Illustration of a bundle of euro banknotes.

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moerschy

  • The UFC-Que Choisir unveils this Thursday a study on credit recoveries.

  • The association says it is facing an increase in reports on this subject.

  • Behind these complaints hide “deleterious practices” on the part of the collection companies.

At the end of December, it was upstream, denouncing the abuses of consumer loans granted during this period of health and economic crisis.

This time, UFC-Que Choisir is downstream.

In a new study published on Thursday, the consumer association highlights the “scandalous” practices, according to it, of credit recovery companies.

The year 2021 promises to be that of “all dangers” for borrowers, writes the UFC-Que Choisir, knowing the unpaid debts already amounted, in 2020 in France, to 22 billion euros for all credits combined.

And this while the outlook for employment - and therefore for household purchasing power - appears bleak for the coming months.

From repeated phone calls to informing neighbors

In this landscape, it is therefore the role played by collection companies - which could represent a market of seven billion euros in 2021 - that the association points to.

It is thus alarmed by the "surge in reports on noxious methods (...) (+ 15% for a year) recorded by its local associations".

The study of some 400 files shows that in 60% of cases, opacity practices are used.

This means the impossibility for individuals to access the documents that justify the amount of their debt, or even the debt itself, or even the proposal for discounts that hide debts hitherto "extinguished".

Another drift denounced: the aggressiveness of the agents of the collection companies, which goes up in half of the complaints studied.

The UFC-Que Choisir speaks of almost daily phone calls, of "threatening tone", even of "blackmail to denounce the neighbors".

Not to mention the "phantom loans", mentioned in 14% of the cases studied: debts that may simply no longer exist or have already been paid, but be indeed claimed.

Info on the sale

To clean up the sector, the association offers various avenues, starting with the "ban on the sale by banks and the purchase by collection companies of" phantom "credits whose validity cannot be demonstrated".

Another desire: that the borrower be notified by his bank before a possible sale of his credit to a collection company, so that he can in particular buy back his debt.

Finally, the UFC-Que Choisir demands that the methods of collection companies to solicit borrowers, including by mail or telephone, be "strictly supervised".

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