The Hindu : Opinion / Letters to the Editor : Recovery agents

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Saturday, Nov 03, 2007
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Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Recovery agents

This refers to the editorial “Banks and their recovery agents” (Nov. 2). Despite the fact that employing physical force is against the Supreme Court ruling, many private banks are in the news for physically harassing their customers to recover dues on credit cards, vehicle loans, personal loans, etc. Banks, without assessing the credit-worthiness of borrowers, are sugary sweet while dispensing easy loans and then send white-collar goons operating in the garb of recovery agents to hound the people.

The lure of high commissions on recovery forces the agents to go overboard. They cross the line when they realise that they can pocket as much as 30 per cent of the loan amount as recovery fee. The crisis will continue unabated unless the government screens recovery agents before banks appoint them.

T. Marx,

Karaikal

There should be a Central Act preventing banks and other financial institutions from taking the law into their own hands and deploying goondas as recovery agents. The cooperatives were introduced to save the helpless rural borrowers from the clutches of village moneylenders and goondas.

It is unfortunate that aggressive recovery techniques are adopted which violate the rights of the citizens. In all such actions, banks cannot escape liability. Civil and criminal action can be taken against financial institutions but the citizen is too weak to protect himself. Hence the need for a law to ensure that only the legal route is followed by banks.

V. Subrahmanya Sastry,

Bangalore

Most of the agents coerce customers to recover the dues. The need of the hour is to have a law in force to regulate the hire purchase business. Under such a law, the rights and duties of banks and their customers should be spelt out clearly. Banks should not be given the power to engage collection agents for recovering their dues.

K. Pradeep,

Chennai

It is true that banks, especially private and foreign banks, in their over-enthusiasm, market their retail loans without proper verification and then use strong-arm methods to recover them.

But it is those who get tempted to opt for unwanted loans who are to blame for their predicament. The question still remains why banks keep quiet with big defaulters.

N. Nagarajan,

Secunderabad

The case of employment of recovery agents is only one of the many manifestations of the growing tendency of permissibility in our society for strong-arm tactics as a short-cut to justice which follows a tortuous and delayed route.

The employment of musclemen for recovery of loans, eviction of tenants and resolution of property and other legal disputes and, worse, its open justification by a large section of the so-called educated are responsible for the creation of the underworld and the criminalisation of politics.

Kasim Sait,

Chennai

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