Rising Sun Finance Company Limited is a small money lender on King's Road in Quarry Bay. We are not a bank; we take no deposits and issue no cards.
This page is mostly about one situation, because it is the one that ruins people quietly and the one nobody warns them about: being asked to take out a loan on behalf of somebody else. A partner, a relative, an employer, a person met online. The money goes to them. The debt stays with you.
Almost nobody decides to become responsible for another person's debt. It arrives as a favour, framed reasonably, from someone with a reason you are inclined to accept. Their credit is poor at the moment. Their documents are with a previous employer. They are between jobs and it is only for a few months. They will make the payments themselves, of course, and you will never have to think about it again.
Sometimes that is all true and it ends fine. Often the payments arrive for two or three months, then arrive late, then stop being discussed. By the time you notice, the arrears are yours, the credit record is yours, and the person who spent the money has an explanation rather than a payment.
The uncomfortable part is that nothing improper has necessarily happened at the lender's end. The application was made by you, the documents were yours, the signature was yours. From the outside it is simply a borrower who has fallen behind.
A lender does not know who spent the money. It knows who signed.
And that is the whole of the problemPeople treat guaranteeing as a lesser commitment than borrowing — a character reference, a formality, a favour with no number attached. It is not. A guarantor is generally liable for the whole debt, not a share of it, and can be pursued for the full outstanding sum. The arrears appear against the guarantor's own credit standing.
If you are being asked to guarantee, read the document as though the money were coming to you, because in every practical sense that is the position you are agreeing to occupy. And ask yourself the question that actually decides it: if this person stops paying tomorrow, can I pay the whole balance without damaging my own household? If the answer is no, the answer is no.
If a truthful application would be refused, the loan is not the thing you are being asked for.
Your name isFirst, stop treating it as private. Tell somebody — family, a friend, anybody outside the arrangement. Secrecy is the mechanism, and speaking to one person breaks it.
Second, contact the lender yourself before the next payment is due rather than after. The options available while an account is current are considerably wider than afterwards, and a lender told early is dealing with a problem rather than a default.
Third, take free advice. Hong Kong has free legal advice schemes and duty lawyer services, and the Legal Aid Department exists for those who qualify. If you were deceived, if documents were altered, or if you are being threatened, that is a matter for the police — and being embarrassed about how it started has never once made a report less worth making.
Finally, be wary of the second wave. People who have been through this are frequently approached again, by somebody offering to clear the debt, fix the credit record or arrange a new loan for a fee paid in advance. There is no legitimate version of that offer.
A fixed sum over a fixed term with a written schedule, in the name of the person who will actually be repaying it.
For owner-operated businesses in the eastern district and across the territory, sized against a quiet month rather than a busy one.
Only where the total cost genuinely falls and the earlier accounts close. Otherwise it is simply another loan with a kinder name.
Advance funds to a third party at a borrower's request where the arrangement looks like borrowing on someone else's behalf, and lend where the money is going to another lender's instalment.
You can, and the consequence is that you owe it. There is no arrangement, verbal or written, between you and that person which transfers the obligation to them as far as the lender is concerned. If they stop paying, the lender pursues you, and the credit record is yours. Think of it as making them a personal loan out of borrowed money, on which you pay the interest.
Then read the guarantee as though you were the borrower, because that is close to the practical position. A guarantor is generally liable for the whole debt. Ask whether you could pay the full outstanding balance tomorrow without harming your own household. It is an uncomfortable question and it is the only one that matters.
That is not a job. Employment does not require an employee to borrow, to open accounts, or to receive and forward money. Stop, do not sign anything, and report it. This pattern is used both to obtain credit in a victim's name and to move other people's money through their accounts, and the second is considerably more serious than the first.
Treat it as false until you have telephoned the number on this page yourself. We appoint no agents to approach borrowers, and no fee is payable to anybody before a loan is advanced. If money has already been sent, report it to the police and do not send more attempting to recover it.
Usually yes, and we will say so if you ask. Bank credit is generally cheaper. Money lenders earn their place where the amount is modest, the timing is short, or the application is sound but does not fit a bank's criteria.
Telephone before the due date, not after. Options while an account is current are much wider, and going quiet is what turns a difficult month into a default. If any lender responds to arrears with threats or harassment, that is a matter for the police, whoever the money came from.
Directly, in your own name, about your own borrowing. If somebody else is doing the talking, that is the first thing we will ask about.