The messy BPPN

I was a client of ex-BBKU of Bank Bira for credit for car ownership under contract No. 045/CL/0380/08/97, and I had already paid all my installments in July 2000, but the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) or BPPN refused to deliver the ownership book (BPKB) to me, because they claimed I still had to pay a fine of Rp 1,320,000. The fine arose because of the fault of BPPN which I can explain as follows.

1. When the Bank Bira employees were on strike for four months demanding compensation, I always came to Bira office to pay my monthly installment, but they refused to accept my payment, so I told them that I do not want to be fined due to late payment. They said "Of course BPPN would make an exception in this case". During the strike, BPPN also did not make any announcement in any newspaper as to where customers should pay their installment, so I really did not know what to do.

2. After the strike was over, I immediately paid my installments and finally I completed the final payment 17 months later. But BPPN never told me that I had been fined because of the strike, and the fines went on multiplying over a period of 22 months. Even when I asked BPPN Surabaya for a reference to renew my car number certificate (STNK), they also did not tell me anything. I wonder why the IBRA staff recruited by BPPN also did not tell me that I had a problem. Later I understood that they themselves also did not know until December 2000 that the customers were fined because of the strike. What a poor management system for such a giant organization like BPPN! If the IBRA staff recruited by BPPN did not know about this matter, then how could I know that I was fined.

3. The management system of BPPN Jakarta and Surabaya also was quite messy and confusing, because after I finished all my payments, I still had to wait for four months only to check whether I already paid all my installments or not. I wondered why BPPN needed such a long time just to process such simple information, while I heard BPPN paid millions of U.S. dollars to overseas consultants.

4. I already sent a formal letter requesting BPPN to exempt me of all the fines, but they refused my request without any explanation. BPPN really do not care about their mistakes. After waiting in vain for nine months, I was finally forced to pay these fines in April 2001, because I needed the BPKB badly.

I would appreciate a reply from BPPN on this matter. BPPN's hot line "BPPN CARE" turns out to be a hollow slogan, because in fact they never bother about any complaints.

SAMUEL LAZARUS

Surabaya