Debt Woman Hell

In a café in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province.

The private café, extending up to the second floor terrace, isn’t bustling with customers at 3 p.m. on a weekday.

On the terrace of the café, only three women sit at a table. Two of them appear tense, as if attending an interview, sitting upright with rigid posture. The third woman, wearing sunglasses, sifts through documents.

The woman in sunglasses is Choi Seong-mi. At thirty-six, her neatly trimmed V-cut hair touches her chin. With fair, smooth skin exuding an air of abundance but also coldness and intimidation.

Sitting in front are a mother-daughter pair; the mother, Jang Eun-young, is 45 years old, and her daughter, Kim Yoon-jeong, is 22.

After meticulously organizing the documents, Choi Seong-mi speaks.

“The total debt amounts to 472 million. The house has been auctioned off… There’s no more money to squeeze out.”

Both the mother and daughter bow their heads in silence, unable to utter a word.

A twist of fate had occurred. Unable to withstand the overwhelming pressure of debts following the failure of her husband’s business, he resorted to suicide.

However, his suicide didn’t erase everything. To secure funds, loans were taken out under Jang Eun-young and Kim Yoon-jeong’s names, and personally, money was borrowed from acquaintances for her husband and father.

Even after excluding the debt erased by the husband’s suicide, the looming debt haunting Jang Eun-young and Kim Yoon-jeong amounted to a staggering 472 million.

For ordinary housewife Jang Eun-young and university student Kim Yoon-jeong, this was an insurmountable sum. They could sell every organ in their bodies and still fall short.

The pressure from the debt collection agency was beyond what they could handle. Just as the mother and daughter were contemplating an extreme decision, this woman, Choi Seong-mi, approached them.

Regardless of who disclosed their situation to her, she offered a lifeline akin to salvation to the mother and daughter.