Coruscation

If migrants spent heavily, lenders encouraged them. Traditionally, credit card use was low (in part because of Islamic strictures against charging interest), but banks spotted a new market and moved aggressively.

With foreign banks like HSBC and Citigroup fighting locals for market share, the number of cards leapt to four million in 2008, a fivefold increase in five years, according to the Lafferty Group, a London research firm. But the country lacks a reliable credit bureau, so lenders could not tell how many cards or how much debt the borrowers carried.

"Banks were falling over themselves to lend, and they didn't have proper credit checks," said Andrew Neeson, a Lafferty analyst.

Courted with gifts and teaser rates, few borrowers understood the costs. The average interest rate in the Emirates last year, at 36 percent, was more than twice the global average, and banks routinely add another 10 percent for disability and death insurance. With penalties, some workers borrowed at rates of 50 percent or more.

Anyone can be tempted by easy credit, but migrants raised in poverty can find the glittering malls here especially intoxicating.

"The first time I used my card, I felt amazed," Ms. Naces said. "It's a feeling of excitement, power -- greatness even."

Rex Arcenio, a Filipino optometrist, accepted a gold card because it came with a Montblanc pen and a limousine ride to the airport for his annual leave.

"It was like a status symbol," he said.

He ran up $50,000 in debt -- for his children's education, his brother's cancer treatment and a house in Manila -- and was briefly jailed.

Technically, debtors go to jail for bouncing the blank "security checks" they must sign when accepting a card. If borrowers fail to pay, banks can deposit the checks for the sum owed, and bouncing a check is a crime.

Whether foreign or Emirati, borrowers must repay the debt after leaving jail, though banks often accept reduced terms.