LIFE : ALONG

Those days when people need some money urgently , they would borrowed it from Chetiar. Chetiar one of Indian clan, who wear a white cloth without a shirt with black umbrella and sit in front of small table. Most of them a licence money lender. Today, scenario have changed and they have a different name. Their new name is Along or Abang Long [ Big Brother ] but their main function is still the same, lending money with high interest rate in other word they are blood sucker. Some of them are more professional by advertise their service with flyer and door to door service. You don,t have to wait too long for your loan to approve, You contact them in the morning and they will deliver the money in afternoon with a condition term of payment.

10% will be deducted from the amount borrower have borrowed and the interest will accumulate once borrower fail to pay on time. It's mean that if you borrowed RM1000 and borrower fail to pay on time, the amount can be accumulated to RM 10,000 by their own calculation. When the amount keep on accumulate and borrower can't afford to pay, the easier way is hide yourself from the lender. Then, this is where the problem will be arise. The problem will not be stopped there, it will be extended to the borrower close family by embarrassing them continuously. Two famous method been used by lender to embarrass the borrower, Trowing a red paint on the borrower's house wall and paste a poster with borrower photo around the housing estate.

When I was in Ipoh 1997, I met one of my client. He owned a Mini Market and his main business was a Money lender. He told me that "when they come to us to borrow some money, we told them the interest charge and mode of payment. Most of them are agreed. Some of them a genuine borrower and they pay on time but some of them specially gambler who lose on gambling, these are the person who always create a problem. They aren't pay the loan but run away in hiding. We mean business and we need that money back to cover our business" " we don't force them to take loan from us and we willing to help them but please pay and don't run away from us. We still can negotiate if the borrower can't pay the loan but let us know, so that we can revise back mode of payment". He said.