Billboards flash names of deadbeat debtors to shame them

Above throngs of busy commuters at a Shanghai railway station, four large billboards - some sandwiched between the screens flashing train schedules - spotlighted the name of the head of a midsize industrial products maker.

But he was not promoting his company or its goods.

The Shanghai Railway Transportation Court put his name in lights earlier this month because his company failed to pay a 2.9 million yuan ($433,000) debt. A separate court in Zhejiang province issued an order freezing his company's assets two years ago for money owed to China Construction Bank.