Pranshu Sikka, Mumbai: Correspondent Pranshi Sikka attended an interview in response to a routine advertisement in a newspaper calling collection agents for MNC bank.

And in the midst of the interview it became amply clear to him that the agency was into more than just reminding people of their dues.

Excerpt of the interview between the correspondent and the recovery agency owner:

Recovery agency owner: Have you ever been beaten up by anyone?

Correspondent: Generally I have been the one who has beaten up.

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Recovery agency owner: But I hope you have abused lot of people. What would you do if the customer is not at home when you go to collect the payment?

Correspondent: I ask for the money to whoever is there or just wait till the borrower comes.

Recovery agency owner: If you had to wait for a long time then what would you do?

Correspondent: Then I would threaten that I would take away whatever I can lay my hands on.

With such credentials the job could not have been denied. And once inside, the correspondent saw how customers were harassed.

If a recovery agent would come home then the customers would go to the doctor. This was what the customers would be subjected to.

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A spy camera recovered a scene of a recovery agent trying to procure money from a customer.

“Shut up you thief! You can't even make your payments on time. What will I take away? Come to my branch, I will show you. Say you do not want to make your payments.

And not hat you had gone to the doctor for 15 minutes I wonder what you spent those 15 minutes doing! I wonder what you are up to with that doctor! Are you an LIC agent or what? Don't make me say further. Just shut up,” said the recovery agent.

“Even if the judicial process is a little slow then that does not a give a right to bank to have hooligans to collect the loan amounts and harass people,” says member, Nationall Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Rajyalakshmi Rao.

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Abusive phone calls, persistent physical and emotional incursions and unprecedented trauma, some banks have woken up to the spate of criticism and resorted to regulatory intervention like these.

However, on the ground the menace of recovery agents continues the harassment.