

 

 

 

Ignorance, addiction, lousy upbringing, social pressure, lousy education: crime drugs and loan sharking soar in poverty conditions. Very few escape the pressure.

 

And it's a bit much lending money to people like that and seriously expecting it back. I wouldn't.

 

But I don't judge them either. Addiction and gambling (also addictive) and the like are forms of pure insanity.

2 hours ago, Laughing Gravy said:

Not condoning this at all but this is also the business model of banks. Luckily they can't break your legs yet but they like the pharmaceutical industry are happy for you to be paying/buying for the rest of your life.

 

In an earlier life I took on debt and went bust. Purely hedonistic. Didn't even have a car to show for it. A high 5 figure sum, a long time ago - well into 6 figures nowadays. When I defaulted the bank eventually passed the deed on to a debt collecting agency. I agreed to pay a symbolic sum each month to them, and they stopped chalking up the interest. When I finally got my life back together many years later and was earning well, I went back to the agency and made a deal with them that I would pay half, and they'd close the file. They'd already made a profit, and would be happy to get a lump sum back on top. They agreed, I borrowed the reduced sum from my new bank, gave it to the agency and paid off the bank over a few years at an acceptable rate.

The average Thai has no access to these kind of possibilities and even if they did they probably wouldn't know about them.

Edited July 26, 20224 yr by BusyB

You’re able to refer to banks here as “loan sharks”? 

So it is ok to borrow money on certain conditions and then no to pay it back? 

On 7/26/2022 at 12:27 PM, BusyB said:

The broke people I know own small Honda's to get to work, and the cheapest mobiles because they need the connectivity. Yes there are the profligate. They are a minority in my experience. I don't know a single person who's done something like that. The people I know are happy to have enough to put in the bike's tank to get to work. 

Quite the opposite here in Pattaya, at least from my experience. All broke Thais that I know live by the day. If they get some unexpected 10k baht they will party/drink that money in the same evening and be broke again the next day. Zero planning and never save anything.

 

As for the broke farangs, it's even worse. Pretty much all broke farangs I know here have no baggage (no family here, no dependants), and manage to be broke even when just carrying their own weight.

 

On the other hand, almost all farangs that I know that have kids/family (and a shred of honor) are doing fine financially despite all the extra expenses.

 

I never forget a friend that I had, totally broke living on a monthly VA pension. One week before his pay he ran out of money (he was making more than me at the time) and asked me to borrow 5k baht, which I lent. In the same evening he went to a bar and rang the bell (spent like 3k that evening), then I got angry and he justified himself saying that he could just eat cheap Thai food for the week and the 2k would still be enough. 

 

He paid me, but then next month he was broke again one week before his payday.

Edited July 28, 20224 yr by FarangFB

9 hours ago, FarangFB said:

Quite the opposite here in Pattaya, at least from my experience. All broke Thais that I know live by the day. If they get some unexpected 10k baht they will party/drink that money in the same evening and be broke again the next day. Zero planning and never save anything.

 

As for the broke farangs, it's even worse. Pretty much all broke farangs I know here have no baggage (no family here, no dependants), and manage to be broke even when just carrying their own weight.

 

On the other hand, almost all farangs that I know that have kids/family (and a shred of honor) are doing fine financially despite all the extra expenses.

 

I never forget a friend that I had, totally broke living on a monthly VA pension. One week before his pay he ran out of money (he was making more than me at the time) and asked me to borrow 5k baht, which I lent. In the same evening he went to a bar and rang the bell (spent like 3k that evening), then I got angry and he justified himself saying that he could just eat cheap Thai food for the week and the 2k would still be enough. 

 

He paid me, but then next month he was broke again one week before his payday.

Fair comment, but I think the demographics of Pattaya are really quite unique even by Thai standards ;D

 

The loansharks are probably trying to sieze the workers paychecks before they get handed out ????