Haunted by Debt: Hong Kong Couple Endures Threats from Loan Sharks

A Descent into Debt: The Story of a Businessman and His Wife

When Bobby Tan, a businessman from Southeast Asia, found himself in financial trouble due to cash-flow issues in his health supplement business, he turned to a professional networking group in Hong Kong for help. He borrowed HK$300,000 (US$38,220) from a licensed small lender in April last year. What began as a simple loan quickly spiraled into a mountain of debt that would trap him and his wife in a cycle of distress.

Over the next 10 months, Tan continued to take on more debt, borrowing from 30 different licensed moneylenders for a total of HK$5.05 million. Each lender charged an illicit upfront “commission” of 15 to 30 per cent, along with other expenses—effectively resulting in an interest rate of 1,031 per cent. After deducting agents’ commissions, Tan only received HK$4.15 million in loans. Despite repaying more than HK$4.78 million, these lenders are still chasing him for HK$1.87 million.

In December last year, when Tan was overwhelmed by his debt and living in fear of being chased back for unpaid loans, the agents persuaded him to use his wife’s name, Alicia, to borrow more. Alicia, who works in the education sector, was shocked to learn about her husband’s financial woes. She felt she had no choice but to help him be a “referee” for more loans to save her family from harm.

A native English speaker who does not understand Cantonese, Alicia often did not comprehend what the lenders were talking about during verbal deals. As a result of spiraling interest expenses and an inability to repay, the couple faced various types of backlash, ranging from death threats to debt collectors’ harassment of Alicia’s boss, colleagues, and workplace.

The situation took a heavy toll on Alicia’s mental health after she suffered from depression, pushing the couple to the brink of divorce. “Those people called my workplace last week, and it was quite traumatic for my superior,” she said. “I had to engage the lenders in a polite way to stall time as I sought legal advice on the way forward.”

Their ordeal is not an isolated one. Caritas, a crisis hotline center, received 4,216 debt-related calls to two hotlines in the year to June 2025, up 5 per cent from the year before, with 40 per cent of callers reporting harassment. The Consumer Council received 220 complaints about personal loans or financial intermediaries from 2022 to May 2025.

Sally Choi Wing-sze, a senior social worker with Caritas, explained that individuals typically seek help when they are already in a crisis facing severe emotional distress. “When a person is under pressure, their emotions will be very chaotic, and their judgment will be impaired,” Choi said. “The first thing we must do is stabilize their emotions.”

Choi added that the main reasons for a debt crisis were overconsumption, gambling, and scams. Lawyer Lau Kar-wah, who has handled about 40 such cases, noted that while victims were often from lower-income backgrounds, the well-educated were not immune. He highlighted that their perceived sophistication could sometimes work against them.

“You may not get any sympathy,” Lau told the Tans during a meeting. “Because both of you are very educated… the court would not trust him normally, saying ‘you’re so educated, why do you get cheated?’ I don’t believe it.”

The couple’s experience highlights the acute vulnerability of non-Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. Lacking deep local networks and being unfamiliar with the nuances of the city’s financial regulations, they are prime targets. This is even though the Money Lenders Ordinance caps the effective annual interest rate at 48 per cent.

“There is a severe lack of such content currently,” said Jason Chan, the convenor at the Association of Financing Industry Practitioners. Chan called for authorities to urgently step up the promotion of safe borrowing in languages such as Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesia.

The Tan couple have sought police help. In a statement to the Post, police confirmed they had received a report from a couple on June 13, in a case classified as “lending at an excessive interest rate,” which had been assigned to the Wan Chai district investigation team. No arrests have been made. A separate report of nuisance calls and messages on June 18 was classified as a “complaint of nuisance” after police determined it did not involve any criminal element.

Despite their ordeal, the couple said they had no plans to leave the city they had lived in for 15 years. “It has been a very challenging journey, and there are times we feel abandoned in the place which we have called home,” Alicia said. “I really hope through our story, people can be helped. It’s very devastating and mentally debilitating.”

The Financial Services and Treasury Bureau has recently started a two-month consultation on a plan to tighten regulations over licensed moneylenders.