KUALA LUMPUR
LAST week, I received a bizarre text message. Not from anyone I know; just a salesman spelling out in great detail how I could get a credit card from one of the 13 banks that his company represents, and a loan of RM10,000 for cheap.
I deleted the text.
But that was not the end. The phone rang a couple of times after that, but I decided to ignore it. It's tiring.
He's not the only one trying to send thousands of ringgit my way.
Tele-marketers call incessantly, and wont take "no" for an answer. You can hardly walk a few steps in a mall before being accosted by a salesperson selling a credit card. Cheques for thousands of ringgit arrive in the post, begging to be cashed.
The hard sell of credit has become a bane of Malaysian life in the last few years, and the aggressive sales tactics are beginning to feel like harassment.
It seems to have worked, though. There are now about 10 million credit cards in circulation, a huge jump from below two million a decade ago, according to Bank Negara statistics.
The government has now decided to step in. A tax of RM50 (S$20.65) per card is being imposed from this year, it says, to promote prudent spending.
Perhaps so. But what it really needs to do, say consumer activists, is to make it harder to borrow.
This means raising the minimum required annual income from RM18,000 to RM36,000, and setting a tight cap on credit limits for credit cards.
It really should. Forcing banks to be responsible lenders is easier than cajoling people to be responsible borrowers.
I don't suppose, though, that this will stop the incessant phone calls, being ambushed at the malls, and junk mail from banks.