RVC Credit Limited lends from Wing Lok Street in Sheung Wan. Most people who fall behind on a loan are frightened by something that is not going to happen to them, and unprepared for the thing that is.
So this page sets out the real sequence, in order, and then lists what cannot occur no matter what anybody says on the telephone. It is unusual for a lender to publish this. We think a borrower who understands the process behaves better in it — and so, frankly, does the lender.
Nothing here is sudden. Each stage takes time, and at every one of them the situation is still fixable by a telephone call. It becomes less fixable as you descend.
A late charge may apply and, depending on the agreement, default interest can begin to run on the arrears. Nothing dramatic has happened yet. This is the cheapest moment in the entire sequence to pick up the phone, and the moment almost nobody does.
Letters and calls from the lender, at reasonable hours, to you. Not to your employer, not to your relatives, not to your neighbours. A lender making contact is not yet taking action; it is asking a question that still has good answers available.
A written demand for the outstanding sum, often with a deadline. If a facility has an acceleration clause, the whole balance rather than the missed instalment may become due. At this point take advice — the free legal advice schemes in Hong Kong exist for exactly this.
A claim filed in the appropriate court. This is a civil debt matter, not a criminal one. You are entitled to respond, to dispute the sum, and to be heard. Ignoring the papers is the single most damaging thing a person can do at this stage, because a judgment can follow by default.
If judgment is given, enforcement follows the procedures the law provides, through the court. Where a loan is secured on property, the security is what is at risk. Payment arrangements remain possible even here — later, harder and more expensive than at step one, but possible.
Debtors are routinely frightened with these, sometimes by people impersonating officials. None of them is how debt works in Hong Kong. If you are told otherwise, the person telling you is the problem.
An ordinary unpaid loan is a civil debt. It is not a criminal offence and there is no debtors' prison. Anyone implying that you face arrest for non-payment is either mistaken or lying to you deliberately.
Threats, intimidation, abusive language and criminal damage are offences regardless of whether a debt is owed. If it is happening, it is a matter for the police, and the existence of the debt is no defence for the person doing it.
Relatives are not liable for your borrowing simply because they are relatives. Liability arises from signing — as a borrower, a co-borrower or a guarantor. Somebody who signed nothing owes nothing.
Enforcement happens through the court and follows the procedures the law lays down. No lender walks into a home and takes property because an instalment was late.
Any person or firm offering to clean, fix or delete a genuine entry is selling something that does not exist — usually for a fee, in advance. Accurate records age out on their own schedule and not before.
Not to arrange a loan, not to release funds, not to "settle" an account off the books. Every money lender's advertisement in Hong Kong carries the same warning about intermediaries for this reason.
Sized so that step one above stays unlikely. A facility a borrower can only just afford in a good month is a facility that fails in a bad one.
A fixed sum over a fixed term with a written schedule. The last payment date is known on the day you sign, not discovered later.
For businesses in Sheung Wan and across the territory, sized against what the trade services through a poor quarter rather than a strong one.
Only where the total cost genuinely falls and the earlier accounts close. Anything else is an additional loan wearing a better name.
Secured on Hong Kong property. Security means the asset is genuinely at risk if the arrangement fails, which we say at the front rather than in a late clause.
Because fear is what makes people stop answering the telephone, and a borrower who has stopped answering is the borrower who ends up in court. Almost every account that goes badly wrong could have been arranged at step one. Explaining the process costs us nothing and prevents a good deal of avoidable damage on both sides.
Verify independently before doing anything, using contact details you find yourself. Impersonating an official is a serious matter, and demands for immediate payment by transfer to a personal account are a hallmark of fraud rather than of any legitimate process. Court proceedings arrive as documents, not as urgent telephone calls demanding money today.
Usually yes. It is later, harder and generally more expensive than it would have been at step one, but a lender with a realistic payment arrangement is in a better position than one with a judgment it has to enforce. Take advice, respond in writing, and do not ignore documents.
The register of money lenders is maintained by the Companies Registry and searchable free through its e-Services portal. Search it yourself, confirm the exact legal name, and do not rely on a licence number printed in an advertisement or quoted in a message.
Usually yes, and we will say so if you ask. Bank credit is generally cheaper. Money lenders earn their place where the sum is modest, the timing is short, or the file is sound but does not fit a bank's criteria. If you are borrowing to make payments on existing borrowing, neither answer is right and that conversation should happen before anything is signed.
Telephone before the due date. Not after. The single most useful sentence in this entire business is "I am going to be short this month, can we look at it." It is uncomfortable for about four minutes and it changes what the next two years look like.
These are the only channels this company uses. Anyone else claiming to act for us, or asking you for a fee, does not.