USTI NAD LABEM, Czech Republic—Olga Petikova first borrowed a few hundred dollars in the 1990s to furnish her young family’s apartment. Later, she turned to payday loans to make ends meet as her husband struggled to make his new business a success. The debt soared.
Two decades on, she owes 2 million crowns ($86,938), which is 11 times her annual income, and she’s subject to 15 seizure orders on her property and much of the money that reaches her bank account.
