Fawked Network

Last week I was bored out of my mind so I decided to tag along with a few of my Ah Long (Loan Shark) buddies while they went on their rounds. Normally there are nothing worth talking about because collecting money from borrowers are like attending funerals. It’s a really solemn affair.

On that particular night we were suppose to go collect money from a burger seller. He’s one of those guys that sell burgers by the road side. Story goes, he borrowed RM5,000 from my friends to set up his stall. Loan Sharking is a tricky business.

Lets take this scenario as an example. Guy borrows RM5,000. Interest rate is 20%. In truth, borrower should get RM5,000 and pay back RM6,000 right? Wrong! You wanna borrow RM5,000 they tell you that interest is 20% so that’s RM5,000 minus 20% and you only get RM4,000. They call that “cash on hand”. Then when your payment is due, you have to pay them RM5,000 + 20% = RM6,000. I’m no math genius but assuming you manage to pay up within the time given you would have paid 50% interest. You might think “Oh wow, Ah Long’s are real mother fuckers cheating people like that!”. I assure you, banks do it too. They call it due diligence fee, stamping fee, lawyers fee, bribe the officer fee and a bunch of other fees.

So this burger guy borrowed RM5,000 and he was suppose to pay RM6,000 in a week. In a fucking week! I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking about. Again I’m not math genius. Nowadays it cost about RM3.50 per burger special. Assuming he makes RM1.50 per burger. That means, he has to sell about 4,000 fucking burgers before he makes 6,000. In a week lets assume he works 7 days a week. He has to sell an average of 571 burgers a day. Unless he substitutes his pepper for cocaine, he’s not going to be able to sell that many burgers in a night. I doubt McDonalds can sell that many burgers in a day.

As expected he couldn’t pay up by the dateline. So normal procedure would be to charge him 20% of the total loan. Based on the scenario at hand, if he can’t come up with the lump sum by dateline he would have to pay RM1,000 every week and the loan will be extended for another week. If he has no money or he serviced less than 20% of the required interest, he would be charged interest on top of the interest. Assuming he only paid RM500, the remaining RM500 would be added to his total loan and become RM5,500. Next week he would have to pay RM1,100. If he can’t pay any money his loan would become RM6,700 in 2 weeks. In about a month his loan would be doubled from the initial loan. It’s a death trap, they don’t want you to pay up. That’s the trick. The trick is to get you servicing the loan for the rest of your life. So when you can’t pay up what do you do? You run away.

So this burger dude ran away. He carted his burger stall away and went to open it some where else. I think he forgot that the Ah Longs knew where he lived. But since these are some nice Ah Longs, they didn’t mess up his house or anything. They trailed him to his new burger stall. Since I was bored, my friend let me speak to the burger guy. And this is how it goes:

Fawked: Hello friend.

Burger Man: Hi, what burger you want?

Fawked: You owe some people some money. I’m here to collect that money.

Burger Man: I have no money boss.

Fawked: It’s ok, we can come to a compromise.

Burger Man: Please don’t hurt me.

Fawked: But you ran away, that’s not nice.

Burger Man: I’m sorry.

Fawked: So here’s the deal. You paid interest only once for RM1,000. Then after that you disappeared.

Burger Man: I have a wife and 12 kids, don’t kill me please.

Fawked: Shut up and listen.

Burger Man: Ok…

Fawked: I’m a nice guy. I just want my money back.

Burger Man: Ok… I agree, if somebody buy my burger and don’t pay I also want my money.

Fawked: That’s right. You been missing for 3 months. You borrowed RM5,000 am I right?

Burger Man: Yes you are right.

Fawked: To date you owe us RM37,150…

Burger Man: Fuck!

Fawked: Yeah, fucked exactly.

Burger Man: You better just kill me.

Fawked: I got a better deal for you.

Burger Man: Ok…

Fawked: You stop running. I’ll stop the interest. I just want the money back.

Burger Man: Ok…

Fawked: Lets set it at RM6,500. Fair?

Burger Man: OK! No more interest?

Fawked: No more.

Burger Man: Ok.

Fawked: I want payment every day. Somebody will come collect it from you.

Burger Man: How much a day?

Fawked: How much can you pay? Business is good.

Burger Man: Not that good, burger don’t make much.

Fawked: Whatever, how much can you pay?

Burger Man: I can pay RM5 a night.

Fawked: What the fuck? I make you a good deal and you tell me a fucking joke? RM5 a night, it will take you 1,300 nights or 3.5 years to finish paying me. Are you a fucking comedian?

Burger Man: No I’m not a comedian sorry…

Fawked: Ok start paying up tonight. RM20 please?

Burger Man: I just opened stall… I don’t have RM20 yet…

Fawked: Do you have 6 burgers than?

Burger Man: Yes…

Fawked: Then make me 6 burger specials. RM3.50 each?

Burger Man: Yea…

Fawked: Ok so it’s RM21 for 6 burgers. Here’s your RM1.

If you think Ah Longs are bad, yea well they are bad mmmkay. But you borrowed the money in the first place and this is the kind of shit Ah Longs have to deal with everyday. People running away and fucking comedians.

Writers note: As of this writing, I’m no longer friends with the Ah Longs. Don’t report me to Michael Chong or whatever.