Interpol threat for overseas property loan defaulters

UAE banks are informing loan defaulters, who have “skipped” the country, to pay up their dues or their names could be forwarded to the Interpol, banking sources told Emirates24|7.

“We do send a lot of reminders and wait for months to get the defaulters to talk to us and start repaying their debt. If and only if they don’t respond we do pass on their details to the Interpol,” a banker told Emirates24|7 on conditions of anonymity.

“We ask for international travel ban and Central Bank blacklisting of these defaulters. And for expatriates outside the UAE, we forward the cases to the Interpol,” the banker said.

The reminders were sent to email IDs and the local/home address registered with the bank.

A collection department employee of a local bank, who wished not to disclose her name, said: “We are told to call the defaulter’s office first to inform the HR department of the person being a defaulter.

“If the person goes ‘missing’, we then contact their home country to get to know of their whereabouts and do inform the relatives of the person being a bank defaulter. We are told to call a couple of times in a week to get updates from his\her relative and pressurize them to get the defaulters to contact us or start paying.”

Banks also have tie-ups with local debt collection agencies to “skip trace” defaulters.

“Our highly trained and resourceful investigators can be commissioned to trace them both locally and abroad along with our international network of investigation connections and negotiate settlement terms that are both moral and beneficial,” states a local debt collection agency on their website.

Skip tracing means tracking people who get into debt and avoid payment by changing their address, move out of a city and make efforts not to be located.

“We undertake and execute skip tracing operations as and when deemed appropriate, when the task is to locate debtors who have moved out of the city, or whose whereabouts are unknown,” states a local agency’s website.

These agencies have partnership with several domestic repossession, collection and recovery agencies/law firms in the defaulter’s home country.

“If need be, our teams can locate most of the skip tracing cases and help in amicable settlements,” the agency claims.

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