Lenders who charge interest rates ranging from 5 to 10 percent monthly have been complaining that they cannot collect payments from borrowers who have either gone into hiding or left the Kingdom for good.

As a result, they have gone after the guarantors who in turn have sought help from the embassy, which consequently issued an advisory.

“The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh and the Consulate General in Jeddah continue to receive numerous requests for assistance from Filipinos concerning the problems that they, their family members, or friends encounter with regard to taking out loans or acting as guarantors for the loans of other individuals…” the advisory said.

A Filipino who works for a telecommunications company and who lends money at a 7 percent interest rate told Arab News that many of his clients had left without paying their debts.

“One Filipino named Jewell Orias left the Kingdom clandestinely without paying money he had borrowed from me and others in Batha district. He owed me SR3,000,” he said.

As a result, he asked the guarantor to pay him. “He's working in a supermarket and he pays me whatever little amount he has,” he said.

Another Filipino said his wife, who is working in a government hospital, lent SR35,000 to a fellow Filipino nurse so she could apply to immigrate to the US 10 years ago.

“Since they were colleagues and knew each other well, my wife lent what she needed. After depositing $1,000 in my wife's account, no more repayments have come,” he said.

He added that it was ironic that his wife helped her fellow nurse and lost money in the process.

He said that at one point in time, his wife had SR50,000 for borrowers. However, due to the level of defaults and difficulty in collecting payments, she has curbed her lending activities.

At another government hospital in the capital city, borrowing is also rampant among Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) but lenders demand ATM pin numbers as collateral.

“This certainly affects the borrowers' dignity but they don't seem to care. Imagine, a pin number is a personal thing and is being kept by somebody else because they borrowed money,” said a Filipino employee of a hospital's water treatment plant.

One of the worst cases of Filipino money-lending activity in the Kingdom that had gone bad involved a 56-year-old man in Tabuk, who was murdered in September 2007.

Police later found out that the victim was a lender who demanded ATM cards of borrowers as guarantee for payment.

Many lenders say Filipino workers borrow money that they do not really need. Instead of paying off hospital bills or their children's school matriculation fees, they buy luxury items, like electronic appliances, expensive watches and clothes, among other things.

“One Filipino who stayed with us in a flat lived luxuriously, giving the impression that he was being paid a good salary. One day, he told me that he was leaving because he did not want me and my family to be involved in his financial problems,” a Filipino woman teacher at an international school said.

She said the man left his job at a bank and moved to a credit card company.

“Not long after that, I heard that he had left the Kingdom for good. He went on a vacation on an exit-reentry visa but he never came back,” she said.

She added that the man owed money to many people, including his friends.