Sen. Grace Poe has called on the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions, and Currencies to investigate reports of alleged dirty tactics and other abusive practices being employed by some credit card debt collectors.
Poe, who had earlier filed Senate Resolution No. 655 seeking a Senate inquiry into the status of the implementation of the Philippine Credit Card Industry Act of 2016, said debt collectors that engage in unfair collection practices must be punished to put an end to their prevalent abusive behavior and protect consumers.
Despite the passage of the law, the senator said her office recently received complaints that collecting agencies continue to harass borrowers in a threatening and offensive move to collect money in behalf of issuing banks.
“The lack of clear guidelines and dedicated implementation of existing laws and regulations that would punish debt collectors give them wide latitude to harass, bombard borrowers with calls and text messages bordering on criminal acts, and engage in other unfair collection practices,” Poe said.
Usually, she said, consumers who use credit cards soon find themselves debt-saddled and often hounded by debt collectors.
Poe said debtors should pay their outstanding debts but criticized abusive collectors who use a credit card holder’s poor financial standing to harass, resort to name-calling, and threaten them with delinquent accounts to compel them to pay.
“For many years, credit card debt collectors put pressure and use crooked ploys on the defaulter to collect money,” Poe noted. (Hannah L. Torregoza)