Blackmail, threats, arson, rape and even murder - collection agencies have increasingly used gangster methods in recent years. They worked the same way in the 90s, when going to the debtor with a support group was commonplace. The general director of the International Collection Agency, Vyacheslav Sokolov, recalls that his first debt (in the amount of $25,000) was collected for him in 1994 by a team of five strong guys. They beat the debtor with their hands until he slid out of his chair and crawled under the table. The next time, Sokolov himself struck the debtor on the street in the center of Moscow. Now the collector, according to him, does not use such methods, but agreed to remember how it all began.
Vyacheslav Sokolov
General Director of the International Collection Agency
I have been collecting debts for over 20 years. It all started in the 1990s, when I had to knock out money that I earned as a businessman and then lent to someone.
I started my first business in 1991 - the Soviet-Italian joint venture Eurodel. We supplied a variety of goods to Italy - from sunflower oil to marble. I remember how surprised I was: for 70 years the communists frightened us with the bestial grin of capitalism, its nightmares and horrors, but it turned out that business is so easy.
Closer to 1993, the first currency exchange offices began to appear in Moscow. My partner and I opened one of them on Stary Arbat. Then we made 12 more exchangers together with different banks. It was then that I first encountered racketeering.
At first, our roof was a boy from South Ossetia, who kept saying: “Yes, at any moment I will gather 45 people with one call and we will arrange such a shootout in your yard that it won’t seem too much.” He came with his boys to my office (he didn’t have his own), they ate and sang there all day long, pestering our girls. At the same time, he resolved some issues, but his manner of behavior prevented us from working normally.
In general, I decided to exchange my Ossetian for a bank roof - the banks with which I collaborated through currency exchange offices had been offering it for a long time. The bandits have arrived. The chief sat silently and did not utter a single word during the meeting. But there was a man with him, whose name, as I remember now, was Yura Malysh (two meters tall, his face was covered in sores, he looked as if he had just left the zone), and so he spoke. The authority simply smiled, nodded his head, and they left. The next day an Ossetian comes running: “That’s it, we agreed, give me 3 million rubles - and you will move under another roof.”
It became calmer with the bank roof - no one came and started drunken brawls. Once a month we met with them and gave them money without further ado. It must be said that they solved problems quickly. One day, three guys came to us and said: “We are three thieves in law. We will drive everyone out of here." We called our people and a couple of days later we received an answer: “These three no longer exist, they do not exist in nature.” Nobody came at us anymore, because the whole Old Arbat knew: we were under the bank roof.
Later I also had a police roof. In 1993, after a quarrel with my partners, I opened a cafe and currency exchange office on Zemlyanoy Val Street. I hoped that people would come from Kursky Station to eat. They came in, but not enough. I asked the cook and the waiter what was the matter, and they said: “Here Caucasian guys come for tea, and everyone is afraid of them.” It turned out that these were bandits who were protecting traders at the Kursk station. For some reason they could not sit there and constantly came to us.
At first I tried to talk to them myself, but got nowhere and went to the police station in Lyalin Lane. Everything was simple there: $500 - and the opera solves all problems. Together with the district police officer, he met these Caucasians right in my cafe, and they immediately tucked their tail between their legs. After that we paid only this opera. On holidays they gave him something else, they brought him boxes of booze when he needed it.
In three years in business, I earned $200,000. So that the money wouldn’t be wasted at home, I started giving it away at 4–6% per month. I gave everything away in six months - the receipts are still there. The time has come to demand it back, but no one returns it, everyone merges. That's how I got started in debt collection. The year was 1994. Of course, I didn’t have any legal entity then - I opened it only in 2005.
When I first started returning what was handed out, I tried to contact the police, but it was of little use, because they demanded money for the work. He suggested: “Guys, as soon as we return at least something, I’ll give you half.” If they didn’t agree, they wanted it right away. Then I had already quit my business and worked as a financial director in a casino for friends. They helped me.
I once told my friends about a debtor: this is the situation, $25,000 has been covered. They gave me a casino crew - five people. I remember two of them were 26–27 years old: strong, polite, cultured, but at the same time you could immediately see from their faces what they were doing. And the other three are just boys: they haven’t served in the army yet, but they are also big-faced. I actually didn’t really want to take them, but they told me: “Let them get used to the blood.”
We came to my debtor on Novaya Basmannaya. The nearest police station from there was 10–15 minutes away, so it was necessary to act quickly. We go into the office, I place the young guys at the elevator and in the corridor. We go into this person’s office and start talking. Maybe everything would have gone fine, but he immediately began to behave very unsightly, asked who we were, and promised to score the shooter. My guys got angry and started beating him.
From the personal archive of Vyacheslav Sokolov
First, while the man was sitting in a chair, they beat him with his hands, then, when he crawled under the table, they beat him with his feet. I stand looking at this and don’t understand how to behave. Back then, people weren’t beaten very often when I was there. But suddenly he yells from under the table: “Enough, enough, you can get along with me in an amicable way!” We agreed that he would call before 00:00 and we would arrange a meeting. When they left, the two elders told me that there would be no money, they would have to go to the switch, but no, the phone rang exactly at 00:00. I had the money the very next day. I gave half of it to the guys from the casino.
I've mostly used these casino guys since then, even after I stopped working there in the early 2000s. There were different cases. I remember, for example, how one guy borrowed $2800 from me for a Zhiguli model seven. I didn’t give it back for a long time, anger took over me, I went to my guys and asked them to burn this car. Two weeks later they tell me: “That’s it, Slav, the order has been completed.” I was surprised then that there was nothing in the news about the burned car, and then I found out: the guys stole it and sold it for $2000 to some Azerbaijanis. This despite the fact that I also paid them. But the debtor never returned the money to me.
Over time, small businessmen began to turn to me more and more often to help repay their debt. It worked out, to be honest, not always. Often debtors simply did not have money: people invested something somewhere, and then lost everything. In any case, it was necessary to act using harsh methods. One client, who was owed a large sum, tried through the court to seize the debtor’s apartment - he alone lived on 105 square meters. m. The judges refused, and I suggested inviting a security group. After talking with my guys, the boy agreed to sell the apartment. I don’t know how they forced him, but I think they beat him. In conversations with me before, he behaved unceremoniously, saying that I wouldn’t do anything to him.
Sometimes I used third-party crews and once I got into trouble with this. Back in the early 1990s, two women borrowed $25,000 from me, bought flowers with it in Holland and began trading. I then reduced the cost of the truck three times and paid the duty myself. In general, I did everything for them, but they won’t give me the money. At some point they even offered to “pay in kind.” I remember this dialogue well:
You only have sex with your wife, right? Let's try it together, the three of us. You'll like it. - How much do you estimate it? - Well, $200. - Okay, girls, $25,000 divided by 200 - how many times will we fuck?
They giggled then, but the problem was never solved. I took a completely foreign team of three people and went to wait for the girls at the entrance. We sat there for three hours, but then they finally came out and the guys scored the pointer. Two brigades from both sides met near the Universitet metro station. From the other side came an uncle with a stick and two more guys: one - tall, thin, in a black shirt, with a criminal face, the second - with a generally broken forehead. Their elder politely asked for a receipt. When I showed it, he suddenly yelled: “Bitches! I give them to you, take them, do with them what you want.”
From the personal archive of Vyacheslav Sokolov
The girls began to freak out, and my guys rejoiced: “That’s it, we won the shooter, now we’ll take you to the forest - we’ll fuck you there and burn your asses at the stake.” I’m already starting to regret that I got involved, I ask you to somehow manage without all this. Two teams leave in front of me, whisper about something, look at each other, then return: “As you said, so it will be. We'll meet in a week." A week later, one of the debtors calls and says: “Slava, come alone, bring all the receipts, we will give you the money.” Well, I went, but I only took copies with me. It turned out that it was not in vain.
At six in the evening I was in the school yard on Lomonosovsky Prospekt. I remember how careful I was - I left the car far away. I approached, and there was a car right in the yard, with girls and the three from the arrow in it. The bandits immediately begin: “Who are you to make claims? You, cop bitch, what right do you have to go to a showdown? Where are the receipts?
They started looking in my pockets for receipts, slaps in the face rained down from all sides. When they realized that I didn’t have everything with me and only copies, they started yelling, poking me with a knife, and threatening to let my guts out. They were about to put me in the trunk, but it didn’t work out. People saved us: the fence near the school was low, retired grandmothers with a shepherd dog came up. The crew jumped into the car and drove away. $25,000 just flew away. Plus money for the crew. Later I found out that the bandits had conspired among themselves, but I did not deal with them. It is more expensive to get involved with such people.
A lot changed in the 2000s. When legal methods began to work, the first collection agencies began to appear. We began to work according to documents. Previously, no one had thought, for example, about the power of attorney that the person who collects debts should receive.
There was forceful support for some time, but then he changed his mind. I realized that this is no longer necessary - there are plenty of other methods that did not work before. For example, even if there is no promissory note, you need to meet with the debtor and ask him to give at least 1000 rubles. According to the Civil Code, if the debtor has taken active actions in fulfillment of debt obligations, he thereby confirmed that he recognizes the debt. If you record in a receipt that on such and such a date a person gave 1000 rubles to repay the principal debt, consider him caught. From this second the countdown of three years of claim begins. You don't have to hit.
Not every person is ready to turn to official organizations when money problems arise. Many people prefer to borrow money “the old fashioned way” from relatives, acquaintances, or a friend. However, problems often arise with repaying such a loan. To solve them, several methods have been invented: how to get paid for debts, and some of them are illegal.
Indeed, it is quite difficult to force a person to pay bills, especially if there is no documentary evidence of the fact of borrowing.
It is worth noting that some people literally understand the expression “debt collection” to mean physical force. Arguing with such methods is somewhat problematic; in the face of the threat of reprisals, any process involuntarily accelerates. Most defaulters prefer to return everything just to avoid such pressure.
However, in a situation where the debtor takes the statement to the police, an unenviable fate awaits the creditor.
Any illegality is prosecuted by law: based on Art. 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, qualify as “extortion”. The punishment for such self-will is more than serious:
Therefore, when deciding to “collect a debt”, it is better not to abuse existing powers; you cannot threaten, apply pressure in any form, using provocative measures.
It is important to remember that no matter the situation, the law will always protect the borrower, even if he does not pay his bills. So, feeling threatened by a creditor, anyone can turn to law enforcement agencies or directly to court; no bandit raid will work here. The most that a lender can do is to politely and extremely correctly make a request, hoping that the person will return the money of his own free will.
Recently, various companies have appeared that are engaged in collecting debts, what can be called: on a professional basis. Who are they and what do they work on?
According to the current law, all contracts concluded by the bank with the client are considered terminated if 90 days have passed since the last payment. Next, the dossier is sold to people collecting debts.
We are now talking about collectors, whose activities are as follows: for any delay, a fine or penalty is charged, which increases the debt exponentially. Some companies “increase” one percent of the total amount in this way, resulting in cosmic figures. Collection agencies are the penultimate authority, after which all that remains is to contact law enforcement agencies.
The employer is the establishment that provides lending to individuals; if the tasks are successfully completed, a certain percentage goes to the account of those who provided the relevant services. As a matter of fact, the bulk of a collector's salary depends on how they collect the debt.
Moreover, there is nothing surprising in the methods used to achieve the goal.
In addition, a scheme has become widespread when companies buy up debt obligations for a minimum amount, taking the entire difference for themselves; accounting is kept in special books.
The “homeland” of such agencies is America; the Russian version appeared only at the beginning of the last century. Acting immediately as a branch of credit structures, they later grew into a separate system with the scope of activity - working as a bouncer.
The worst thing in such a situation is for those who are responsible for the receivables, since they are under constant pressure, and in a variety of ways. But the main thing is the accrual of huge interest for each overdue day, which is much higher than what the bank applies.
2014 was a turning point for the activities of such services, after the adoption of a special law regulating actions taken against debtors. Since January 2017, significant changes have been made regarding the appeal of creditors:
The listed requirements are valid only for official or “white” systems, which previously used predominantly permitted methods.
“Black” companies do not hesitate to work like bandits: they threaten, lie in wait near apartments, and damage citizens’ property.
Those who collect loan debts work for a certain percentage. As a rule, this is at least 10% of the total amount received on debts.
There is only one legally competent way to collect borrowed funds - going to court. Of course, anyone can declare themselves bankrupt, considering this a compelling reason to write off all financial obligations. However, this procedure is quite complex and requires compliance with certain conditions, the violation of which can aggravate the situation. No problems will arise if there is a receipt; its preparation also requires the mandatory entry of basic information about the borrower:
The last point is most important for all parties. The best option: transfer funds to an account opened with a bank. This could be Sberbank, Vostochny, Renaissance, Home, or others. All saved receipts will be irreplaceable in court.
So, the presence of a notarized receipt becomes irrefutable evidence at any stage of resolving the issue. You should remember the statute of limitations when filing a claim - three years
The most effective and legal way to collect debt is a statement of claim, which is submitted to the court at the place of residence of the defendant. Draw up a document in free form including information:
In any case, the court will take into account and satisfy the borrower’s requests, with a decision made against the debtor to return the funds.
Then bailiffs come into play, empowered to forcibly collect money, up to and including the sale of property, if bankruptcy is declared.
Therefore, it is better not to know how debt collectors collect debts if it is not possible to fulfill all obligations in a timely manner. Moreover, even death will not be a reason; relatives will have to pay.
The disadvantages of an official solution to the problem include the duration; it is possible to return the loan product, but not earlier than in a year or even later.
First of all, you should make sure that you are really guilty of the violations that were charged. You can do this by contacting the BKI, especially when it comes to non-existent microfinance transactions that you did not carry out. Receipt of a writ of execution should become the basis for checking your CI. Perhaps this is a conspiracy by a gang of fraudsters who took advantage of other people’s documents in order to quickly obtain an express loan.
Therefore, it is extremely important to carefully study everything that is given for signature, especially when concluding loan agreements or a car loan for the purchase of a cool car. If you cannot understand all the legal subtleties, it is worth hiring an experienced specialist, whose help is truly irreplaceable. He can really help, especially since this is his profession.
Almost all contracts contain a clause allowing the transfer of confidential information to third parties: collectors - this is the name given to people who collect debts if they are not repaid on time.
If you refuse to sign this provision, you can go to court when they appear.
A personal visit to the bank will help resolve the situation when you still have to meet with creditors. It is better to be honest about the difficulties that have arisen:
It’s ideal if you have a home plan for getting out of the crisis: changing your field of activity, looking for a new job.
It should be remembered that any financial institution is interested in returning funds and is not going to immediately bring the matter to court, especially if the cost of the issue is not so high. Moreover, you should not quarrel with such powerful organizations. Most likely, it will be possible to agree on:
Any of the accepted options will be the basis for the recall of the “bouncers”.
The guarantor of the return of funds, especially significant amounts, is a document drawn up by a notary. With it, you can easily win any court case, provided that it is drafted correctly, indicating all the required points that were given above.
If the problem cannot be resolved through peaceful negotiations, a claim is filed with the provision of a full package of documents available to the parties.
The won process becomes the basis on which funds will be collected according to clearly established deadlines. Otherwise, more serious measures will follow, including criminal liability. Today, even alimony is subject to collection if one of the parties improperly fulfills its obligations.
The borrower's refusal to repay the debt often becomes the basis for litigation. However, you should start by properly drafting a claim and notification of a voluntary return, which will avoid the accrual of high interest rates and the application of other sanctions.
It is necessary to point out the possibility of considering the case in court, which most often takes the side of the creditor, which will further increase the amount of the total debt. It will include expenses such as:
It is always better to negotiate, saving your own time and money.
Even the absence of such significant evidence will not prevent you from returning the funds. You should start with negotiations, preferably in the presence of witnesses or on the record. Failure to fulfill a promise within a month becomes a legal basis for filing a claim with all the ensuing consequences.
Increasingly, when working with persistent defaulters, financial institutions turn to specialized agencies that provide this type of service. Their course is buying debt; they require a discount of over 50% for “fresh” and fairly large ones for amounts exceeding 500,000 rubles.
A condition for concluding such a transaction will be the recording of the relevant content in the contract.
People who collect debts from loans are called collectors; they are involved only in extreme cases. There are such bureaus in all major cities, in Moscow: Baumansky Lane, 4.
Therefore, it is best to start by trying to negotiate. Only after exhausting all possibilities do they call in specialists.
Blackmail, threats, arson, rape and even murder - collection agencies have increasingly used gangster methods in recent years. They worked the same way in the 90s, when going to the debtor with a support group was commonplace. The general director of the International Collection Agency, Vyacheslav Sokolov, recalls that his first debt (in the amount of $25,000) was collected for him in 1994 by a team of five strong guys. They beat the debtor with their hands until he slid out of his chair and crawled under the table. The next time, Sokolov himself struck the debtor on the street in the center of Moscow. Now the collector, according to him, does not use such methods, but agreed to remember how it all began.
I have been collecting debts for over 20 years. It all started in the 1990s, when I had to knock out money that I earned as a businessman and then lent to someone.
I started my first business in 1991 - the Soviet-Italian joint venture Eurodel. We supplied a variety of goods to Italy - from sunflower oil to marble. I remember how surprised I was: for 70 years the communists frightened us with the bestial grin of capitalism, its nightmares and horrors, but it turned out that business is so easy.
Closer to 1993, the first currency exchange offices began to appear in Moscow. My partner and I opened one of them on Stary Arbat. Then we made 12 more exchangers together with different banks. It was then that I first encountered racketeering.
At first, our roof was a boy from South Ossetia, who kept saying: “Yes, at any moment I will gather 45 people with one call and we will arrange such a shootout in your yard that it won’t seem too much.” He came with his boys to my office (he didn’t have his own), they ate and sang there all day long, pestering our girls. At the same time, he resolved some issues, but his manner of behavior prevented us from working normally.
In general, I decided to exchange my Ossetian for a bank roof - the banks with which I collaborated through currency exchange offices had been offering it for a long time. The bandits have arrived. The chief sat silently and did not utter a single word during the meeting. But there was a man with him, whose name, as I remember now, was Yura Malysh (two meters tall, his face was covered in sores, he looked as if he had just left the zone), and so he spoke. The authority simply smiled, nodded his head, and they left. The next day an Ossetian comes running: “That’s it, we agreed, give me 3 million rubles - and you will move under another roof.”
It became calmer with the bank roof - no one came and started drunken brawls. Once a month we met with them and gave them money without further ado. It must be said that they solved problems quickly. One day, three guys came to us and said: “We are three thieves in law. We will drive everyone out of here." We called our people and a couple of days later we received an answer: “These three no longer exist, they do not exist in nature.” Nobody came at us anymore, because the whole Old Arbat knew: we were under the bank roof.
Later I also had a police roof. In 1993, after a quarrel with my partners, I opened a cafe and currency exchange office on Zemlyanoy Val Street. I hoped that people would come from Kursky Station to eat. They came in, but not enough. I asked the cook and the waiter what was the matter, and they said: “Here Caucasian guys come for tea, and everyone is afraid of them.” It turned out that these were bandits who were protecting traders at the Kursk station. For some reason they could not sit there and constantly came to us.
At first I tried to talk to them myself, but got nowhere and went to the police station in Lyalin Lane. Everything was simple there: $500 - and the opera solves all problems. Together with the district police officer, he met these Caucasians right in my cafe, and they immediately tucked their tail between their legs. After that we paid only this opera. On holidays they gave him something else, they brought him boxes of booze when he needed it.
In three years in business, I earned $200,000. So that the money wouldn’t be wasted at home, I started giving it away at 4–6% per month. I gave everything away in six months - the receipts are still there. The time has come to demand it back, but no one returns it, everyone merges. That's how I got started in debt collection. The year was 1994. Of course, I didn’t have any legal entity then - I opened it only in 2005.
When I first started returning what was handed out, I tried to contact the police, but it was of little use, because they demanded money for the work. He suggested: “Guys, as soon as we return at least something, I’ll give you half.” If they didn’t agree, they wanted it right away. Then I had already quit my business and worked as a financial director in a casino for friends. They helped me.
I once told my friends about a debtor: this is the situation, $25,000 has been covered. They gave me a casino crew - five people. I remember two of them were 26–27 years old: strong, polite, cultured, but at the same time you could immediately see from their faces what they were doing. And the other three are just boys: they haven’t served in the army yet, but they are also big-faced. I actually didn’t really want to take them, but they told me: “Let them get used to the blood.”
We came to my debtor on Novaya Basmannaya. The nearest police station from there was 10–15 minutes away, so it was necessary to act quickly. We go into the office, I place the young guys at the elevator and in the corridor. We go into this person’s office and start talking. Maybe everything would have gone fine, but he immediately began to behave very unsightly, asked who we were, and promised to score the shooter. My guys got angry and started beating him.
First, while the man was sitting in a chair, they beat him with his hands, then, when he crawled under the table, they beat him with his feet. I stand looking at this and don’t understand how to behave. Back then, people weren’t beaten very often when I was there. But suddenly he yells from under the table: “Enough, enough, you can get along with me in an amicable way!” We agreed that he would call before 00:00 and we would arrange a meeting. When they left, the two elders told me that there would be no money, they would have to go to the switch, but no, the phone rang exactly at 00:00. I had the money the very next day. I gave half of it to the guys from the casino.
I've mostly used these casino guys since then, even after I stopped working there in the early 2000s. There were different cases. I remember, for example, how one guy borrowed $2800 from me for a Zhiguli model seven. I didn’t give it back for a long time, anger took over me, I went to my guys and asked them to burn this car. Two weeks later they tell me: “That’s it, Slav, the order has been completed.” I was surprised then that there was nothing in the news about the burned car, and then I found out: the guys stole it and sold it for $2000 to some Azerbaijanis. This despite the fact that I also paid them. But the debtor never returned the money to me.
Over time, small businessmen began to turn to me more and more often to help repay their debt. It worked out, to be honest, not always. Often debtors simply did not have money: people invested something somewhere, and then lost everything. In any case, it was necessary to act using harsh methods. One client, who was owed a large sum, tried through the court to seize the debtor’s apartment - he alone lived on 105 square meters. m. The judges refused, and I suggested inviting a security group. After talking with my guys, the boy agreed to sell the apartment. I don’t know how they forced him, but I think they beat him. In conversations with me before, he behaved unceremoniously, saying that I wouldn’t do anything to him.
Sometimes I used third-party crews and once I got into trouble with this. Back in the early 1990s, two women borrowed $25,000 from me, bought flowers with it in Holland and began trading. I then reduced the cost of the truck three times and paid the duty myself. In general, I did everything for them, but they won’t give me the money. At some point they even offered to “pay in kind.” I remember this dialogue well:
You only have sex with your wife, right? Let's try it together, the three of us. You'll like it.
- How much do you estimate it?
- Well, $200.
- Okay, girls, $25,000 divided by 200 - how many times will we fuck?
They giggled then, but the problem was never solved. I took a completely foreign team of three people and went to wait for the girls at the entrance. We sat there for three hours, but then they finally came out and the guys scored the pointer. Two brigades from both sides met near the Universitet metro station. From the other side came an uncle with a stick and two more guys: one - tall, thin, in a black shirt, with a criminal face, the second - with a generally broken forehead. Their elder politely asked for a receipt. When I showed it, he suddenly yelled: “Bitches! I give them to you, take them, do with them what you want.”
The girls began to freak out, and my guys rejoiced: “That’s it, we won the shooter, now we’ll take you to the forest - we’ll fuck you there and burn your asses at the stake.” I’m already starting to regret that I got involved, I ask you to somehow manage without all this. Two teams leave in front of me, whisper about something, look at each other, then return: “As you said, so it will be. We'll meet in a week." A week later, one of the debtors calls and says: “Slava, come alone, bring all the receipts, we will give you the money.” Well, I went, but I only took copies with me. It turned out that it was not in vain.
At six in the evening I was in the school yard on Lomonosovsky Prospekt. I remember how careful I was - I left the car far away. I approached, and there was a car right in the yard, with girls and the three from the arrow in it. The bandits immediately begin: “Who are you to make claims? You, cop bitch, what right do you have to go to a showdown? Where are the receipts?
They started looking in my pockets for receipts, slaps in the face rained down from all sides. When they realized that I didn’t have everything with me and only copies, they started yelling, poking me with a knife, and threatening to let my guts out. They were about to put me in the trunk, but it didn’t work out. People saved us: the fence near the school was low, retired grandmothers with a shepherd dog came up. The crew jumped into the car and drove away. $25,000 just flew away. Plus money for the crew. Later I found out that the bandits had conspired among themselves, but I did not deal with them. It is more expensive to get involved with such people.
A lot changed in the 2000s. When legal methods began to work, the first collection agencies began to appear. We began to work according to documents. Previously, no one had thought, for example, about the power of attorney that the person who collects debts should receive.
There was forceful support for some time, but then he changed his mind. I realized that this is no longer necessary - there are plenty of other methods that did not work before. For example, even if there is no promissory note, you need to meet with the debtor and ask him to give at least 1000 rubles. According to the Civil Code, if the debtor has taken active actions in fulfillment of debt obligations, he thereby confirmed that he recognizes the debt. If you record in a receipt that on such and such a date a person gave 1000 rubles to repay the principal debt, consider him caught. From this second the countdown of three years of claim begins. You don't have to hit.
I still keep all the receipts for my old cases. Soviet training is taking its toll - everything is sorted into folders. What if someone asks? There were cases when I spent 10 years looking for debtors. For example, I had this Alik Eltarov. He changed his passport, became Oleg Pavlovich Eltarov - and this is what he ended up with, look (shows a photograph of the grave with the text “We forgive you your debts, Alik. Now your wife and daughter will pay them for you. After all, they are now heirs. That’s what the Civil Code says "Do I know who killed him? Of course. His girlfriend, a lady from Ukraine, poisoned him. He probably still owed a lot.
Blackmail, threats, arson, rape and even murder - collection agencies have increasingly used gangster methods in recent years. They worked the same way in the 90s, when going to the debtor with a support group was commonplace. The general director of the International Collection Agency, Vyacheslav Sokolov, recalls that his first debt (in the amount of $25,000) was collected for him in 1994 by a team of five strong guys. They beat the debtor with their hands until he slid out of his chair and crawled under the table. The next time, Sokolov himself struck the debtor on the street in the center of Moscow. Now the collector, according to him, does not use such methods, but agreed to remember how it all began.
I have been collecting debts for over 20 years. It all started in the 1990s, when I had to knock out money that I earned as a businessman and then lent to someone.
I started my first business in 1991 - the Soviet-Italian joint venture Eurodel. We supplied a variety of goods to Italy - from sunflower oil to marble. I remember how surprised I was: for 70 years the communists frightened us with the bestial grin of capitalism, its nightmares and horrors, but it turned out that business is so easy.
Closer to 1993, the first currency exchange offices began to appear in Moscow. My partner and I opened one of them on Stary Arbat. Then we made 12 more exchangers together with different banks. It was then that I first encountered racketeering.
At first, our roof was a boy from South Ossetia, who kept saying: “Yes, at any moment I will gather 45 people with one call and we will arrange such a shootout in your yard that it won’t seem too much.” He came with his boys to my office (he didn’t have his own), they ate and sang there all day long, pestering our girls. At the same time, he resolved some issues, but his manner of behavior prevented us from working normally.
In general, I decided to exchange my Ossetian for a bank roof - the banks with which I collaborated through currency exchange offices had been offering it for a long time. The bandits have arrived. The chief sat silently and did not utter a single word during the meeting. But there was a man with him, whose name, as I remember now, was Yura Malysh (two meters tall, his face was covered in sores, he looked as if he had just left the zone), and so he spoke. The authority simply smiled, nodded his head, and they left. The next day an Ossetian comes running: “That’s it, we agreed, give me 3 million rubles - and you will move under another roof.”
It became calmer with the bank roof - no one came and started drunken brawls. Once a month we met with them and gave them money without further ado. It must be said that they solved problems quickly. One day, three guys came to us and said: “We are three thieves in law. We will drive everyone out of here." We called our people and a couple of days later we received an answer: “These three no longer exist, they do not exist in nature.” Nobody came at us anymore, because the whole Old Arbat knew: we were under the bank roof.
Later I also had a police roof. In 1993, after a quarrel with my partners, I opened a cafe and currency exchange office on Zemlyanoy Val Street. I hoped that people would come from Kursky Station to eat. They came in, but not enough. I asked the cook and the waiter what was the matter, and they said: “Here Caucasian guys come for tea, and everyone is afraid of them.” It turned out that these were bandits who were protecting traders at the Kursk station. For some reason they could not sit there and constantly came to us.
At first I tried to talk to them myself, but got nowhere and went to the police station in Lyalin Lane. Everything was simple there: $500 - and the opera solves all problems. Together with the district police officer, he met these Caucasians right in my cafe, and they immediately tucked their tail between their legs. After that we paid only this opera. On holidays they gave him something else, they brought him boxes of booze when he needed it.
In three years in business, I earned $200,000. So that the money wouldn’t be wasted at home, I started giving it away at 4–6% per month. I gave everything away in six months - the receipts are still there. The time has come to demand it back, but no one returns it, everyone merges. That's how I got started in debt collection. The year was 1994. Of course, I didn’t have any legal entity then - I opened it only in 2005.
When I first started returning what was handed out, I tried to contact the police, but it was of little use, because they demanded money for the work. He suggested: “Guys, as soon as we return at least something, I’ll give you half.” If they didn’t agree, they wanted it right away. Then I had already quit my business and worked as a financial director in a casino for friends. They helped me.
I once told my friends about a debtor: this is the situation, $25,000 has been covered. They gave me a casino crew - five people. I remember two of them were 26–27 years old: strong, polite, cultured, but at the same time you could immediately see from their faces what they were doing. And the other three are just boys: they haven’t served in the army yet, but they are also big-faced. I actually didn’t really want to take them, but they told me: “Let them get used to the blood.”
We came to my debtor on Novaya Basmannaya. The nearest police station from there was 10–15 minutes away, so it was necessary to act quickly. We go into the office, I place the young guys at the elevator and in the corridor. We go into this person’s office and start talking. Maybe everything would have gone fine, but he immediately began to behave very unsightly, asked who we were, and promised to score the shooter. My guys got angry and started beating him.
First, while the man was sitting in a chair, they beat him with his hands, then, when he crawled under the table, they beat him with his feet. I stand looking at this and don’t understand how to behave. Back then, people weren’t beaten very often when I was there. But suddenly he yells from under the table: “Enough, enough, you can get along with me in an amicable way!” We agreed that he would call before 00:00 and we would arrange a meeting. When they left, the two elders told me that there would be no money, they would have to go to the switch, but no, the phone rang exactly at 00:00. I had the money the very next day. I gave half of it to the guys from the casino.
I've mostly used these casino guys since then, even after I stopped working there in the early 2000s. There were different cases. I remember, for example, how one guy borrowed $2800 from me for a Zhiguli model seven. I didn’t give it back for a long time, anger took over me, I went to my guys and asked them to burn this car. Two weeks later they tell me: “That’s it, Slav, the order has been completed.” I was surprised then that there was nothing in the news about the burned car, and then I found out: the guys stole it and sold it for $2000 to some Azerbaijanis. This despite the fact that I also paid them. But the debtor never returned the money to me.
Over time, small businessmen began to turn to me more and more often to help repay their debt. It worked out, to be honest, not always. Often debtors simply did not have money: people invested something somewhere, and then lost everything. In any case, it was necessary to act using harsh methods. One client, who was owed a large sum, tried through the court to seize the debtor’s apartment - he alone lived on 105 square meters. m. The judges refused, and I suggested inviting a security group. After talking with my guys, the boy agreed to sell the apartment. I don’t know how they forced him, but I think they beat him. In conversations with me before, he behaved unceremoniously, saying that I wouldn’t do anything to him.
Sometimes I used third-party crews and once I got into trouble with this. Back in the early 1990s, two women borrowed $25,000 from me, bought flowers with it in Holland and began trading. I then reduced the cost of the truck three times and paid the duty myself. In general, I did everything for them, but they won’t give me the money. At some point they even offered to “pay in kind.” I remember this dialogue well:
You only have it with your wife, right? Let's try it together, the three of us. You'll like it.
- How much do you estimate it?
- Well, $200.
- Okay, girls, $25,000 divided by 200 - how many times will we fuck?
They giggled then, but the problem was never solved. I took a completely foreign team of three people and went to wait for the girls at the entrance. We sat there for three hours, but then they finally came out and the guys scored the pointer. Two brigades from both sides met near the Universitet metro station. From the other side came an uncle with a stick and two more guys: one - tall, thin, in a black shirt, with a criminal face, the second - with a generally broken forehead. Their elder politely asked for a receipt. When I showed it, he suddenly yelled: “Bitches! I give them to you, take them, do with them what you want.”
The girls began to freak out, and my guys rejoiced: “That’s it, we won the shooter, now we’ll take you to the forest - we’ll fuck you there and burn your asses at the stake.” I’m already starting to regret that I got involved, I ask you to somehow manage without all this. Two teams leave in front of me, whisper about something, look at each other, then return: “As you said, so it will be. We'll meet in a week." A week later, one of the debtors calls and says: “Slava, come alone, bring all the receipts, we will give you the money.” Well, I went, but I only took copies with me. It turned out that it was not in vain.
At six in the evening I was in the school yard on Lomonosovsky Prospekt. I remember how careful I was - I left the car far away. I approached, and there was a car right in the yard, with girls and the three from the arrow in it. The bandits immediately begin: “Who are you to make claims? You, cop bitch, what right do you have to go to a showdown? Where are the receipts?
They started looking in my pockets for receipts, slaps in the face rained down from all sides. When they realized that I didn’t have everything with me and only copies, they started yelling, poking me with a knife, and threatening to let my guts out. They were about to put me in the trunk, but it didn’t work out. People saved us: the fence near the school was low, retired grandmothers with a shepherd dog came up. The crew jumped into the car and drove away. $25,000 just flew away. Plus money for the crew. Later I found out that the bandits had conspired among themselves, but I did not deal with them. It is more expensive to get involved with such people.
A lot changed in the 2000s. When legal methods began to work, the first collection agencies began to appear. We began to work according to documents. Previously, no one had thought, for example, about the power of attorney that the person who collects debts should receive.
There was forceful support for some time, but then he changed his mind. I realized that this is no longer necessary - there are plenty of other methods that did not work before. For example, even if there is no promissory note, you need to meet with the debtor and ask him to give at least 1000 rubles. According to the Civil Code, if the debtor has taken active actions in fulfillment of debt obligations, he thereby confirmed that he recognizes the debt. If you record in a receipt that on such and such a date a person gave 1000 rubles to repay the principal debt, consider him caught. From this second the countdown of three years of claim begins. You don't have to hit.
I still keep all the receipts for my old cases. Soviet training is taking its toll - everything is sorted into folders. What if someone asks? There were cases when I spent 10 years looking for debtors. For example, I had this Alik Eltarov. He changed his passport, became Oleg Pavlovich Eltarov - and this is what he ended up with, look (shows a photograph of the grave with the text “We forgive you your debts, Alik. Now yours and your daughter will pay them for you. After all, they are now heirs. That’s what the Civil Code says.” . Do I know who killed him? Of course. His girlfriend, a lady from Ukraine, poisoned him. He probably still owed a lot.
I'm already going crazy... Thoughts about crime appear...! Because I don’t want to give up and I don’t know what to do... I’ve been tormenting myself, my family and friends for almost three years now. I tried to do business, but I didn’t make a “good” businessman. I found myself in such a hole that it’s hard to imagine. He lost money to both the state and the “bandits” for a huge amount. I reborrowed under loan agreements and receipts from friends and acquaintances, promising and hoping to return something, accumulated loans, the whole family is on loans... but the debts never decrease... And there is no hope. I borrow to pay off the debts for three years .The total amount of debt is about 30 million rubles. I don’t know what to do and what to do next, because I’m setting up my closest and dearest. I’m ashamed, ashamed in front of my friends, ashamed in front of my whole family for not being able to do anything. My hands have long since given up, but my thoughts still won’t let me calm down, I still hope to somehow get out of it, I don’t know how...
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Alexey, age: 35 / 06/28/2016
Responses:
First, after three years it’s time to calm down and think soberly for at least 15 minutes and understand that business is not yours. Therefore, you need to look for a way out elsewhere. My favorite saying is 《there is no way out except from the coffin》. In my unfortunate 25 years, I had colossal debts to banks and relatives. It dawned on me in time that business was not my thing, so I went to work 《for my uncle》, worked 2, sometimes 3 jobs... it was hard mentally and physically.. but after 2 years I had less than 20 percent of the debts left, which were. I worked both abroad and locally... don’t give up and get out of the hole, because when you’re at the bottom, you know for sure that you need to move up
Margot, age: 27/06/28/2016
Hello Alexey. I understand your despair; in such a state, different thoughts can really come to mind. However, it is definitely worth thinking about possible solutions to problems. It is known that recently in our country it has become possible to declare bankruptcy of individuals. Find out about the nuances of this procedure, it is quite possible that it will help you. If you can't handle it yourself, contact a lawyer. It is also important how you behave with creditors. The main thing is to be in touch with them, not to hide from them. There is absolutely no need for them to try to get their money back in court or turn to collectors. You acknowledge your debts to them, this is very important to them. Also determine for yourself which debts are most urgent for you. That is, those for which you delay payments as much as possible. When you have the opportunity to pay off something, pay them first. Each debt has its own repayment period and this can also help you. But of course, think about how you can still make money. Even if you have a job, consider a part-time job. Approach this creatively, remember what you can do well, what skills you have. I know people who go to work for the sake of registration and savings. And they receive income almost thanks to their hobbies and hobbies. Also think about how you can generate income from your property. It is very good if there is some kind of real estate that can be rented out. Moreover, this can be not only an apartment, but also a plot of land and even a garage. It will also be good if your family members help you and do what depends on them. It is really difficult to deal with such problems alone. The main thing, Alexey, is not to be ashamed or afraid of anyone. Remember that your family and friends are more precious than your life. You will be gone, but the debts will remain. It will be very difficult to pay them off without you. Try not to think about the fatal mistake. Good luck and strength to you.
Arina, age: 50 / 06/29/2016
What if you work on shift in the North and repay debt only to bandits? And deal with official institutions officially - what is there - court, bankruptcy, etc., at least they won’t kill you)))) In six months in the North you can bring a large amount))))
Madam, age: 54 / 06/29/2016
Hello! Alexey, you have been given a lot of useful advice, listen and choose life. It is clear that there are a lot of debts, but they are not worth killing.
Irina, age: 28 / 29.06.2016
