Terror, Harassment and Lives Lost

Kompas

Victims of online loans stage a rally in front of the Jakarta Police Headquarters on Saturday (23/3/2019).

October 2018 was a dark month for Tina. Because she could not pay back the arrears of an online loan, the 27-year-old woman was humiliated and lost her job. Tina suffered from a nervous breakdown and contemplated suicide.

Every day, Tina’s cellphone rang almost hourly as she was flooded by texts and calls, meant to force her to pay back her debt with interests, which had become much larger than her original loan. “I felt terrorized,” Tina said, recalling the time on Saturday (15/6/2019).

Tina had never thought that she would ever be in debt of up to Rp 50 million (US$3,494). She incurred it from 14 online loan applications, all of which matured at almost the same time. Some of them were already past their due dates.

Apart from being yelled at and teased through calls and texts, Tina was also humiliated. The debt collector from the online loan application contacted her boss and work colleagues. Eventually, Tina was asked to resign from her administrative job at an association. “My boss asked me to resign as he could not stand being contacted endlessly by the debt collector and he did not want to be involved further with my personal problem,” Tina explained.

The debt collector accessed the contact list in Tina’s cellphone in order to obtain the contact numbers of her boss. When using the online loan application for the first time, Tina did not read the terms and condition carefully. She did not realize that there were clauses that detailed what permissions she had to grant the application in order to use it. Among the permissions were access to Tina’s contact list.

Because of the debt, Tina also got into a quarrel with her family members. Her father was disappointed when she quit her job while she was still deep in debt. Her father was also terrorized by the debt collector. The combined savings of her father, a retiree and currently a driver for an elementary school student pickup service, and her mother, a teacher, were not enough to pay back Tina’s debt in full. Apart from paying monthly expenses, Tina’s parents still need to pay for the education of Tina’s sibling, currently still in high school.

KOMPAS/WISNU WIDIANTORO (

A resident shows an SMS message offering an online loan in Jakarta, Sunday (16/6/2019).

Contemplating suicide

Feeling depressed without any way out, Tina contemplated suicide. She spent days locking herself in her room and refusing to eat. There were also days when she spent up to five hours in the bathroom, just

staring at the walls while thinking about her woes. “I had no idea how to pay back the debt in full. I was afraid of going to jail and I was thinking about killing myself,” she said.

Tina found a light at the end of the tunnel when she was informed of a legal advocacy channel for online loan victims, by the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta) office.

With the LBH Jakarta by her side, she became confident to resolve her debt problem. She asked for debt restructuring from the 14 online loan applications. Tina, now working as a driver for a ride-hailing service company, pledges to resolve all the debts.

Zulfadli, 35, however, chose to end his life by hanging himself at his friend’s low-cost apartment on Jl. Mampang Prapatan, Tegal Parang, South Jakarta, on Sunday (11/2/2019). The taxi driver was known to have taken a loan of Rp 500,000. As he delayed paying back his arrears, his debt grew several times larger and he had a hard time paying it back.

Sexual harassment

FY, 30, also had a bleak tale. FY said that she was once harassed by a debt collector.

The debt collector told FY to take off her clothes and dance by the railroad. If she did this, he would consider her debts paid off. “He said that I had to dance naked so that my debts were considered paid off,” FY said.

FY incurred debts from eight different online loan applications, with the value of loan, interests and fine reaching Rp 50 million. Similar to Tina, FY is now undergoing debt restructuring with guidance from LBH Jakarta.

Three other individuals, namely IW, SN and MD, have also suffered from debt collecting methods such as sexual harassment and threats of spreading pornographic content. The three have been subjected to sexual harassment by debt collectors from VLoan application. The debt collectors created WhatsApp groups comprising themselves and their friends.

The debt collectors uploaded pornographic pictures and videos to the group and threatened to enter blunt objects into the objects’ genitals, like in the pictures and videos, if they did not pay their debts.

Endah, 28, was also subject to unpleasantness from a debt collector after she was mired in debt from 23 loan applications with an average debt of Rp 1 million per application. Her debt collector once asked her to sell her kidney in order to pay back her debt.

KOMPAS/I GUSTI AGUNG BAGUS ANGGA PUTRA

The office of PT Cash Express Indonesia, which developed illegal financial technology application Angel Cash. At the office, there is no name plate that shows the identity of the company.

LBH Jakarta lawyer Yenny Silvia Sari Sirait said that the office had received 3,091 complaints of debt collecting from online loan victims in 34 provinces from November 2018 to March 2019. “Five alleged crimes are involved here, namely threatening, slander, fraud, personal data theft and sexual harassment,” Yenny said.

Indonesian Fintech Lenders Association (AFPI) chair Kuseryansyah said consumers should first research the legality of fintech lenders before applying for loans. He also urged consumers to read the applications’ terms and conditions carefully, including on interest rates, maturity periods and fines for late payments.