14/03/2025
The recent trending electricity theft incident reminded me of a previous customer, Mr. C, who bought a condo for 900k. He searched for over a year to find this unit, and it was 100k below market value. He approached me to borrow a loan. He’s a 35-year-old professional with a salary close to 20k and an existing commitment of only RM2,000.
On the surface, everything seemed fine. But… before the loan was even officially submitted, it failed the scoring. I was like, "WTF..." Later, when we checked the CTOS report, it turned out there was a court case—from TNB (Tenaga Nasional Berhad).
After digging deeper, we found out that Mr. C had previously rented out a unit to someone, and the tenant was caught stealing electricity by TNB. However, Mr. C ignored TNB’s penalty notice. As a result, TNB escalated the case and took the homeowner (my customer) to court.
For the past two years, Mr. C was completely unaware of this because the property was rented out. All the penalty notices and court summons were sent to that address, and the TNB website/app didn’t show any information either. Fortunately, the electricity-stealing tenant was decent enough to admit fault and willing to take responsibility by paying off the fines.
However, the damage was already done. Because of this lawsuit, Mr. C’s credit scoring took a huge hit. Even if a bank was willing to approve the loan, he’d be charged a high interest rate. So, what could he do? Luckily, Mr. C married a capable wife who’s also a high-income professional with low commitments. In the end, they applied for the loan under his wife’s name, and everything went through smoothly 😂.
Here’s a piece of advice: don’t steal electricity and keep a close eye on your tenants. Even stealing a few thousand bucks could land you in a lot of trouble.
#tnb