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He said RP had told him a different story. RP had said he worked as a call center executive for a
legal company providing motor vehicle and mobile phone financing, he informed.
According to him, RP claimed to have never applied to work at the company. However, he
suddenly got an interview call, he said. Without thinking, RP took the job considering he had just
graduated from college and he did not want to lose such an opportunity, Pradana added.

Moreover, RP reportedly told Pradana that he had to collect debt worth Rp10 million from
customers in a day.

RP had two mobile phones with new SIM cards, Pradana said. One of them was to threaten
victims, officials said.

Soeprapto, a criminal sociologist from Gadjah Mada University (UGM), said he hopes that the
community does not marginalize employees of illegal lenders. Some of them were victims as they
were not aware of the company's work process and legality, he stated.

Soeprapto said he interviewed 7 debt collectors aged 25 to 35 in Yogyakarta for research. Two
of them worked at illegal companies, he said.

Based on three-year research, he concluded there are three factors that are forcing the
productive young generation to get trapped in illegal jobs.

First, they consider the job as just a stepping stone before getting the main job, especially since
the selection process is not complicated, he pointed out.

Related news: AFPI supports police' crackdown on illegal online lenders

Second, they do not check the company's legality when applying, and the third is the few jobs
opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic, he explained.

Illegal loan workers are not all comfortable with the billing methods which require them to use
abusive language, he said.

They feel obligated to follow the work process and are indoctrinated by the company's leader,
he added.
The leader of the company instills the mindset that collecting debt requires issuing threats and
bullying is nothing but a way to discipline or deter non-payment of loans, Soeprapto said.

Nevertheless, one of the interviewed employees chose not to obey the bullying method and be
polite instead, he recalled. This employee chose to ask the borrower for help and revealed that
he would be under pressure if he failed to obtain the payment, he said.

Illegal online loan companies have continued to thrive as more people want to borrow money
instantly, and the process is very easy: they simply provide their identification card information
and personal mobile number and the money is be instantly transferred to the borrower's bank
account, he added.

Need for caution

Although job opportunities are currently small, the young generation needs to exercise greater
awareness while choosing jobs, officials said.

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