I run a business and would like to stress that I am now financially stable. There was a time in my life, however, when I was in dire financial difficulties. I had to borrow quite heavily to pay towards my commitments and hence was slow in repaying my bank loans.

Then my big break came and I started repaying all my creditors one by one. There was this one financial institution, however, that was really having a ball with my loan account. Since I was six months in arrears, they sent bill collectors to my house, called up my handphone repeatedly and threatened legal action. They had sent me one reminder and that was it! There was no demand letter sent to me ever after that.

In order to cover for the arrears and stop the harassment, I started paying twice the monthly loan amount. After nearly a year repaying the loan by this method, one day, they sent a summons to my office address. This in spite of my on-time repayment schedule! When I called them up, they said that even though I had been paying extra, it would not be taken into account to cover the arrears. I still needed to pay the six months arrears separately.

I do not know what this banking system is all about. So I made some payments but lo and behold, after three months there came another summons telling me that a new court date had been fixed and that I should attend it or they would make judgment in default! I was in arrears of some interest amounting to RM358. Can you imagine that!

In the meantime, I needed to get a car and applied for a loan. Of course, it was rejected because now I was on Ctos' blacklist. In this country, that is the ultimate crime. My loan got rejected and the rest is history.

I have repeatedly called the bank, their lawyers and asked them for a withdrawal letter of the suit brought against me. Their lawyers told me that they would do that automatically since I have already settled the outstanding amount but they have still not given me anything in writing to date.

So now I want to ask the CEO of Ctos - was his rummaging of my private life ie, my financial status, in whatever way he chose to do it to subject me to Ctos blacklist done in a fair way? Where does this leave me? What does Bank Negara have to say on the conduct of the financial institution and of the way I was blacklisted by Ctos?

For the rest of my life, I will be reminded of the time when I had to go through a bad patch in my life because of this ridiculous listing. Will we not get a reprieve, we mortals who had the audacity to be in financial difficulties?

If anyone has the right to blacklist, it should only be the one bank that we are in arrears with and not any other institution. They have no right to pry into our private lives.