Dubai resident Tracey Cummins recently discovered that her Filipina nanny, Melanie (name changed), had borrowed Dh10,000 from a loan shark in 2015.
Her passport was the guarantee — another illegal act. Melanie had paid the loan shark a total of Dh17,000, reported Gulf News.
But the loan shark claimed that she still owed him the principal amount of Dh10,000. The agreed interest rate was 10 percent or a whopping Dh1,000 per month in interest alone, the report said.
“We felt that there was no way she would give this guy another penny because she had already paid him back in the first year with 120 percent interest!” Tracey, a school administrator from Ireland, was quoted as saying.
Tracey and her husband, Mark Gaffney, were determined to help Melanie. They researched what to do and sought legal advice from Attorney Barney Almazar, a licensed UAE legal consultant and partner at Gulf Law who helps Filipinos with debt issues, the report said.
He reportedly said his office normally gets around 10 requests for assistance through email every week and most of them from housemaids or those whose salary is less than Dh3,000 a month.
Armed with a demand letter, Tracey and Mark reportedly contacted the loan shark and told him to return Melanie’s passport. He didn’t budge — at first.
“Then he started backtracking. He tried to claim that he was a friend. I pointed out the fact that friends do not give loans and charge interest. Friends do not write contracts. Friends do not withhold passports. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, he’s trading illegally and he’s breaking the law,” Mark was quoted as saying.
The loan shark, Mark reportedly said, made Dh37,000 out of the Dh25,000 he had lent to Melanie and her friends in one contract.
Under the Penal Code, charging of usurious interest or transactions are prohibited. No one can also withhold anyone’s passport as it is owned by the government that issued it, said the news portal.
Tracey reportedly said the loan shark’s tactics had evolved over the years. His earlier “contracts” with Melanie’s friends, who also owed him money, bore his passport and visa number. They then used this information to their advantage and the loan shark eventually gave in.
Within a week, Melanie’s passport was back in her hands and they cut all ties between her and the loan shark.
“At the end of the day, the loan shark was just a bully. He was playing on the fact that he was loaning money to people who didn’t know their rights and were susceptible to bullying and threats of deportation if they don’t pay up,” Gulf News quoted Tracey as saying. “We wanted to empower Melanie at the end of the day.” Threatening borrowers is always the way to go for loan sharks.
“They would always want you to live in fear because that’s how they make money. So the best recourse to fight these abusive practices is to show them that you are not afraid, that you know your rights and that you are able to defend your right,” Almazar reportedly said.
“They will always tell you that they will file a case against you — they cannot! They don’t have any right to do so. It is you who has the right to go to the police. It is you who can access the court.”
