A credit card debtors’ self-help group yesterday urged a revision of the Consumer Debt Clearance Act (消費者債務清理條例) to help the nation’s 850,000 credit card debtors when they are trying to clear their debts.
“When credit card debtors apply for debt repayment plan negotiations to the court, the judge would very often reject their applications, based simply on the banks’ assertion that the debtors are ‘not sincere’ in repaying the debt, or turn it down because of one or two purchases involving larger amounts,” Lin Yung-sung (林永頌), an attorney representing the debtors, told a news conference held at the Legislative Yuan yesterday.
“With such a low approval rate for debtors’ applications, the Consumer Debt Clearance Act is actually not doing anything concrete to help credit card debtors, and thus revisions are needed,” Lin said.
According to figures provided by the group, only 24 percent of applications for debt repayment negotiations were approved, while only 9.5 percent of debtors — under certain circumstances — were declared exempt from repaying their debts.
In Japan, the approval rate for debt repayment negotiations is at least 82 percent, and the debt exemption rate for debtors in certain circumstances is about 95 percent, Lin said.
A spokeswoman for the group, Shen Hsiao-yuan (沈肖媛), said that in one case, a credit card debtor’s application for debt repayment negotiations was rejected “because she had once made a purchase of over NT$20,000 from a supermarket, and the judge believed that she was not leading such a difficult life as she had claimed.”
“However, in fact, the purchase was during the Lunar New Year and the debtor bought mostly canned food, because she wanted to take the opportunity during the Lunar New Year sales period to stock up on food for her family that could be preserved for a long time,” Shen said.
Speaking on behalf of the self-help organization, Lin said the law should be revised to allow a neutral and professional third party to help negotiate debt repayment plans with the banks involved, since debtors may be in a disadvantaged position under the current law, as they have to negotiate with the banks themselves.
Lin also called for a revision that would automatically allow for negotiated debt repayment plans as soon as debtors meet certain criteria, instead of letting the courts decide on these matters.
Anti-Poverty Alliance representative Chien Hsi-chieh (簡錫堦) said that the Democratic Progressive Party legislative caucus had already submitted their own proposal for revisions to the Consumer Debt Clearance Act, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus had done nothing to address the issue so far.
“The key now is what the KMT would do,” Chien said. “They should not say that they care about credit card debtors, but not do anything concrete to help them.”
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400