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To any YB who could help us SME businessmen First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you all who are elected to the Penang State Assembly.
As a Jelutong constituent, the outcome of the just concluded 12th General Election has been a dream come true for all of us in Penang. Although the party (DAP) is not short of congratulations at this moment, especially from many corporate figures and local big businessmen whom securing an appointment with them were uphill task before the election, the congratulations from grass root is far more meaningful. What I would like to highlight to you are cases which plight the local small businessmen, especially from SMEs, and also normal working people like myself. We have been indebted to business partners when the business was down immediate after the 1997 crisis, and the cases were brought to court. The proceedings were recorded without our knowledge to some private credit rating agencies, one of them is CTOS. The record, in turn was sold to financial institutions, what ensued was that the future loan applications were denied based on the ground that our credit worthiness was dented. The debt was finally settled, and the creditor has allowed and issued a release letter stating that I was released for good. In order to clear the name and ensure future loan applications, I sent a letter (the release letter from the creditor) to CTOS, to inform that the debt has been cleared and therefore the name should be erased from the record. This is to ensure that a small businessman like me, and some of my partners, could “survive” again. However, the request has been turned down, through a letter issued by CTOS, stating that the record will not be erased from the databank. The excuse is that the record will be referred again and again by future referrers, as this is a better way than without any record at all (it means without CTOS, there is never a credit record book). When pressed further, it is revealed that the record was taken from local newspaper, whenever there is a proceeding, and then sold to the private financial institutions. Our concern is that, even with the debt settled, we are still burdened with our poor credit rating, and therefore, we are still not eligible for the loans, or the names are forever branded as poor rated debtors and are not entitled to apply for fresh loan. Many complaints and dissatisfactions are channeled to the company through explanations since the settlement, but the eventual business profits are still the most important; selling our credit records to financial institutions without our knowledge, even this compromises our reputation and capability in future dealing. Under this environment, we find that normal citizens, working populations, are pressed, and are constantly stepped by these big corporate businessmen while building their huge profit. We have no where to turn to channel our frustration and highlight this unfairness except asking help from you to investigate if the current regulations allow the existence of such company like CTOS, can it sell the records to the financial institutions (although now, they have to consult individual before logging into the personal record, the institutions seldom do so), should the record of the settled debts be erased permanently from the CTOS, and what other alternatives we could take in order to erase the records. If need arises, I can equip YB with the necessary letters and documents to support the arguments. From Jonny Chan
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The Blogs 
The credit agencies must be reliable and the govt must be able to monitor their activities as well.
In developed countries, public debts (with or without settlements) are NOt allowed to be shown after 7 years or so. This is to give to those who was not able to manage their finance well enough anoher chance.
Does Chapter 13 ring any bell to anyone? Once u declare bankcrupcy, you are a free man again without further debt obligations and the record will be erased ater 10 years i believe.
Cheers folks