80,000 Borrowers Barred From Traveling Abroad
>
> Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:53pm EST
>
> MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian bailiffs have recovered millions of rubles
> in debt from delinquent borrowers by barring them from traveling
> abroad until they pay up.
>
> Government bailiffs said they had signed orders for 82,000 foreign
> travel bans and recovered almost 800 million roubles ($24.25 million)
> from debtors -- some of whom only found out when they arrived at the
> border with their bags packed.
>
> "The scheme has been very effective, a phenomenal success," Natalya
> Selivanova, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bailiff Service, said
> Tuesday.
>
> The foreign travel bans, introduced early last year, were issued only
> after several warnings and a court decision, Federal Bailiff Service
> Director Artur Parfenchikov said.
>
> "If someone can't keep up his payments on a $100,000 debt and then
> buys a package tour to Thailand ... that's not just illegal, it's
> immoral," he told a briefing in Moscow.
>
> Russia has long been forced to use unusual measures to reclaim debts
> as its legal system often favors poorer borrowers over their lenders,
> said Richard Hainsworth, director of RusRating, a credit agency in > Moscow.
>
> Russian authorities have posted the names of people with unpaid bills
> on billboards in recent years to shame them into paying.
>
> (Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Nick Vinocur)
>
> ($1=32.99 Rouble)
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> I believe in the U.S. if you owe child support this law also applies
> to you....Or you surrender your passport, same thing..
Not a bad idea, really.