Tweet          

Would you be embarrassed if a man in a top hat and tuxedo followed you into a restaurant and silently joined your lunch date? How about a trio of men with more to love in superhero costumes requesting that your neighbors send donations to assist you in your financial situation?

In Madrid, be sure your bills are paid off or you may be visited by one of these interesting characters. The recession has slammed Spain hard. Official figures show that the unemployment rate has sky rocketed through the roof, reaching 19.3 percent. This figure is one of the highest rates in Europe. Around four million people are not employed. That is the same number of jobless people as France and Italy put together. One business is flourishing however, that business is debt collection.

Spanish law is pretty relaxed when it comes to debt payment. They permit 95 days to settle bills unlike the 30 in other parts of Europe. This, in conjunction with the fact that Spanish courts give the matter low priority put collection agencies in high demand.

One agency, El Cobrador del Frac - which translates as "The Debt Collector in Top Hat and Tails" - has more than 250 collectors, and an equal number of secretaries and investigators.Their aim is to work out some sort of deal and retrieve some sort of money, not to run after people without the means to pay.

For the company, the new and most popular business is coming from constructive trade which is suffering from a huge slowdown. Homeowners owe money to contractors, contractors owe money to construction companies, construction companies owe equipment makers, and so forth and so on.

Last year, the debt collection company had a wedding business contact them over a couple who didn't pay the $83,000 bill for their over the top wedding. The agency obtained a wedding guest list and began calling up guests one by one on the phone and asking them if they had the chicken or the lobster, and then asked them where to send the bill. Eventually the shamed couple paid up.

These ideas are intriguing, (I suppose that is one way to describe it) but they will not be this effective in due time. In this time of crisis, too many people have debts and they honestly can't pay. And to these people, it doesn't matter how much you humiliate them.