Merepek

I was at the car showroom the other day and I found out some queer ‘rules’ regarding a new purchase and I can recall the following:-

1/ You are ‘encouraged’ to take up a much loan/financing as possible, preferably up to 90% to 95% of the purchase price subject to as much as your monthly income can support.

2/ You are ‘encouraged’ to sign up for the longest loan/financing tenure and the ‘ideal’ would be 84 months and I have heard of some banks giving up to 108 months.

**roll eyes** Can the car last that long?? 9 years???

3/ And of course, for the national cars, (new registration) the banks charge the highest financing rate and I was told it is set by the ‘higher-ups’ and it is non-negotiable. I was offered a rate of 3.88% per annum, as against some other vehicle models which come with rates as low as 1.88% per annum. Lidat wan ar?

4/ For this car that I am interested in, the car company only allow all it’s customers to charge to their credit card a maximum of RM5,000. Why this peculiar rule, I asked? The salesperson was stumped for awhile and then he gave me the evergreen no-brainer, “COMPANY POLICY”.

I needled the salesperson a bit further and he then cautiously indicated that the Company has to pay the 2% merchant fee to the card company and thus, have this ruling to impose a ceiling amount allowable to charge through credit card. They are not willing to pay anything in excess of RM100. Aiyah…lidat pun boleh meh?

On the one hand you have the credit card companies enticing/encouraging you to sign…and sign …and sign and just charge as much as possible to your cards…ya, just charge until it hurts…and they keep topping-up the credit-limit… but on the other hand, you have companies and establishments ‘discouraging’ you to do so by ‘capping/limiting’ the amount chargeable. Why bother to increase the limit????

Apa macam, huh?