On a recent wednesday after noon, Montserrat Vila sat in her Barcelona apartment, waiting for the bullfighters to appear. They were not coming to show off some capework in her living room. In fact, they were not real bullfighters at all. The three men, dressed like matadors in garish tight pants and embroidered jackets, were coming to collect a debt. It's safe to say that at the same time elsewhere in Spain, a monk, a Zorro, a clown and a Pink Panther were doing the same thing.rnBecause of the country's lax debt laws, the judicial route for lenders to recover what's owed to them is slow and tortuous, so many lenders turn to a more direct approach-tapping into the Spaniard's fear of public humiliation. As a result, companies offering costumed collectors who recoup debts simply by showing up at a home or office and embarrassing the debtor in question have proliferated over the past couple of decades. Now, though, the Spanish parliament has approved a proposal to regulate the debt-collection industry, possibly bringing an end to the tradition of collection via humiliation.
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