‘Or pay the light or eat, which do you choose?’: Brazilians in line to clear name – 09/03/2023 – Market

The diarist Ivonete Costa da Silva Oliveira, married and mother of four children, was dismissed from all five houses where she worked during the pandemic. Counting only on a minimum wage from her husband’s retirement, the family saw the overdue bills pile up.

“I delayed five electricity bills, delayed Sabesp and other things as well”, says Ivonete, about the difficult period in which she was unemployed.

Already back at work now on four houses, she managed to pay off some of her debts. But even after renegotiating the overdue bills with Enel, the São Paulo energy concessionaire, it was unable to pay the installments of the agreement and returned to default.

“I want to make another deal to pay and stay up to date. A debt like that for energy, we live in fear of having the service cut. I go to work and every day I arrive thinking ‘My God, has my power already been cut off? ‘. So I want to be free of this nightmare”, he says.

Ivonete’s nightmare is the same as that of thousands of Brazilians, at a time when the country has 70.1 million defaulters, a historic record, according to data from Serasa.

In the State of São Paulo alone, the region that concentrates the largest volume of people with overdue debts in the country, defaulters reached 16.3 million in January 2023, an increase of 8.6% in five years. The record volume already represents 45% of the state’s population, according to the credit bureau.

In Brazil as a whole, the average debt of defaulters is R$ 4,612.30, an amount 19% higher than five years ago. In São Paulo, the average debt is even higher, reaching R$5,324.66 in January this year.

In the midst of this crisis scenario, aggravated by high interest rates, Serasa is holding an extraordinary face-to-face edition of its Feirão Limpa Nome in São Paulo this week.

The event, aimed at renegotiating debts, runs until March 11, from 8 am to 6 pm, at Largo da Batata, in the west zone of the São Paulo capital — unfortunately, Enel does not participate in the fair this time, to Ivonete’s disappointment, but other 400 companies offer discounts of up to 99% to debtors in negotiations.

BBC News Brasil talked to people who were waiting in line at the fair to understand how we got to the point where four out of ten adult Brazilians have a dirty name.

In common, these paulistanos tell stories of unemployment and closed businesses during the pandemic, which led to a “snowball” of overdue debts.

The federal government plans to launch the Desenrola program shortly, focusing on renegotiating debts of up to R$5,000 for people with incomes of up to two minimum wages (R$2,604).

On Monday (6/3), the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, said that the initiative should guarantee the renegotiation of up to R$ 50 billion in debts of 37 million CPFs currently negative.

When contacted, Enel Distribuição São Paulo informed that it has frequently participated in editions of fairs in partnership with Serasa and that it did not participate in this specific edition of Feirão Limpa Nome.

The company also said that it is studying the possibility of participating in other editions of the event throughout the year and that the negotiation of overdue accounts can be carried out in all its service channels (stores, service stations, call center, website and app ).

At Feirão Limpa Nome, consumers can also renegotiate their debts through Serasa’s digital channels until March 31st.

‘If God blesses, I can pay’

Barber Paulo Barbosa do Nascimento, 44, says that income tightened when he was fired from the salon where he worked, still in 2019.

“I owe the bank and some purchases I made at some stores on my credit card. I couldn’t pay the bill when I became unemployed”, says Paulo. “I was using the card to supply the things I needed, then my name got dirty, I was in debt.”

The worker says that, due to the debts, he has already gone through embarrassing situations, such as trying to make a purchase in a store and having the request denied, due to the dirty name.

Now working on his own, the barber estimates that his debts amount to around R$ 3,000.

“It’s not much, so if God blesses, I can afford it,” he says hopefully.

According to Serasa, even in a downward trend, unemployment is still pointed out as the main cause for indebtedness. In 2022, 29% cited this reason as the reason for their overdue debt. Income reduction (12%) is the second most mentioned factor.

Among the main forms of indebtedness in 2022 were credit cards (53%) and credit cards, booklets and store cards (31%), precisely the debts that afflict Barber Paulo.

‘I lost my business and accumulated R$ 45 thousand in debt in the pandemic’

Marleide Barbosa de Azevedo, 51, is trying to restart her life with a hairdressing salon, after seeing the snack bar she used to play with her husband close its doors during the pandemic.

“We had a snack bar in Brás, right in front of the Templo de Salomão [sede da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus] and, in the pandemic, we owe a lot”, says the small businesswoman, married and mother of a boy.

Marleide says that, before the pandemic, the cafeteria could make R$ 2,500 on a Monday, just selling Greek barbecue. After Covid-19, sales dropped to a range of R$200 to R$250 and the snack bar ended up losing unsold meat and bread, in addition to having to pay rent of R$5,000.

“We stayed closed for a year and accumulated a lot of debt on cards and with suppliers. We managed to pay some, but others we couldn’t and they sent our name to protest.”

According to Marleide, a debt of R$ 9,000 with Carrefour already exceeds R$ 30,000 due to interest, after the couple failed to pay the invoices. In total, between cards and suppliers, she estimates that the couple’s overdue obligations reach R$ 45,000.

“I was never in debt, neither I nor my husband. We never had a dirty name. But, in the pandemic, Brazilians were all indebted”, he says.

“Now, eight months ago, I managed to open a small salon, but I’m also there by faith, because it’s not working well. And things are very difficult, because everything is very expensive”, he adds.

Marleide recounts the sadness of seeing her small business close during the pandemic.

“The only reason I didn’t get depressed is because we have to have a lot of faith in God. I stayed at home for a year and a half and all I needed to do was go crazy. Now I got better, but it’s still a struggle.”

‘We started paying in installments and couldn’t pay the installments’

Carpenter Hélio Correia do Santos, 59, says that his financial problems began when he was away from work receiving assistance from the INSS for a health problem in his legs.

“I was out of work for a while and was unable to pay these debts,” he says. “It was running over, we were paying in installments and we couldn’t pay the installments, then the agreement was broken and the debt multiplied. Then it snowballed and I’m trying to solve it.”

Hélio has debts with Enel, Bradesco, Sabesp and credit card.

“I’ve been in this situation for about three years. I went through some difficulties, but now I’m sure it’s going to get better”, he believes.

“Having debt is really bad, you can’t sleep well, you’re stressed, the service doesn’t pay off. It’s very complicated to be in debt, I don’t want anyone to go through that, because it’s very difficult.”

‘Or pay the light or eat, which one do you choose?’

In the midst of treatment for cancer, Adriana Nogueira Moreira, 50, walked almost 30 km from Jardim Rodolfo Pirani, in São Mateus in the east zone of São Paulo, to Largo da Batata in the west zone, with the aim of renegotiating her overdue electricity bills. She left disappointed by the absence of Enel at the renegotiation fair.

“We live in a housing complex and the energy bill there is absurd, you can save any way you like. So I kept letting it, letting it go, and now I think I have about R$ 20,000 to pay”, says the disability pensioner. , which also has several other debts.

With her retirement income and her husband’s salary as a construction worker, she says she doesn’t have enough to catch up on the overdue bills.

“I have to buy my medicine. I take morphine, and sometimes they have it at the expensive pharmacy [do SUS], sometimes they don’t have it, so they have to buy it. It’s hard,” says Adriana.

The pensioner’s husband, who until then had been listening to the conversation in silence, intervened: “Either pay the light or eat, which one do you choose?”

Adriana preferred not to take a picture after telling her story.