It's not unusual these days to see the 'Cobrador del Frac', a debt collector in evening dress, walking the streets of Madrid. Wearing top hat and tails, their mission is to chase outstanding debts. The easily-recognised outfit is meant to publicly embarrass transgressors and shame them into paying up fast. « The uniform is a way of scaring those who owe money », says Manuel, a collector for the company « Cobrador del Frac ».
 

In the current economic climate, Spain's property market is plummeting. With the troubles of the housing sector, debt collectors are licking their lips as more and more people fail to make payments. A growing number of creditors hire the Cobrador del frac – or other companies with names like “Zorro”, “Bullfighter”, or “Pink Panther” and the costumes to go along – to help them chase down their debtors: « Seventy to eighty percent of the cases we deal with come directly from construction and related sectors, confirms Juan Carlos Granda, the international director. Just to give you an idea, we've got 40 to 45 percent more cases now than this time last year. And we anticipate that the need for our services is going to increase even more. »

 
In the call centre, employees are busy investigating. They need to find out if their clients' debtors are actually solvent. « We don't take on cases where the person is genuinely destitute”, explains Granda. In Spain, 62 percent of commercial debts are contracted by companies that can pay, as opposed to 35 percent in the rest of Europe. “What usually happens is that those who don't want to pay up declare bankrupcy. I seems like the have nothing. But we know that they can pay, because we've done our homework », he adds.

 
That’s when the debt collectors swing into action. They sometimes go out in twos, to avoid being attacked, explains Manuel : « Anyone who owes money is nervous Nobody likes to owe money. Even if they're only being asked to pay what's fair, and what they can afford. »

The collectors are contracted by companies to recover business debts, but they also take care of individuals' debts. Spanish consumer association's Daniel Vega is now asking that their activities be restricted : « The mere fact that a debt collector follows a 'bad payer' publicly, and makes it clear to everyone that this person has outstanding debts, is a direct attack on a basic human right which is acknowledged by the Spanish Constitution – the right to privacy. »