(Original title: Behind the frequent collection of credit card users of China Construction Bank by third-party companies)
Beijing, May 16, CCTV News (Reporter Li Hongpeng) Recently, Du Peng, a citizen of Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, reported to CCTV that at the end of last year, Because of the capital turnover, he borrowed more than 9000 yuan from the credit card of China Construction Bank. Because he could not repay on time, someone kept calling to collect 。 Sometimes, the other party calls three or four times a day, not only to him, but also to his parents. When he borrowed money at that time, he did not leave his parents' contact information, and did not know where the other party obtained the telephone number.
Men are frequently called for collection due to overdue credit cards of CCB. The picture shows the logo of CCB
Du Peng said that when he borrowed money from the bank, he could just tell himself that he was not going to pay back the money, but was temporarily short of cash.
“ Although the other side didn't say any harsh words, my parents are old, and this kind of incessant telephone harassment has seriously affected the normal family life 。” He said that he could only complain to a platform because he could not stand harassing calls.
On March 28 this year, CCB released its 2023 performance report. The financial report shows that by the end of 2023, CCB had issued 132 million credit cards, 105 million credit card customers and 997.133 billion yuan of credit card loans.
The financial report also shows that in 2023, more than 135000 consumer complaints will be accepted, a decrease of 39.65% over the previous year. The complaint occurrence rate (complaints per million customers) is 179, and the average number of complaints per point is 9.6. Complaints mainly involve loans, debit cards, credit cards, etc.
The reporter searched the keyword of "CCB collection" on a complaint platform, and retrieved more than 500 related complaints, including violent collection, third-party collection and harassment of family members 。
Recently, a reporter from China Central Broadcasting Network found that the call collection business of the credit card center of China Construction Bank for overdue credit cards and the collection business of some overdue arrears of credit cards of local branches of China Construction Bank were outsourced to collection companies.
In fact, on April 18 this year, the Administrative Measures for Consumer Finance Companies clearly stated that "consumer finance companies should establish a management system for overdue loan collection"“ Do not use violence, threat, intimidation, harassment and other improper means to collect, and do not collect from a third person unrelated to the debt ”To comprehensively regulate the collection behavior of consumer finance companies and their cooperative institutions.
Borrower: Violent collection beyond its interference
Like Du Peng, Mr. Chen also applied for a CCB credit card a few years ago and borrowed about 6000 yuan. Due to the epidemic, he has not been able to repay in time, and now needs to repay more than 10000 yuan. During this period, CCB entrusted a third-party collector to collect money from his family. “ They can make more than ten calls a day, which is a serious harassment 。” Mr. Li said that during the overdue period, he tried to negotiate with the local credit card center and the official customer service personnel, but so far he failed to solve the problem.
On May 11, Chen Long, a person in charge of a collection company that has cooperation with CCB in collection business, disclosed that, If the repayment is overdue for more than 90 days, the collection business is basically entrusted to the collection company, and the staff of the collection company communicates and negotiates with the debtor If some debtors really encounter difficulties, they need to submit relevant evidence and then urge the collection company to submit these evidence materials to the bank for approval. After the approval is completed, certain deductions or installments can be made for the overdue fine or interest of some people who really have special difficulties.
In his opinion, The reason for the existence of violent collection is that the collection service rate obtained is relatively high 。 The more money collected by the company, the more income and the greater temptation. However, the rate given by several major state-owned banks to the collection companies is not high. If you try to force collection again, you will touch the red line of the law.
“ At present, the rate points given by several state-owned banks to the collection companies are basically 1%~24%, that is, the collection companies help the banks to collect 100 yuan, and the collection companies can get 1 yuan to 24 yuan 。” Chen Long said that the telephone communication between the collection company and the debtor should be recorded. If the bank or the relevant regulatory authority receives a complaint of violent collection, the bank will impose a fine on the entrusted collection company. If the number of complaints is large, or the nature of violent collection is serious and the impact is bad, the bank may terminate its cooperation with the collection company.
“ Relatively speaking, some collection companies of micro loans or Internet finance may not have standardized management. Of course, their collection rate may be as high as 40% 。” Chen Long said.
In fact, in 2022, the CBRC and the People's Bank of China issued the Notice on Further Promoting the Standardized and Healthy Development of Credit Card Business, pointing out that at present, consumer complaints in the credit card field are mainly concentrated in the aspects of poor marketing publicity, complaints, improper collection of customer information, improper collection, etc. Focusing on the prominent problems reflected in consumer complaints, the Notice made targeted regulations, requiring banking financial institutions to strictly express the legal risks and legal responsibilities involved in credit cards, and not to conduct fraud and false propaganda; We must strictly implement customer data security management and collect customer information through our own channels. The collection behavior must be strictly standardized, and no third party unrelated to the debt shall be collected.
In Chen Long's opinion, overdue payment is different. The bank will give the company a corresponding strategy and condition, and then the company will urge payment according to the corresponding conditions and strategy. For example, if M4 (91-120 days overdue) is more than M4, the bank requires the staff of the company to call home. However, it is very civilized to come to the door now. It is basically a knock on the door. If you see the debtor himself, you will explain your intention to him. If you do not see the debtor himself, you will not tell others about the debtor's debt information, but you will ask them to pass on some information to the debtor.
“ Usually, after two or three phone calls with the debtor himself, he still cannot contact the party concerned. At this time, he will contact a third person. The third person includes the emergency contact person left when handling the credit card, or the work unit left when calling to handle the card 。 However, although the third party (person) is contacted, it will not collect the arrears from the third party (person), but let them tell the party to call back. " Chen Long said.
Uncover: outsourced collection company
On May 13, the reporter logged in to China Construction Bank/Longji Procurement Center to search for "collection", and retrieved more than 500 pieces of relevant information, most of which were bidding or bid winning announcements for loans or credit card collection from local branches of China Construction Bank.
On April 23 this year, Yunnan Branch has completed the procurement work of collection of overdue credit card arrears in 2024 (short-term renewal), and CBC (Beijing) Credit Management Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Haochuan Management Service Co., Ltd. were selected.
China Construction Bank/Longji Procurement Center searched for "collection" and retrieved more than 500 pieces of relevant content information (screenshots of CCB's website were posted on CGN)
On April 15, China Construction Bank Xiamen Branch announced“ 2024-2026 Credit card and personal loan arrears outsourcing procurement bid winning candidates ”The winning candidates include Xiamen Yinxinda Management Consulting Co., Ltd., CBC (Beijing) Credit Management Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Wancheng United Investment Co., Ltd.
On July 3, 2023, the Credit Card Center of China Construction Bank issued the Bidding Announcement for Outsourcing Service Procurement Project of Credit Card Overdue 60-90 Days Account Call Collection, which shows that the Tenderee (CCB) provides the list of target customers for overdue M3 stage (60-90 days overdue) account call collection, and the Tenderer provides the site, physical station, collection agent The outbound call operation system and the outbound call number recognized by the Tenderee shall carry out centralized outbound call collection on the list according to the Tenderee's requirements.
On August 28, the Credit Card Center of China Construction Bank issued the Announcement of Successful Candidates for the Outsourcing Service Procurement Project of Credit Card Overdue 60-90 Days Account Call Collection, which showed that a total of three companies were shortlisted for the bid, namely Shenzhen Wancheng United Investment Co., Ltd., Huadao Data Processing (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., and Shenzhen Shenjuyuan Credit Consulting Co., Ltd.
In terms of service rate, in January 2023, China Construction Bank Guangxi Branch also disclosed the service rate of the credit card non-performing asset outsourcing collection project. This time, the suppliers' quotations are all ladder shaped. Among them, the implementation rate of the winning bidder, Wancheng United, is: 5% within 90 days, 6.67% for 91-180 days, 8.67% for 181-270 days, 10.76% for 271-360 days, 16% for 361-720 days, and 18.33% for 721 days or more.
Chen Long said that financial institutions would classify the situation of overdue users, and the main principle of classification is to classify by overdue time. For example, M1 is within 30 days overdue, M2 is 31-60 days overdue, M3 is 61-90 days overdue, M4 is 91-120 days overdue, M5 is 121-150 days overdue, M6 is 151-180 days overdue, and M7 is more than 181 days overdue.
He said, Generally, M3 or above collection business is almost outsourced, which is legal and compliant 。
"Whether it's credit card or loan collection, it's one of the banking jobs. Why do banks outsource collection?" Chen Long said, If all the collection work goes through the judicial process, in a sense, it is a waste of judicial resources. In addition, for some small debts, banks are too lazy to take legal approaches. Most importantly, banks do not have so much manpower and energy to collect.
Survey: Personal information of low price hawking
"Violent collection has nothing to do with us, it's after the loan." A staff member who claimed to be the loan assistance center of the bank said that they promoted loan business to many banks, helped users to match related services, and then charged service fees from them. For example, the customer loans 1 million yuan from China Construction Bank, and the company charges 20000 to 30000 service fees.
"We don't have the contact information of the loan staff, but we will make blind calls to customers according to the suffix of the phone number," said the above staff.
However, in a QQ group called "Internet Bar Data Exchange", One member of the group actively added a reporter and said that he had more than 10000 pieces of user information from multiple banks, and the price of each piece of personal information was 0.3 yuan. If the amount was small, the price of one piece of personal information was 0.5 yuan 。
Seeing the reporter hesitating, the other party sent an Excel form, which included the user information of various commercial banks. To prove the authenticity of the data, the seller sent 10 pieces of CCB user information to reporters, including name, mobile phone number, ID card number and CCB card account number. "The authenticity of the data is more than 95%. If the personal information is wrong, I can fill in the number." The seller said that these materials (data) are not only available to them, but also to other people. Whoever contacts early will have first-hand resources.
The seller mentioned above said that in order to ensure the authenticity of the data, he never changed hands with the data. When the reporter asked: "Are these data from inside?" The seller replied "Yes" 。
"We don't trade on QQ, but we check it strictly." The seller said that buyers can trade through digital currency or other social software to avoid security risks.
According to the mobile phone number in the user information of China Construction Bank provided by the seller, the reporter dialed 10 people, 6 people refused to answer the phone or hung up after hearing their intentions, and the other 4 people's names, China Construction Bank card numbers, credit card numbers and ID card numbers were all correct.
Xu Hao, a lawyer from Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, said that according to the Notice of the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security on Punishing Criminal Activities that Infringe Citizens' Personal Information in accordance with Law (April 23, 2013), citizens' personal information includes citizens' names, ages, valid certificate numbers, marital status, work units, education background, resume, home address Telephone numbers and other information and data that can identify citizens or involve citizens' privacy.
According to the provisions of Article 253-1 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, anyone who, in violation of the relevant provisions of the State, sells or provides citizens' personal information to others, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined; If the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined 。
In June 2020, a judgment document published on the China Judgment Document Network showed that three bank employees, namely, the customer manager of Guangzhou Huadu Chouzhou Rural Bank, the customer manager of CCB Guangzhou Nansha Zhujiang Street Sub branch, and the salesperson of the Housing and Consumer Credit Department of CCB Guangzhou Nansha Zhujiang Street Sub branch, collected remuneration by consulting and selling 752 credit records of customers through cooperation, He was eventually sentenced to a term of imprisonment ranging from 11 to 16 months.
A staff member of a branch of China Construction Bank was sentenced for the crime of infringing on citizens' personal information (screenshot of China Judgment Document Website posted on CNG)
In May 2020, the police in Jiangyin, Jiangsu, cracked a huge case of trafficking in citizens' personal information, which involved nine provinces. The Ministry of Public Security listed this case as a special case of ministry supervision. Huaiyin Branch arrested 26 suspects, detained more than 60 mobile phones involved in the case, involved more than 21 million yuan, recovered more than 4 million yuan of illegal income, and destroyed six black industrial chains that leaked and sold citizens' personal information. A total of 26 suspects were arrested. Among them, CCB employees played an important role in the black chain, selling the identity information, phone number, balance and even transaction records of relevant bank card users to their families for profit. The employee of China Construction Bank said that according to the "cooperation" agreement reached between the two parties, he could earn 80 to 100 yuan for each query of bank card related information. With this black income alone, the annual income of CCB employees will exceed 300000 yuan.
In August 2021, the Guangdong Provincial Procuratorate announced a number of typical cases of public interest litigation for personal information protection. Among them, Wang, a customer manager of China Construction Bank Zhanjiang Branch, was sentenced for illegally selling customer information. From 2017 to 2018, Wang illegally sold 31465 pieces of customer account information, making a profit of 36724 yuan. The information content includes citizen's name, ID card number, telephone number, bank card account number, etc. The above information is used by the relevant loan company to make calls and promote loan business. In the first instance, the court sentenced Wang to eight months' imprisonment with one year's probation and a fine of 10000 yuan.
Experts: Improve the quality of credit card use by cardholders from the source
The reporter noticed that in the past two years, the regulatory authorities and relevant organizations issued many documents, pointing to the chaos of violent collection in the field of consumer finance, and tightening the "fence" of the credit collection system.
On May 19, 2022, the CBRC issued the Administrative Measures for the Protection of Consumers' Rights and Interests in Bancassurance Institutions (Draft for Comments), which clearly requires that, Before collection, the bancassurance institution shall remind the debtor in an appropriate way and urge the debtor to fulfill the debt repayment responsibility 。 Prudently implement the collection outsourcing business, and urge the outsourced collection institutions to comply with the requirements of collection from the aspects of access, assessment, quality inspection, supervision, accountability, etc.
On April 17 this year, the second meeting of the second board of the China Internet Finance Association deliberated and adopted the Guidelines for Post loan Collection of Internet Finance (hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines for Collection) and other self-discipline normative documents. Among them, the Collection Guidelines are applicable to consumer finance companies, and define the collection work specifications in six aspects, including personal information security and complaint handling.
Guidelines for Post loan Collection of Internet Finance issued by China Internet Finance Association
In addition, the Guidelines on Credit Card Collection (for Trial Implementation) issued by the China Banking Association clearly pointed out that, Without the consent of the debtor, the collection personnel are strictly prohibited to make telephone calls and external visits from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., and the frequency of calls should be controlled within a reasonable and necessary range 。
Guo Tianyong, professor of the School of Finance of the Central University of Finance and Economics and director of the China Banking Research Center, said in an interview that for all kinds of complaints about credit cards, commercial banks relied on the expansion of the number of credit cards issued a few years ago to increase profits, and paid insufficient attention to business innovation, which led to the lack of distinctive brand characteristics of some credit cards. They only relied on extensive marketing to increase the number of credit cards issued, This has led to problems such as low live card rate of credit cards and low user loyalty, which has also led to various problems.
Guo Tianyong expressed that, Overdue collection by credit card is a problem that many banks are very concerned about credit card overdraft debt. It is necessary to establish a credit card supervision system as soon as possible, and the credit records of major banks should be online 。 As early as 2004, the national commercial banks basically realized personal credit networking, but the network among the major banks was not effectively integrated and connected. If the information systems of major banks can be networked, once a serious overdraft occurs in a bank, other banks can cancel their credit or reduce their overdraft line, so as to avoid malicious overdraft.
“ Let credit cards really become a tool for consumer borrowing and lending, and let credit card swiping really be used to expand consumption, rather than malicious cash out or deliberate failure to repay 。” Guo Tianyong said that it is necessary to improve the use quality of credit cards by cardholders from the source through strict legal systems, raise the threshold for card handling, prevent malicious cash out overdrafts in the transaction link, and use judicial means to timely recover debts.
Guo Tianyong said that the improvement of the system is the top priority to control the bad debt rate of credit cards. Card issuers should strengthen the awareness of risk prevention while vigorously expanding credit card business, that is, Before card issuance, the applicant's conditions should be strictly reviewed, the applicant's credit level should be objectively assessed, the limit should be strictly approved, and risk control should be emphasized at the source of card issuance ， It is necessary to improve the quality of cardholders' use of credit cards from the source through strict legal systems To raise the threshold of card handling, prevent malicious cash out overdrafts in the transaction link, use judicial and administrative means to timely recover debts, clarify in the agreement with the special merchant that the special merchant shall not assist the cardholder to cash out, and strengthen its responsibility for breach of contract to restrict the behavior of the special merchant.
(Du Peng and Chen Long are pseudonyms)
