Couple hangs themselves to escape Covid-19 debt

[Smithydog]

8 hours ago, Thaiger said:

A couple who were said to be deeply in debt due to Covid-19 in Mueang Chon Buri were found hanging in their home, apparently by suicide. Neighbours say the man and woman were both food

Sadly, this is another tragic story amongst 18 months of ravage caused by the pandemic. With the Asian emphasis on"face", it is possible they only saw one way out from the debt position, by offering their deaths to save face.

May they live on respectfully in the memories of their family and friends. 

I can only hope the alleged loan sharks, now see their debts as settled and don't chase the families further for payment. To chase the debt would just double the pain for their loved ones.

[PatrickSatoLee]

"The neighbour even shared the harrowing detail that the loan sharks pressuring them to make payments suggested they kill themselves if they couldn’t pay."

 

The danger of getting involved with loansharks . . . R.I.P.

[Objectivance]

This just shows that the lockdowns are working. 

[HolyCowCm]

6 hours ago, EdwardV said:

The government isn’t doing nearly enough to support the informal sector.

How about they aren't doing anything except contributing more weight and damage to a  sinking ship broken in half. They really don't care about commoners or anyone not elite or without some recognizable Order Award given them.

[HolyCowCm]

4 hours ago, stuhan said:

Very sad, unfortunate but that's the dark side of thailand thats rife especially in the rural areas . I live in a small village in the northern provinces and i see the misery and worries the people endure from loan sharks but they just don't have any choice . I have banned my thai family from using loan sharks and told them i will stop supporting them and leave if they do.loan sharks are very dangerous nasty individuals .

Easy to spot as well. They usually ride double on a larger faster motorcycle and you can see a small briefcase being held by the pillion rider.

[HolyCowCm]

I am always amazed that people with any bit of intelligence turn to a Thai loan shark. I would rather sell a kidney or be a sex toy to some 90 70 year old woman.

[HuaHinHappy]

Poverty in Thailand isn't solely an issue of "choices" or lifestyle selection.  The poor are kept poor through the denial of equal and fair opportunity. They don't have access to quality education, nor enhanced workplace opportunities as we see in the western economies. Keeping a large part of the population poor ensures cheap labour for the  factories, fields, and the service sector.

I hope the loan sharks  take a loss on this and may the ghosts of the deceased haunt them.

[longwood50]

These are the deaths and subfreezing that the government is ignoring when it imposes rules to stop the spread of Covid.  If you go out, you have a possibility of catching covid, if you catch covid you have a chance of becoming very sick or even die.  However if your way of livelihood is severely curtailed or eliminated because of Covid you have a 100% certainty of being destitute. 

[gummy]

36 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

I am always amazed that people with any bit of intelligence turn to a Thai loan shark. I would rather sell a kidney or be a sex toy to some 90 70 year old woman.

Err please name one person 70 years or older prepared to have you as a sex toy otherwise we will think you were just wishing 

[Faz]

45 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

I am always amazed that people with any bit of intelligence turn to a Thai loan shark. I would rather sell a kidney or be a sex toy to some 90 70 year old woman.

Necessity, desperation, as a last resort when there is nowhere else to turn.

[vlad]

4 hours ago, PapayaBokBok said:

Curious--So whats the solution to this problem?   I can think of many before I would approach a "shark"

So goes the saying swim with sharks and you are likely to get bitten....

The Solution ? this isn't the Western World where you will never go Hungry if you don't make money you rel'y on handouts for a bag of rice or you starve. Maybe the Thai Government should be helping out people like these two, who would at least not need to go to loan sharks. They would rather Cow-Tow to the Chinese and spend billions on Submarines that are not needed, and a few Tanks that i suspect will be needed when the locals hit the Streets. A double whammy the Chinese causing Thailand pain and misery, and then selling Tanks to suppress them. All under the watch of the PM.

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, gummy said:

Err please name one person 70 years or older prepared to have you as a sex toy otherwise we will think you were just wishing 

Errr, ummm, actually-... Hey, I still have a full head of hair and not greying out, just below 60 by a couple of years and in pretty good shape and looks losing my small Covid -19 stomach as back to running and exercising hard. Not the worst catch, but not quite long tongued like Gene Simmons, but hold my own if necessary. The things I would do to support my family. Ughh. .

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, Faz said:

Necessity, desperation, as a last resort when there is nowhere else to turn.

Kidding all aside, for a loan shark loan that is just not an option even if you think could pay it back as usually is a trap door one way trip.. 

[Faz]

38 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Kidding all aside, for a loan shark loan that is just not an option even if you think could pay it back as usually is a trap door one way trip.. 

This is Thailand, there are few options when you lose your source of income.

The couple mentioned above probably borrowed off a loan shark in the first instance to purchase their food cart as a business investment. If they had any alternative, they wouldn't have gone to a loan shark.

[HolyCowCm]

33 minutes ago, Faz said:

This is Thailand, there are few options when you lose your source of income.

The couple mentioned above probably borrowed off a loan shark in the first instance to purchase their food cart as a business investment. If they had any alternative, they wouldn't have gone to a loan shark.

 

Quote: The neighbour shared information about the couple’s situation to the police, saying that Covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns had devastated their food cart businesses, and customers were few and far between.

 

Quote: The couple couldn’t make money and fell deeper and deeper in debt, and turned to loan sharks to pay bills.

Quote: The neighbour even shared the harrowing detail that the loan sharks pressuring them to make payments suggested they kill themselves if they couldn’t pay.

As it reads they already had the cart business. Could possibly be the sharks killed them to let word get out as a show. I've seen these sort of guys around in all parts of Thailand for near 30 yrs. Well known who they are when they pull into an area. In CM it is well know in the gossip that an old late 60-ish ++ Thai woman who rides an electric 3 wheeled scooter is a loan shark. You see here tooling around specific areas on the collection. I would hope she isn't the guido gal that sends strong armed thugs who don't pay her after, but you never know. One thing is though, she has a mouth on her.

 

 

[JohninDublin]

7 hours ago, PapayaBokBok said:

So why were they unable to do so?  We are all human and born the same. Im not trying to be cruel, but this seems to be a pattern. Do they think loan sharks are good? Do they not hear about others who take this route?. Is being a vendor enough?...we all wake up and make choices that guide us. I would never use a loan shark, have they no family, no other options, education, learn a new skill? they choose the easy way out, as dying is easy and they had a debt, they did not honor.. living is the hard part, no to mention they now have on their families as im sure they left behind some sort, siblings, parents, grandparents, kids?...Are they now responsible for this debt as I dont see loan sharks just saying no worries-mai pen rai..hence the "sharks" part.  Signed a single poor man who left his home country, alone, in 2008 leaving behind everything due to the fact I cant afford basic human needs there such as affordable housing-healthcare and healthy food options.

I've never really been a fan of the attitude of "If I can do it why can't they". I used to hear it a lot from my sister, who in all fairness, has done pretty well for herself. 

I got fed up with hearing this. I have an aptitude for mental arithmetic. When I heard her make the comment once too often for my liking, I asked her what 73X47 equalled and she wasn't allowed to use a calculator. She didn't have a clue. I then said to her, "Well if I can do it, why can't you"? That introduced a bit of humility into the convo. 

My point being that there are a many reasons why some cannot emulate others, and that does not necessarily give us a right to look down upon them. 

Taking an extreme analogy to look at this case, a woman might have all the perfect attributes to sell her body, but if her clientele have no money, she is still going to starve. Here we have a couple who have probably worked all their lives just to survive, and though there might have still  have skills, they had no clientele to pay for them. They went to the only source that could give them the necessary cash to survive. When this failed, they were left facing possible unending persecution from this source.

It's a tragic story, but I doubt if I would ever be able to walk a mile in their shoes.

[JohninDublin]

7 hours ago, PapayaBokBok said:

We, as humans wake everyday and make choices..being the key word.....i try to make good ones, not bad

We are all born equal, and each have brains, and freewill....Im gonna play devils advocate on this one...

Death is the final choice, and a selfish one

A girl I met in KK once said to me, "People will never begin to understand Thailand, until they understand that we do what we do, not because we want to, but because we have to".

Imagine waking up in the morning and your options are kill yourself, starve, or be persecuted for the rest of your miserable life by a loan shark?

[JohninDublin]

7 hours ago, PapayaBokBok said:

and yet you assume to know it per your comment towards mine..they seemed well enough to be vendors, and understand lack of customers during covid....what if they had a regular customers and went to them and explained the situation? can they not grow food in rural area? eggs-chickens-rice-veg? Ive seen thais or burmese living in tin shacks with mud floors..they had a rental home, etc......sell one the carts to survive?

move out of the "house" to stg smaller?...find something the public needs and fill that during covid?....

It seems to me that you are making the assumption that they were capable of doing all this. Here's a question for you, you have no money for food today and no prospect of being able to raise some for the foreseeable future. How long before your rice crop comes in? Where do you get the money to rent the necessary land and buy seed? Where do you get the money to buy and feed the chickens? What are the chances you are  not already living in the most humble and modest of hovels?

[AussieBob]

Loan sharks are endemic in Thailand and they pay the right people to do their business - and it aint the Loan Officer Licence Department.

My first understanding of them was long ago when my wife's sister had opened a new shop.  We visited and while walking in I saw an envelope with a few thousand baht in it sitting outside the door.  I picked it up thinking she dropped it, but she very excitedly made me immediately put it back exactly where it was.  The wife explained that the local mafia loan sharks left it (without asking) - leave it there and they will leave you alone and take the envelope away. Unbelievable - I could not believe it - but that is Thailand. 

[vlad]

In one John. Some on here have never been in that position where you don't know where your next meal is coming from, and there's no social security when time's are hard. I can remember a time i was sat at a bar on Soi Bangla in Phuket just watching the World go by, beer on my Table pack of fags and a Samsung phone next to me. i look close there's an old woman going through the bins collecting plastic Bottles that she put into her big waste bag. Or another time i was riding behind the Jomtien Centre on a dirt track behind it. I rode past a gang of Thais smashing chunks of concrete that was demolished behind jomtien with sledge hammers, i found out they were extracting the reed bars used in the reinforcing of the concrete, to weigh in for scrap. Yet a hundred yards away there was a few billion baht's worth of shopping Mall. Make's you realize how well off you are.

[Soidog]

I spend about 9 months of the year on average living in Thailand. I have a nice house which is not in a rural area and several Km away from the nearest typical Thai village. Personally I would struggle to live in a Thai village due to the level of poverty on display. I think it is easy, and sometimes correct, that many could help themselves far better than they do. However, for many, it’s a daily grind and worry about where the next few hundred baht will come from. I grew up in a relatively poor environment and it taught me the value of money and I’ve made a reasonable success of life. However, that was partly due to a quality free education system. To attend university at a time when it was still essentially free. I also got unemployment benefit when I couldn’t work after leaving school and I was surrounded by plenty of people to help me out financially when I needed it. I can’t imagine the continual pressure of making ends meet and also knowing that if I have nothing I can’t put my hand out to the state and it will help. I know that exits in many places across the world and for those of us lucky enough (it is lucky) to have been born in a developed country, it is hard to fully appreciate what life is like for many. I also believe It’s one reason why many Thais place money so high on their agenda. 
 

Whatever the reason these people took their life it is sad. It doesn’t matter if it was down to their own stupidity, mental health or even selfishness. Two life’s are lost because of money. I only hope the people who pressured them and pushed them in that direction feel some remorse. I doubt that will happen. 

[Soidog]

9 hours ago, colinneil said:

What a sad/ tragic story, they must have been at their wits end, worrying about the debts, not knowing any other way out.

Not only covid but things like this go on everyday here, loan shark heavies going around on BIG bikes, threatening people.

The rural poor borrow from sharks at crazy interest rates, then are unable to repay, and sadly some see death as their only escape.

Yes thats absolutely correct. I know many Thais who take out loans and will happily take a loan of 5,000 baht and pay 1,000 a month interest for years and years. They only ever calculate what the interest is and never pay the material loan. I’d also add, 20% a month in my example is a cheap loan for some! 

[JohninDublin]

10 minutes ago, vlad said:

In one John. Some on here have never been in that position where you don't know where your next meal is coming from, and there's no social security when time's are hard. I can remember a time i was sat at a bar on Soi Bangla in Phuket just watching the World go by, beer on my Table pack of fags and a Samsung phone next to me. i look close there's an old woman going through the bins collecting plastic Bottles that she put into her big waste bag. Or another time i was riding behind the Jomtien Centre on a dirt track behind it. I rode past a gang of Thais smashing chunks of concrete that was demolished behind jomtien with sledge hammers, i found out they were extracting the reed bars used in the reinforcing of the concrete, to weigh in for scrap. Yet a hundred yards away there was a few billion baht's worth of shopping Mall. Make's you realize how well off you are.

Slight change of venue, but I was in Phnom Penh once saw couple of locals collecting plastic bottles. Suddenly, they started taking lumps out of each other in a dispute over the ownership of a bottle. When you see things like that, you realise just how marginal existences are throughout most of the region.

[Rasputin]

9 hours ago, stuhan said:

 I live in a small village in the northern provinces and i see the misery and worries the people endure from loan sharks but they just don't have any choice . Loan sharks are very dangerous nasty individuals .

I totally support your view regarding the loan shark parasites that prey on poor people, but don't these people realise YOU CAN'T BORROW YOUR WAY OUT OF DEBT, It just increases as the outrageous rates of interest, get loaded on to the outstanding debt. Never borrow money to buy anything you don't really need and, can't afford, 'Face' seems to be the reason behind much of this foolish borrowing, sad but true.

[JohninDublin]

17 minutes ago, Rasputin said:

I totally support your view regarding the loan shark parasites that prey on poor people, but don't these people realise YOU CAN'T BORROW YOUR WAY OUT OF DEBT, It just increases as the outrageous rates of interest, get loaded on to the outstanding debt. Never borrow money to buy anything you don't really need and, can't afford, 'Face' seems to be the reason behind much of this foolish borrowing, sad but true.

I worry that I see so many posts implying that these people had other options.