One day overdue, contacts friends are harassed one by one?

　　"For the past two days, they (the collectors) have been calling me, calling my family and friends, and I was so scared that I couldn't eat or sleep." Ms. Liu, a 26-year-old native of Guizhou, talks about her recent experience with a tone that can't hide her panic.

　　The reason is simply that she did not repay the loan to an online loan platform on time - Ms. Liu previously borrowed a loan from the platform, and on the 24th of each month, she needs to repay more than 3,100 yuan for a period of 12 months. On June 25, she was only one day overdue before she was violently collected.

　　In recent years, due to the failure of borrowers on online lending platforms to repay their loans in a timely manner, there have been frequent cases of "indiscriminate bombardment" harassment by their contacts in the contact book, and even the parties have been threatened and intimidated, and their legitimate rights and interests have been seriously infringed.

　　Experts interviewed by the reporter of the "Rule of Law Daily" pointed out that behind the frequent chaos of violent collection, online lending platforms violate regulations and excessively collect user information, especially the borrower's address book information; It is recommended that the regulators strictly implement the scope of necessary personal information that online lending apps need to obtain in the current relevant regulations, prohibit online lending platforms from collecting borrowers' information in violation of regulations and excessively, and continue to improve the legal and regulatory system for violent collection, increase the degree of punishment, and investigate and crack down on violent collection and loan intermediaries in a timely manner.

Comics: Li Xiaojun

Overdue encounters with violent collection

Extreme impact on work life

　　Ms. Liu fell into the quagmire of online loans because of her ex-boyfriend whom she met 3 years ago. In the process of getting along with the two, the man borrowed money from her on the grounds that he needed capital turnover for the project. At the instigation of the man, who had no job at the time, she borrowed money from an online loan platform, but the man did not help her repay the money. As a result, the two parties fell into an argument that ended in a breakup.

　　Originally, the loan amount was only more than 50,000 yuan, but Ms. Liu had no money to repay, so she borrowed money from other online loan platforms to repay the previous online loan platform.

　　In a blink of an eye, in March this year, she has borrowed from 3 online loan platforms, and she needs to repay about 5,000 yuan per month. Because her income was not enough to repay the loan, she borrowed 11,200 yuan from an online loan platform called "×× Quick Loan", and repaid it in 12 installments with equal principal and interest. On March 24 this year, she made the first repayment of more than 1,046 yuan to the platform, including more than 870 yuan in principal and more than 175 yuan in interest.

　　But this money is far from enough for Ms. Liu's normal life and repayment. In May this year, when she repaid the third installment of the loan, she applied to the "×× Quick Loan" for a loan of 20,500 yuan, and also chose to repay the loan in 12 installments of equal principal and interest, with the first installment of 2,206 yuan and more than 2,059 yuan per installment thereafter.

　　As of June 24 this year, Ms. Liu has to repay more than 3,300 yuan on the "×× Quick Loan" platform alone, plus the other three online loan platforms, she has to repay more than 8,300 yuan per month, and the loan amount has changed from more than 50,000 yuan to more than 80,000 yuan. But she has no other income except for more than 4,000 yuan a month from work.

　　What Ms. Liu didn't expect was that on June 25, just one day after the repayment date of the "×× Quick Loan", she received a collection call. She wanted to negotiate with the other party to delay the repayment, but the other party refused. Soon, the collection call was made to all the friends and family in her phone's address book, and she also sent relevant text messages.

　　"×× Quick Loan entrusted a third party to violently collect money on me, disclosed my arrears to my contacts in my address book, and constantly harassed my friends and family, which seriously affected my work and life. I will definitely pay back the arrears, I just hope they don't rush and give me a little time. Forcing me like this, threatening and intimidating, I was scared every day, I couldn't eat or sleep, I lived a very depressed life every day, and I felt that I couldn't live anymore. Ms. Liu said.

　　Ms. Liu is far from the only one who has encountered violent collection due to overdue loans from online lending platforms.

　　Mr. Wang, a resident of Jizhou District, Tianjin, who is in his 20s this year, borrowed more than 100,000 yuan from a number of online loan platforms in order to meet his higher consumption needs. After repaying the loan, the collector first called him to harass him, and then went directly to the door to threaten, which frightened his father at a loss, and in desperation, he borrowed money everywhere to repay the loan.

　　Yue Qiang, a senior partner of Beijing Hairun Tianrui Law Firm, has represented many related cases. In one case he handled, Zhao, a Beijing citizen, failed to repay the loan after borrowing money through a small loan company, and the small loan company approached a collection company to collect the money, and the collection company sent several employees to the borrower's home in uniform to smash the door, insult and threaten the borrower's home, causing the borrower's spouse to be greatly frightened. At the same time, the collection company frequently sends information to the contacts in the borrower's address book through phone calls and text messages about the borrower's refusal to repay, asking relatives and friends to contact or repay on behalf of the borrower, or threatening to come to the door to threaten them, so as to "bombard" the borrower and his relatives and friends.

　　The reporter searched on the third-party consumer complaint platform and found that as of July 5 this year, the number of complaints related to "violent collection" has exceeded 500,000.

Excessive collection of information by the platform

Some users don't even know it

　　According to the analysis of industry insiders, the reason for the emergence of violent collection is related to the illegal and excessive collection of borrower information by online lending platforms, especially their address book information.

　　When Yue Qiang was handling a case, he found that a company had developed an online loan app, and the borrower who registered the app needed to check the privacy information authorization form and other materials, and fill in the personal bank card account number, identity information, emergency contact information and other materials, and authorize the online loan app to obtain the collection of address book information, face recognition permissions, etc. In this way, the company has obtained a lot of user information through the app.

　　Ms. Liu also noticed that when she applied for a loan, from the time she registered, the online loan platform asked her to authorize her to obtain her mobile phone address book information, otherwise she could not proceed.

　　"The borrower encountered violent collection in the later stage, mainly involving the privacy acquisition of the source online loan platform." Gao Jie, director of the Corporate Compliance Research Center of the Law School of the Capital University of Economics and Business, believes that in order to ensure successful collection, some online lending platforms will collect the contact book information of borrowers when borrowing from foreign countries. For borrowers, there are those who have to agree to provide in order to obtain a loan, those who authorize it without carelessness, and those who are completely unaware. When a borrower is overdue in repayment, some online lending platforms will provide the borrower's address book information to other institutions for loan collection.

　　According to Liao Tianhu, deputy dean of the Law School of Southwest University of Science and Technology, the most fundamental reason is that online lending platforms have excessively collected user information.

　　"In order to effectively prevent information leakage, borrowers must carefully read the content of the authorization and clarify the purpose of the authorization when signing relevant documents or filling in the application software; In order to handle business through a formal online lending platform, once it is found that the online lending platform has deliberately disclosed the borrower's personal privacy, it should promptly report to the China Internet Finance Reporting Information Platform. Liao Tianhu said.

　　Gao Jie proposed that according to the inform-consent principle, the regulator should require the online lending platform to mark the terms of obtaining the designated contact information of the borrower in a conspicuous manner, inform the purpose, method and scope of the information, as well as the institutions and the purpose for which the information will be provided, and obtain the borrower's separate and explicit consent. At the same time, the channels and methods for withdrawing consent shall be indicated on the platform page, as well as the complaint path for discovering illegal access to information.

　　"For the borrower's address book information, even if the borrower explicitly agrees to provide it, it does not legitimize the acquisition of the online lending platform. On the one hand, the address book information is beyond the scope of necessity, and the purpose of its use is not legal and legitimate. On the other hand, address book information is not only the privacy of the borrower, but also the personal information of others in the address book. Gao Jie said.

　　Yue Qiang's suggestion is to increase the punishment for infringing on citizens' personal information and increase the cost of violating the law and committing crimes. Citizens should also enhance their awareness of protection, do not register unknown online platforms at will, and do not use informal online lending platforms. For platforms that must provide personal information, delete or modify the registration information in a timely manner after meeting the usage requirements, and at the same time take screenshots or record recordings of harassing phone calls, text messages and other information, so as to facilitate future complaints or police reports.

Enforce platform compliance rectification

Increase penalties and enhance deterrence

　　Some online lending platforms violate regulations and excessively collect borrowers' information, resulting in their privacy leakage. Once the borrower is overdue in repayment, he may encounter various violent collections, and his address book friends, leadership colleagues, etc. may also be harassed by "bombardment and indiscriminate".

　　Yue Qiang said that in combination with the cases he has represented, violent collection often uses illegal invasion of borrowers' homes, intimidation, threats and even beatings of borrowers and their families, illegal restrictions on the personal freedom of borrowers or their family members, and harassment of borrowers, their family members and friends through intimidating and threatening text messages and phone calls.

　　"The consequences of violent collection are very serious, ranging from minor cases of administrative violations to serious crimes and disruption of social order." Yue Qiang said.

　　In order to deal with violent collection, the relevant departments of the mainland have made many efforts. For example, the Notice on Regulating and Rectifying the "Cash Loan" Business, implemented in 2017, the Self-Discipline Convention on the Collection of Overdue Debts in Internet Finance (for Trial Implementation) issued in 2018, and the Measures for the Administration of Consumer Finance Companies issued in 2024, all propose to strictly prohibit violent collection of consumers.

　　The "Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Handling of Criminal Cases of Illegal Lending" issued by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice in 2019 clearly states that gathering, instigating, or hiring others to forcibly demand debts by means such as harassment, pestering, making noise, and gathering crowds to create momentum does not constitute a crime alone, but where the act of illegal lending has constituted the crime of illegal business operation, it shall be punished heavily, as appropriate, in accordance with the provisions of the crime of illegal business operation.

　　Amendment (11) to the Criminal Law also clarifies that: the use of violence and coercion; restricting the personal liberty of another person or trespassing into another person's home; Where the circumstances are serious, the sentence is up to 3 years imprisonment, short-term detention or controlled release, and/or a fine.

　　In addition, in May this year, the Internet Finance Association of China issued the Guidelines for Post-Loan Collection Business in Internet Finance, which put forward many requirements for collection behavior and the collection industry from a practical level. For example, if the two parties have not agreed on the collection time, the collection operation should not be collected from 22:00 to 8:00 the next day. At the level of information protection, the act of "exploding the address book" is expressly prohibited. The guidelines also state that financial institutions and third-party collection agencies should only collect from debtors and not from contact persons.

　　Although the state has relevant laws and industry norms to strengthen the crackdown on violent collection, the interviewed experts believe that due to the lag and limitations of criminal punishment and the non-mandatory nature of guiding documents, there is still a long way to go to eradicate the problem of violent collection in practice.

　　"The regulatory authorities should mandate online lending platforms, collection agencies, and other enterprises that are prone to infringe on citizens' personal information and privacy, to carry out special compliance construction, and issue special compliance guidelines, and carry out compliance audits on a regular basis or when necessary. In particular, the introduction of compliance incentive mechanisms in administrative supervision, and the importance of source governance. Gao Jie said.

　　She called on enterprises to carry out compliance rectification and decide on penalties based on the circumstances of compliance rectification if illegal acts are found in the supervision of online lending platforms illegally obtaining and disseminating personal information. At the same time, violent collection may constitute different crimes such as picking quarrels and provoking troubles, collecting illegal debts, and infringing on citizens' personal information, and judicial interpretations and other means can be used to clarify under what circumstances and what kind of crime is constituted by harassing persons in the borrower's address book, so as to have a deterrent effect on violent collection.

　　Liao Tianhu believes that the relevant laws and regulations promulgated by the mainland have expressed the position of "resolutely cracking down on illegal collection in accordance with the law" and filled the legislative gap. With regard to the rectification of violent collection and the improvement of lawful collection, it is necessary to continue to improve the relevant legal system, not only to regulate the collection behavior, but also to regulate online lending platforms and online loan intermediaries based on governance at the source, and further clearly define the specific manifestations of violent collection; It is also necessary to give full play to the law enforcement supervision of online lending platforms and collection agencies by public security organs and financial regulatory departments to ensure that they operate in accordance with laws and regulations.

　　"For institutions that engage in violent collection behavior, the relevant administrative organs should resolutely punish them in accordance with law, include violent collection behavior in the personal credit reporting system, and punish units up to the revocation of their business licenses. All departments should establish an information sharing mechanism to strengthen cross-departmental cooperation and form a joint force. Liao Tianhu said.

　　Yue Qiang suggested that violent collection and loan black intermediaries should be investigated and cracked down on in a timely manner, and at the same time, it is necessary to carry out pre-criminal compliance and legal education for companies, banks and their employees who provide loan services, so that they can understand the consequences of violent collection, and publicize the correct way to realize creditor's rights.

　　"It is also urgent to strengthen the education of the public on consumption concepts. Many violent collections exist on informal online loan platforms, and the reason why some people use such platforms is often due to excessive consumption, frequent loans that lead to credit problems, or are tempted by the convenient operation and low-interest discounts of these platforms, while ignoring the hidden traps of these platforms. Yue Qiang said that therefore, while regulating violent collection itself, it is also necessary to carry out legal popularization and education on the concept of consumption and money, so that the public can understand the negative impact of excessive consumption and blind online lending, understand the illegality of violent collection, understand the channels of reporting, complaints, and accusations, and be able to report to the police in time in the face of violent collection to protect their legitimate rights and interests.

Source: Rule of Law Daily (Rule of Law Daily All-Media Reporter Chen Lei), China Law Popularization