slapphead_otool

Sad but very true.

Skipping a debt might seem ok, but your name is on a list somewhere.

slapphead_otool

And what happens when there is money lying around, and dumbass Arabs cant manage it.?

Yep, Westerners step in and take over, buying the debts and collecting the money. I would predict its going to one of the next money making booms in the Gulf. Buying debts of former expats, and tracking them down.

mission

banks back in the UK have no affliation with the banks over here....even if you bank with hsbc/lloyds or any other hight street bank that has branches over here.

Both banking instituatins are run totally independently.

The reason i know this is pretty simple....my credit score back in the uk is completely shyte to say the least....when i came over here and opened a bank account with HSBC not only did they give me a whopping big credit limit on two credit cards, they also gave me a car loan.

f the bank had any affliation with the UK banking system, they would have found out that my credit score back in the UK was pants and hence would not have given me ANY credit whatsoever.

Banks over here can do diddly squat with banks back in the UK.

TGFKASE

Did you ALSO know that the only country you cannot open ana account in before leaving the UK, as an HSBC customer, IS the UAE???

mission

weird

Bungdit Din

yes that's true, but they don't want you to know that. If you skip back to the UK leaving debt here at HSBC or whatever there is NOTHING they can do to your accounts/credit score in the UK. they can contact you and ask you to repay but they cannot force you to do anything, they cannot get you arrested, etc. you also have the protection of UK law so you can forget all the scare stories about "debt collectors" turning up with baseball bats.

skipping is not a good idea for other reasons, but a choice between skipping or jail is no choice at all.

TechnoGuru

I am personally on the receiving end of a situation where I took a loan from a local bank and lost my job before I could pay it off. A couple years later I was still not in a position to satisfy the monthly repayments that the bank was asking for.

To cut the story short this local bank put a block on my passport so that I cannot travel and contacted a debt collection agency in the UK who then were persistantly contacting my parents in an attempt to seize any assetts I may own. Luckilly I sold up everything before I left the UK.

The guys in the UK have given up, but I still acnnot travel until I can come to some satisfactory arrangement with this local bank.

mission

you mean travel to the uae?

TechnoGuru

I am in Dubai.

The ban on my passport prevents me leaving the UAE until I sort things out with the bank.

mykol

I couldn't understand why you had stayed in Dubai longer. Weren't you aware that you would be in bigger trouble by doing that?

You said you are lucky that you sold all your properties in UK before the local bank seized your assets. But you are not lucky enough to leave Dubai before the local bank put you in immigration watchlist.

How long do you have to stay in Dubai before you can settle your loan with the bank? I hope you will not end up in jail.

All the best, folk!!!

mykol

Moreover, I think you are in the best position to say if running away is really the best option to take, than staying in Dubai and live in nightmares of getting harrassed by bank/s and end up in prison.

daexpat

Like Mykol said: You think it was best you stayed back in DXB with a travel ban and rather not be in the UK?

I dont understand one thing though: if you already have a travel ban, why are the debt collection agents after you. Normally they are out and about to contact your relatives and seize your assets only if you are nowhere to be found.

Millhouse

so you are in an open prision?

This has got to be a wind up... mods?

yoshiko

...reading these threads I have a few questions.
Surely when you have purchased a plane ticket and are flying via Dubai to somewhere else (so transit), do they not check all passengers etc so with the name and details would match a criminal record?
Do they wipe debt out after a few years? If its a debt like 18dhs on a c card?
Its so hard to know who everyone is and if you are not a really well spoken and typist in english........

IndieG

No - the criminal case is not wiped out - it appears even if you return after say, 20 years, you could still get caught (as someone found out to his shock according to a newspaper report I came across a couple of weeks ago)

If it is a debt of 18dhs (or even perhaps less than AED 1k \), banks would not normally bother filing a criminal case