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05:51 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
September 2, 2015
I love those colorful, warm, friendly ads where banks offer the great unwashed masses loans to make a better life. You get the good feeling that someone cares. Housing, cars, personal loans, educational loans, loans on earlier loans all offered by your friendly, next door banker who gets up in the morning and has his corn flakes sloshed over with the milk of human kindness, his whole life a dedication to your comfort..
The ads fill me with wonderment. Look, how understanding they are. No payback for three months, low interest rates, easy installments, making your dreams come true, zillion times your salary, migoodness, who says financial institutions don’t have a heart.
So moved, many of us scamper off to the bank in the hope that life will now get a spring in its step and we are looking forward to the warmth of the reception.
What you get is forms. And more forms. And a slew of questions that make the Spanish Inquisition look like a romp in the park. Where has love gone, what happened to the ‘wouldn’t it be lovely’ content of the ad. These guys here obviously don’t read their own publicity. They are cold and all sneery and lip curling, if you get my drift. After they have stopped laughing at your gall in asking for a loan they want guarantees and letters from the company, from the sponsor, from your great grandparents, they want salary certificates, everything short of fingerprints though I am told that could be in the offing.
And then there are guys who owe $120 million and they scarper with it and no one asks why somebody didn’t wake up when the first ten million went down the drain. And the second ten million and how do you lose that much money?
For us mere mortals, one day delay in repayment and the phone doesn’t stop ringing. Pay now or regret forever. My bank called me on my credit card and said I had to pay 6 bucks. Six bucks. Sixxxxxx bucks.
Clearly, it is different strokes for different folks.
Thing is we are stupid. We should ask for such huge loans that we practically own the banks. That’s the way to go.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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