Debt collection company broke law with its actions: Judge

Judge Gan said video recordings showed three breaches during this visit.

The neighbourhood was “quiet and relatively peaceful”, he said. Against that background, the debt collector’s hitting of the railing and loud demands for payment amounted to threatening behaviour.

The phrase “talk cock CEO” was plainly abusive or insulting, while the threats to visit the husband’s office were also threatening, the judge found.

“Any reasonable person, in my judgment, would be alarmed or distressed by these actions,” he said.

The company argued that its conduct was reasonable because the woman had refused to communicate with it, its employees were responding to her shouting, and they had to raise their voices because she was initially inside the house.

Judge Gan rejected these arguments.

The woman had already responded to the company’s letter of demand in writing, he noted.

There was also no need for the employees to shout because the home’s intercom was working, and they could have communicated through it.

The judge said the company’s response suggested it was not prepared to accept written correspondence as a proper way of engaging with the couple. Its employee had told the woman that it was “not up to (her) to decide how to correspond”.

Two days after the first home visit, employees went to the husband’s office on Dec 5 and left another red notice with office staff.

Neither the husband nor the woman was there.

Although the visit itself was peaceful, Judge Gan found that it breached POHA because it was an implied threat to embarrass the husband over a private debt.

The debt concerned renovation works and had nothing to do with the husband’s job.

“There was thus no reason for the respondent’s employees to visit (his) office, thereby informing (his) staff of (his) private matter,” the judge said.

He found that the office visit was deliberately designed to exert pressure on the husband by embarrassing him in front of his staff.

The debt collectors returned to the couple’s home on Dec 11.

One shouted for the couple to “come out and talk”, accused the husband of cheating the contractors and said that, as a CEO, he earned money by “cheating a lot of customers”.

Another told the couple: “Your children on top watching, not very nice leh.”

The woman again called the police and remained inside.

The couple’s two young children were watching from the second storey of their home.

The debt collectors also mocked the couple. One was heard singing at the start of a video taken by the debt collectors, while another imitated a police call, saying: “Hello police ya, this is [redacted], renovate the house and don’t want to pay.”

The judge found that the way one of them had gestured towards one of the children was threatening under the circumstances.

He added that the debt collectors’ words and actions were designed to “shame the claimant and (her husband) into paying the alleged debt”.

The debt collection company’s employees returned to the husband’s office a second time on Dec 19 and again handed the staff a red notice.

The judge found that this second office visit was also an implied threat to embarrass and pressure the couple, and was not reasonable because the debt was a private matter unrelated to the husband’s work.

Putting up ‘red notice’ not unlawful

The judge did not find sufficient evidence that the company had breached POHA during three other visits to the couple’s home on Dec 19 and 24, 2024, and Jan 8, 2025.

The couple were not home during those visits, and there was no direct evidence from witnesses or video recordings showing what happened. He also said that merely putting up a red notice about an outstanding debt was not, by itself, unlawful.

Nevertheless, Judge Gan said further breaches were likely because the alleged debt remained outstanding and the debt collectors had repeatedly visited the couple’s home and the husband’s office.

He therefore granted a protection order prohibiting the company and its representatives from using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to the woman or her family.

It also specifically prohibits them from visiting the husband’s workplace to collect the alleged debt.

Judge Gan stressed that the order was not intended to prevent lawful debt collection.

“There was nothing inherently wrong with debt collection,” he said, reminding licensed debt collectors to take heed of the legal boundaries under POHA and other applicable laws.

“Those who fail to do so run the risk of having to defend against applications for protection orders and bearing the attendant costs of court proceedings,” he added.