Singaporean debt collectors have always reminded me of those wonderful folks who dress up as Star Wars characters to visit children’s hospitals. They look tough and menacing, but they can’t actually hurt anyone, can they?
There’s about as much chance of these people attacking staff at a Lao Huo Tang eatery as there is of a fake Chewbacca whacking a kid with an annoying cough at a polyclinic.
Our licenced debt collectors are really the Kardashians in black polo shirts: dressed to kill, but otherwise harmless (although both tend to show up when there is major credit card spending involved.)
Can I interest you in this undersized polo shirt?
They made the news over Chinese New Year for turning up at several Lao Huo Tang Group-owned eateries across Singapore (the debt collectors, not the Kardashians. Former actor Edmund Chen is featured on the Lao Huo Tang Group website as an ambassador, but there’s no record of him performing with the Kardashians. He certainly won’t be driving them anywhere.)
The restaurant chain either owes serious money, or they offer lunchtime specials for burly men who wear black polo shirts that are two sizes too small for them.
In widely circulated photographs, a couple of employees from A.S.K Debt Recovery can be seen leaning over a restaurant counter. They look rather physical and intimidating, when of course, they can be neither physical nor intimidating. It’s like watching Tottenham Hotspur play.
The Debt Collection Act, which was introduced in 2022, makes it very clear that such folks must comply with other written laws, such as the Penal Code and the Protection from Harassment Act – meaning no threats and no violence. They can’t even send threatening messages, which automatically rules out my wife getting a job with them.
Debt collectors are basically me when I was 18 and heading to nightclubs for the first time. We’d dress the part, muffle a few words, but come away empty-handed.
A (very) short play about debt collectors
How did they even engage with nonplussed staff at the Lao Huo Tang eateries? Just imagine the dialogue:
“Hello, have you come for our black polo lunchtime special?”
“No. Your boss owes us money.”
“OK … You wanna eat or not?”
