Bitcoin Forum

They have stripped and sexually abused a woman, severely burned a toddler by firebombing a house and broken a woman’s pinkie as a warning. Gang members, bandits, mobsters? Not exactly. These are debt collectors, a peculiarly Russian variety that is flourishing amid the country’s economic turmoil.

As a punishing recession stretches into a second year, people struggling to make ends meet are resorting in growing numbers to borrowing at astronomical interest rates that many cannot possibly afford.

With unpaid debts mushrooming, collection has turned into something of a blood sport reminiscent of the shocking gang violence of the 1990s, with threats and violence by debt collectors spreading across the sprawling Russian hinterland largely unrestrained by public authorities.

“As a rule, small sums are involved in these cases, and it is easier to recover them by physical force,” said Danila S. Mikhalishchev, a debt collector turned consumer advocate. “It is easier to frighten people than to sue them.”

In 2015, the amount of unpaid debt surged by almost 50 percent to $15 billion, or about 13 percent of all personal debt, according to Alexander A. Akhlomov of the United Credit Bureau, a private organization that tracks credit ratings. A borrower making no payments for three months is considered to be in default. Just since March of last year, the number of Russians in that category has leapt to 7.5 million from six million, he said.

It is not hard to see why. In 2015, real wages declined 10 percent in the face of a steep drop in the global price of oil, a weak ruble and Western economic sanctions imposed over Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. This March, for the first time since 2008, Russians spent more than half their income on food, beverages and cigarettes, according to government statistics.

To make matters worse, banks have tightened credit, so the growing ranks of Russians living paycheck to paycheck have fewer options. “What changed with the crisis is that banks became much stricter about issuing new loans,” Mr. Akhlomov said. “Before, if people did not have the money to pay off a loan, they could go to another bank. That does not work anymore.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/world/europe/russia-debt-collectors-mob.html

How can you believe this western propaganda?
Brainwashed!!!!!!1111

The main issue is that it is not easy to get a personal loan from any of the registered banks in Russia, unless you have the connections (or you have to pay a bribe). The private money lenders try to fill in the gap, and they charge 50% or 100% interest per month. However, the situation is changing, as the authorities are cracking down on these money lenders.

What OP wrote may be a slight exaggeration, but not too remote from the truth. The methods that the debt collectors use was becoming a problem, and it came into searchlights of journalists. There were several reports on the unsavoury methods on Russian TV (I think "Honest Detective" - I pun on "Private detective in Russian - on Rossia1 had a feature on it, among others). Debt collectors will be state regulated, with better laws managing their activity being devised.

So, NY Times should have actually run a feature "Putin tightens grip on the liberal and democratic private debt collectors" if they were to follow the general MSM trend  ;D

Still, good that NT Times mentions "shocking gang violence of the 1990s". That's the Wild 90's I've written about several times - the result of direct America management of Russia that followed the 1993 coup, when everything go privatised, deregulated, deindustialised, demilitarised, and other "de-" you can think of.

Funny, that NY Times still clings to the "Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine", which no one was able to see... ::) And that is the real purpose of the article - the propaganda in it, if you like - to demonstrate by any means possible that the sanctions are working, even if they don't. The problems that Russian economy faces is from the same source as the problems faced by Norway and Brazil, and well, the rest of the world. Sanctions hit the EU economy harder than they do Russian one.

PS: Ah, there it is... French parliament votes to lift anti-Russian sanctions imposed by EU (https://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/french-parliament-votes-to-lift-anti-russian-sanctions-imposed-by-eu/)

Classic :D

I get pissed when collectors just spam the phone book of every one with the same last name. I get two collection agencies that call every day and I got tired of telling them they got the wrong number and just let it ring.
Imagine that they would act in the same manner if they where given the power as they tend to attract the dicks of the world that enjoy threatening people.

Most of them are not even collection companies, but scammers

Scammers don't care if they have the wrong number, they will keep trying

They just want your credit card number or bank account #... or perhaps some info to sell, like name, address, email, etc

I know people who were physically assaulted by debt collectors, mistaking them for someone who had defaulted on the loans. And I know guys who work as debt collectors. Their salaries are sky high (normally given out as a percentage of the money they could extract, like 4% or 5% of the total amount). But there are risks involved as well.

And yet the Russians just shrugged when they discovered via the Panama papers that Putin had looted the country and then safely holds his wealth in dollars in a tax haven. You get the country you deserve - if you condone rubbish, don't be surprised if things work out badly.

Find the differences between the two pictures

What a load of bull shit? Anyway, what more to expect from a hardcore supporter of Hillary Clinton? Do you have any evidence to prove that Vladimir Putin own any offshore accounts in any of these tax havens? There was no such revelation from the Panama leaks. On the other hand, there was plenty of evidence against some western leaders, such as David Cameron.

Not all their moneys in tax havens... Some of it goes to these bitcointalk pro-kremlin trolls  :P