The urgent need to crack down on predatory lending

Dear Raul,

I read your timely article (see “Root cause of predatory lending,” 11/11/2025) in the Inquirer this morning.

Sadly, this is a frightening reality for so many. Just this week, we are navigating, trying to help an employee get out of this impossible situation of indebtedness to predatory online lending entities.

It is a vicious hole compounded by the fact that victims borrow from other online predatory sites to pay the amortizations from earlier predatory borrowing sites. The result quickly spirals (with amounts owed to dozens of firms/sites) and without substantial help from family/friends, then years’ worth of savings and/or retirement funds are wiped out in a matter of months.

Other kinds of sites tempt people to “complete tasks” in exchange for a small amount of digital payoffs to their wallets. They are then led into higher “tasks” that require an initial “investment” of funds to unlock for them a higher payout potential in the future. Slowly, but surely, more and more funds are required. I guess it is sort of a pyramid scheme. You could also view it as unregulated gambling of sorts.

As more funds are required to “get back their invested funds,” people turn to these predatory lending sites, and the cycle of indebtedness quickly spirals.

There is an urgent need for the government to crack down on these types of schemes and to give relief to those who are sucked into this debt cycle with no possibility of escape. If left unregulated, I really fear that many of our fellow countrymen will be left destitute, or worse, take more drastic action against themselves.

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Truly a very sad situation. Thank you for shedding light on this, and I hope that our friends in the media will continue to pressure the government to take action in support of those most exposed to these types of predatory practices!

MICHAEL BUTT,

michael.butt@tierra.ph