Fraudulent to encourage evidence of debt? (8)
I believe the answer is:
spurious
'fraudulent' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'encourage evidence of debt?' is the wordplay.
'encourage' becomes 'spur' (spur can mean to encourage).
'evidence of debt?' becomes 'IOUs' (IOU's or I Owe You's).
'spur'+'ious'='SPURIOUS'
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for spurious that I've seen before include "Bogus" , "fraudulent" , "Contrived" , "Artificial and phoney" , "Inauthentic" .)