After the bank started recruiting debt collectors, I ended my 3-year debt collection career.

This article was first published in [Microscope Story]

Author | Lu Longen

In the past month, many banks, represented by China Everbright Bank, have issued announcements to recruit debt collection talents, once again bringing the debt collector group into the public eye.

Why do banks need more debt collectors? Why are there more and more debtors? Will debt collection leak contact lists?

With these questions, I interviewed three debt collectors. One of them was a former debt collector who had engaged in violent debt collection, one was a current debt collector who had been in the industry for 12 years, and one who switched to a law firm to do pre-litigation mediation due to tightened industry supervision.

Through their stories, we can see that debt collection is essentially a psychological game. The debt collector and the debtor are engaged in a tug-of-war on both ends of the phone, trying to see who can hit the other's vital point first. This reflects the distortion, desperate struggle and anxious despair of people driven by money and desire.

01 Game

"Hello, are you so-and-so? Are you not going to pay back the money? OK, does your child go to a certain primary school? Do you want me to pick up your child after school?"

At the end of 2019, Zhang Yuheng started working as a debt collector, collecting long-term loans for online lending platforms and banks. Sometimes the company also buys asset packages, which are bad assets packaged and handled by financial institutions. Asset packages are generally sold at a discount, and sometimes only a few hundred thousand yuan can be used to buy assets worth hundreds of millions of yuan. "As long as you can collect them back, they are all yours."

At that time, debt collectors mostly used intimidation to collect debts, which he admitted was "like the mafia." After dialing the phone, the debt collectors would constantly probe and look for the debtor's weak spot, which might be family or work, and then hold on until the other party took the initiative to negotiate repayment.

If the debtor is afraid of being found out by his workplace, the debt collector will strike while the iron is hot and call the workplace to ask, "Is so-and-so working here? Aren't you guys paying him? How much money does he owe us, and why hasn't he paid it back in such a long time..."

In addition to verbal harassment and intimidation, they sometimes use the law as a cover. "Okay, I don't expect you to pay me back. A lawyer's letter has been sent to your home, please sign for it. Soon, a staff member will take the loan information you applied for and go to your registered residence and your work address to verify the situation."

But in fact, it only costs 5 yuan to issue this lawyer's letter. Collection companies will buy a nominal position as a paralegal in a law firm to obtain a large number of cheap lawyer's letters. But the lawyer's letter is just a means of intimidation. The real legal effect is the court summons. "It's just using chicken feathers as a token of authority," Zhang Yuheng said bluntly.

There is no age or education threshold for debt collectors. The on-the-job training has only two points: one is not to be caught in obvious illegal behavior (note that it is not that you cannot do it, but that you should not be caught); the other is to lose sympathy, which is not good for performance.

Zhang Yuheng's colleague once collected debt from a pregnant woman. "She had no legal knowledge and was easily frightened. She cried and said she wanted to jump off the building." The colleague ignored her and called her parents, who later called the police.

When questioned by the police, the supervisor remained calm and stressed that they had called the emergency contact, which was legal and compliant. The police could not catch any obvious illegal behavior and could only give them verbal advice, saying, "You can't do this. You want to jump off a building with such a big belly."

Less than ten minutes after the police hung up, the debt collector called the pregnant woman's parents again and continued to insult them, "What's the point of having a child? You'll still be in debt after giving birth, and you'll be laughed at in the future. Other people's children are successful out there, but your child will still be in debt, right?"

As for how the debt collectors escaped the law, simply put, it was "playing tricks to suit the situation". Debt collection is essentially a psychological game. The debt collectors and the debtors are engaged in a tug-of-war on both ends of the phone, trying to see who can hit the other's weak spot first.

If you get a response after dialing the phone, it proves that the debtor is recording. The debt collector will hang up the phone immediately, change his face, and call back from the landline. "Because once a private phone call comes, it will definitely be tough on you. The reason why they played so hard on the pregnant woman was because she didn't understand. When you meet someone who understands, you can't do anything to him," Zhang Yuheng explained.

When they encounter journalists, lawyers or public officials, who are conscious of protecting their rights, debt collectors will be very polite. But once the debtor's registered residence is shown to be in a rural area or a mountain valley, debt collectors will act unscrupulously.

Zhang Yuheng once met a rural woman from Sichuan, who was about 40 or 50 years old. She said that she suffered from uterine cancer and borrowed online loans not for her own treatment, but to leave the money for her children's future schooling and living.

After the online loan was overdue, the debt collector threatened her that if she didn't pay back the money, it would have a bad impact on her children. She panicked and fell into the trap of using loans to pay off loans under the guidance of someone with ulterior motives. In just three years, her debt soared from 80,000 yuan in the early stage to 260,000 yuan.

The debt collection company once told Zhang Yuheng that no matter how miserable the debtor's story was, he should not believe it and should check it himself. At first, he also thought that the woman wanted to hide from debt by playing the victim. At that time, there was a website where you could enter the debtor's ID card information to obtain the household registration information and contact information of relatives and friends.

Zhang Yuheng called everyone one by one, but everyone said that the woman was dead. Before she died, the woman worked as a waitress in a restaurant, earning less than 2,000 yuan a month. Later, in order to pay off her debts, she dragged her illness to work everywhere.

02 Liabilities

When he first started working, Zhang Yuheng was assigned to 300 cases. After verification, he found that four or five debtors had died, more than a dozen were in prison, and a large number could not be contacted.

Campus loans are a typical type of debt. Some private lending institutions will target middle school and college students and trick them into taking out loans in various ways. Students who have no income and no assets are obviously not qualified for loans, and the real target of lending institutions is their parents. In a case that is overdue for three years, the debtor may have just turned 18 when it reaches the collection officer.

Zhang Yuheng himself had his own experience of being in debt. After graduating from junior high school, he dropped out of school to work on construction sites and as a car salesman. He saved some money and prepared to open a Sichuan restaurant in Wuhan. He invested 300,000 yuan in the early stage. Because it was his first time in the catering industry, he knew nothing about many things and it took him more than half a year to find signs of profitability.

Not long after, an epidemic broke out at the Huanan Seafood Market, two streets away. Measures such as suspension of dine-in and home quarantine were imposed one after another. The restaurant could no longer be opened, so it had to be sold at a low price, resulting in a loss of more than 100,000 yuan. My parents helped to make up some of the difference, but there was still a gap of 80,000 yuan, and online loans and credit cards were overdue.

Sometimes when Zhang Yuheng was having dinner with his friends, he would receive a debt collection call. He would blush with guilt and hide in the bathroom to answer the call, fearing that others would hear it.

Later, in order to repay his debts, he also started working as a debt collector to get rid of the situation of being collected. In terms of salary, debt collector is a good job. In addition to the basic salary of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan, there are also considerable commissions. After getting started, the monthly salary can be more than 10,000 yuan, far exceeding the local average salary.

For debts overdue for three months, the commission is 3%; for debts overdue for less than six months, the commission is 5%; for debts overdue for more than six months, the commission is 6%-15%, depending on the length of the overdue period. For some non-compliant online loans that are overdue for more than three years, the commission can be as high as 20%-30%.

It is not known whether it is fortunate or unfortunate, but Zhang Yuheng had encountered debt collection before, and he understood the psychology of debtors and knew which words would have an intimidating effect. Facing the performance pressure that novices often face, he handled it with ease.

In order to pay off his debts as quickly as possible, he also "earned money from both ends." He did debt collection during the day and taught people how to fight debt collection on social platforms at night.

A woman in her thirties was in debt of more than 200,000 yuan. Zhang Yuheng asked her to pay off the first few installments first, otherwise she might be suspected of loan fraud and face a lawsuit. He also taught her that when she received a collection call, she should show weakness and let the other party think she was easy to bully, and say some threatening words, and then directly submit the recording to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and Black Cat to complain.

Later, the debt collector was indeed caught. After the report was successful, the debt collection company immediately called to comfort him, "If you have any difficulties, you can discuss it with us. The staff is new and doesn't understand these things very well, sorry."

Formal lending institutions will first review the applicant's credit and income to ensure that the other party has the ability to repay before issuing a loan. However, risk control always has limitations, and it is difficult to predict various emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yuan Jun currently works for a debt collection group with branches in many places and about 2,000 employees. In the 12 years since he started working, he has discovered that there are several famous "debtor towns" in China, located in eastern Fujian, Wenzhou, Xuzhou and other places. When he sees that the debtor is from these places, he will skip them and not collect debts.

He was responsible for collecting overdue loans from Pudong Development Bank credit cards. For three years, he could not collect any debts from debtors from a certain county in Wenzhou. However, the locals did not repay their loans on time, not because they were deliberately refusing to pay, but because they were helpless.

Some people failed because of the failure of their building materials wholesale business, while others failed because of the implementation of the double reduction policy, which caused the closure and bankruptcy of education and training institutions. The "Wenzhou Education and Training Industry Report: The "Learning Capital" Delayed by the "Shoe Capital"" released by Jiemian.com in 2021 shows that there are as many as 3,100 off-campus training institutions on the white list in Wenzhou City, and the education and training industry is huge.

Of course, there are also people who deliberately use credit to defraud loans. According to media reports, "professional debtors" have repeatedly appeared in the credit industry. Debtors, intermediaries, and bank "insiders" work together to apply for high-value loans on the pretext of buying a house. After getting the loan, they deliberately stop paying, thereby transferring the debt to the bank.

The master who brought Yuan Jun into the industry was also a deadbeat. "He owed more than 50 online loan platforms and had no intention of paying them back when he borrowed. All his assets were transferred to his wife's name. In his words, this is how life is. As long as he can get the money, why should he check his credit?"

When the master got ruthless, he even cheated his apprentices. He had 6 apprentices, and after cheating each of them out of several thousand yuan, he ran away and lost contact. However, Yuan Jun never thought of asking for the money back, "After all, he taught us so many things, so just consider it as tuition."

03 Compassion

On social media platforms, when searching for debt collectors, you can often see many people condemning them, saying, "They only do things that go against their conscience," and "Aren't you afraid of retribution for doing this job?"

In fact, almost every debt collector has to overcome a psychological barrier. Zhang Yuheng also kept telling himself that he couldn't make money if he didn't have the determination. When a debtor cried about his miserable experience, he thought to himself, "What does it have to do with me if you don't have money? If you don't pay me back, I will resort to some means."

Until he met a Shanxi man who was born in 1997 and was two years older than Zhang Yuheng. When he called to collect the debt for the first time, the man cursed him in dialect and asked, "Why are you asking me for money?"

Later, Zhang Yuheng used crawler software to dig out the contact information of the man's relatives and friends, who all pleaded for the man over the phone. "I guess it hit a sore spot," the man called back the next day and said a lot of good things, discussing whether the amount could be reduced.

Zhang Yuheng made him a poverty certificate and applied for tax relief. But the man changed his attitude again, refused to pay back the money, and insulted him. "Now it's my turn to get angry, because my performance is still a little short." Zhang Yuheng contacted his relatives again.

The third time, the two finally had a good conversation. The man cried while telling his story. When he was young, he was a gangster in society and was put in prison. After he got out, he worked on a construction site, got married and had children, and his life slowly got back on track. But after only half a year of peace, he was defrauded again. Someone took out a loan of 200,000 yuan from his housing fund, but only gave him 80,000 yuan.

"It's like when a person turns over a new leaf and society gradually accepts him, but suddenly he is cheated. Who can he turn to for justice?" This reminded Zhang Yuheng of his own experience. He saved money with great difficulty to open a Sichuan restaurant, but was defeated by the epidemic, lost all his savings, and was even left with a debt.

After listening to the man's words, Zhang Yuheng was silent for a long time and felt very uncomfortable. Later, he taught the other party how to deal with the subsequent debt collection through a private phone call.

Then, the debt collection system will note "high risk" and record: this person has a strong defensive mentality and holds evidence that is unfavorable to the company, making debt collection difficult. When subsequent debt collectors see such records, they will be less likely to call to collect debts.

Zhang Yuheng believes that the reason why debts can be collected is that the debtors believe in the moral norm of repaying debts. However, he finds that sometimes people who believe in rules too much are more likely to be hurt.

Even after three years of debt collection, Zhang Yuheng still couldn't figure out how lending institutions calculated interest, which came in many forms: interest, "head interest", penalty interest, handling fees, etc. In theory, handling fees don't need to be paid, but some people just accept it.

"It will take them several years to recover from the difficulties they are facing. In fact, our commission is only a few percent. Sometimes I think it would be better if you pay less." Zhang Yuheng wanted to remind the debtor to apply for relief, but all call recordings were under the supervision of the company, so he could not say it directly and had to hint at it appropriately.

"Once the door is opened and sympathy emerges, I can no longer say those harsh words, and it is difficult to continue." At that time, Zhang Yuheng's debts had been paid off and his collection career was coming to an end. In the last few months of his tenure, he had almost no performance.

Yuan Jun was also touched. He once met a woman whose husband cheated on her during their marriage and hooked up with a rich woman. The two bought a villa together and were going to decorate it. The husband applied for a credit card in his wife's name and cashed out more than 80,000 yuan.

After the villa was renovated, her husband beat her up again and went to court for a divorce. Less than two months after the divorce, her credit card was overdue. The debt collector called the woman's workplace and made her lose her job again. In order to avoid debt, the woman had to return to her hometown in Hubei.

When Yuan Jun contacted her, she was working the night shift. She earned 3,900 yuan a month, leaving only 100 yuan for living expenses and using the rest to repay the loan. She only ate one meal a day and drank water when she was hungry. Under the heavy pressure, she also suffered from depression.

Yuan Jun called the woman's company in the name of the street office to inquire about the situation, and the result was true. Yuan Jun was embarrassed to ask her for money again, so he gave her 6,000 yuan instead. "No matter what, you should solve the problem of three meals a day first. Only when you are healthy can you make money to pay off your debts."

04 The collapse of the giant

When debt collectors begin to relax their minds, the direction of the industry is also quietly changing.

According to The Paper, in April 2023, the "domestic debt collection giant" Yongxiong Group was investigated and punished by Anhui police across provinces. Criminal compulsory measures were taken against 179 employees, and more than 48 million yuan of funds in bank accounts were frozen. Most employees were convicted of provoking trouble for using "soft violence" to collect debts.

"People coming out of Yongxiong are very bold. Some of them will 'open the boxes' of debtors and resell personal information. Yongxiong was investigated mainly because this kind of situation occurred too many times." Zhang Yuheng's former supervisor was once an employee of Yongxiong Group.

The "China Third-Party Debt Mediation and Collection Industry Market Research Report" released by the Hong Kong Credit and Collection Management Association shows that as of June 2019, there were approximately more than 4,500 third-party mediation and collection companies across the country.

In June 2024, when the keyword "collection" was entered into Tianyancha, 9,594 results were displayed. It can be seen that the scale of the collection industry has almost doubled in the past five years. However, industry supervision has not kept up, allowing violent collection to grow in the dark.

Recently, the China Internet Finance Association issued the "Internet Finance Post-loan Collection Business Guidelines", which made detailed requirements: Collection should not be conducted between 22:00 and 8:00 the next day. Active calls with a single debtor should not exceed 3 times a day. Collection officers should not disclose to third parties the amount of overdue debts owed by the debtor, the time of the debt, and other information.

Many debt collectors interviewed believe that the industry is bound to move towards standardization. Dai Yuanjun found that with the tightening of industry supervision, the application for business licenses is very strict, and it is no longer as easy as before to start a new debt collection company.

At the same time, some debt collectors have switched to law firms to mediate before litigation between banks and debtors. Deng Chao made such a choice. He started working as a debt collector in 2010. After being keenly aware of the risks of traditional telephone debt collection, he switched to a mediator in 2023.

When a bank decides to sue an overdue customer, the law firm will first apply to the court for property preservation and freeze the debtor's WeChat and Alipay accounts for a period of one month.

When daily payment tools are restricted, customers are usually very anxious and take the initiative to call. At this time, the two parties can negotiate the repayment plan more smoothly. This method can avoid the regulatory risks caused by looking up customer information and calling relatives.

The implementation of property preservation also requires the cooperation of the court. The Intermediate Court has a large number of cases and does not have the extra energy to do other work. Therefore, the law firm mainly contacts the county-level People's Court. After the two parties reach an agreement on the execution fee, they can establish cooperation.

After leaving the debt collection industry, Zhang Yuheng opened a barbecue restaurant, which is open from 4:30 pm to 3:30 am every day. At the same time, he is also working hard to eliminate the negative impact of debt collection on himself. For example, he is used to being aggressive in conversations, controlling the right to speak, and not allowing himself to lose the upper hand.

Zhang Yuheng is also extremely sensitive to information. When receiving a sales call, most people would say "No, thank you." But he would repeatedly ask the other party, "Where did you get the number? What's your name?"

"Will doing this kind of work of intimidating and deceiving others for a long time affect your trust in others in your daily life?" After hearing my question, he thought for a while and said, "It is difficult for me to completely trust someone. I only believe that I can be sure of you"...

More than a year later, the woman who was in debt due to marriage contacted Yuan Jun again. "I am now well and my debts are almost paid off. If you come to Wuhan on a business trip in the future, I will treat you to a meal."

*Zhang Yuheng is a pseudonym in this article