Encourage debts? It's fraudulent (8)
I believe the answer is:
spurious
'fraudulent' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'encourage debts?' is the wordplay.
'encourage' becomes 'spur' (spurring is a kind of encouraging).
'debts?' becomes 'ious'.
'spur'+'ious'='SPURIOUS'
'it's' is the link.
(Other definitions for spurious that I've seen before include "Forged" , "deceitful!" , "Plausible, but false" , "False, fake" , "fraudulent" .)