The signature bundle of nearly any Colombian loan includes a blank pagaré (promissory note) with a carta de instrucciones. To many it sounds like a blank cheque, and they sign with a shiver. The mechanism is legal, regulated and logical — but it demands understanding what you authorised.
What each paper is
The pagaré is a negotiable instrument: your unconditional promise to pay, enforceable before a judge without lengthy debate. It's blank because at signing nobody knows what you'd owe if you ever default — outstanding principal, interest, costs. The instruction letter is the manual limiting how it may be filled: only upon default, only with amounts actually owed, at the agreed rate.
The rules protecting you
The lender may only complete the pagaré per the letter — filling it outside instructions is actionable abuse and loses in court with regularity. Demand copies of both signed documents (the entity's obligation, not a favour), and when you pay off the loan, request the note's return or annulment along with the paz y salvo.
Almost nobody does that last step, and it's the one that prevents the ghost-pagaré scare years later.
When to actually worry
With banks and formal fintechs, the mechanism is notarial routine. The alarm is the informal lender demanding a signed pagaré — there's no instruction letter that holds and no superintendency watching, and the paper becomes a tool of unlimited collection. Pagaré plus gota a gota is Colombian credit's most dangerous combination: never sign it.
Three checks before signing
That the instruction letter exists and is signed by both parties. That it states the agreed rate and limits completion to default. And that your copies leave with you that same day. Thirty seconds of reading per paper — the best effort-to-protection ratio in the whole credit process.