I am an Indian. My situation made me borrow money at a 10% interest (monthly) from another Indian. I took KD 400 and I paid him interest, totally KD 1,200 for two and a half years. I am working here on a very small salary and recently I paid him all the amount but still he says you have to pay the remaining interest plus 10% interest for the remaining interest. I realize he is cheating me and I refused to pay him.

One day he brought two guys and he shouted at me and said within one week I have to pay the amount. I don’t know what to do? What does Kuwait Law say about interest and punishment? Can I contact any lawyer and file a case against him?

Name withheld

Answer: You are just one of thousands who have landed themselves in such problems. What you all don’t know is that such operations are illegal under the Kuwait law. You can report this person to the police and file a case against him.

The only problem here is that all such deals are made verbally except for an I.O.U., for the amount borrowed, that you sign.

In such cases you are also asked to give your bank card to the person from whom you get the loan.
As in your case, there are a lot of people who keep paying the interest — in your case KD 40 a month — and it is in the end always much more than the principal amount.

The only way around this problem is to either pay the whole amount or file a case with the police but you must have proof that you have been paying the loan shark KD 40 interest monthly. There is one way of getting the proof — as these people withdraw the interest directly from your account and give you the rest of the amount every month, closed-circuit TV records of banks will show who withdrew the money from your accounts on certain dates.