Tips on how not to do business

My brother and I own a plot of land, about 3.5 acres, somewhere near the new Batang Kali town centre. The land was a former rubber smallholder plantation. I once had tried to replant the land with local fruits but was conned and had to endure with a loss of a few thousand ringgit plus a motorcycle that I bought for the helper. The rubber trees are about 20 over years and not much interest was given on the land as it has hilly terrains, a bit secluded with an access dirt road to it from a distance of a kilometre away from the Batang Kali to Genting Highlands main road (my land is marked with the red arrow and yellow background in the map below).



A few people had approached me to tap the rubber trees, but the yield would be little, about RM50 to RM100 a month. Three months ago, I met a young entrepreneur, let us call him Angah, who owns a company that runs a business on consultancy and agricultural venture namely herbs. The company also extracts and clears rubber trees and then replants trees on the land with higher potential returns. When we first met, he portrayed himself as a vibrant, highly knowledgeable and professional young entrepreneur. I was not impressed as my experience in interviewing employment candidates; action always speaks louder than words. After the first meeting where we explored the venture, we went to visit the land. I showed him the area and asked him to locate the land boundaries for himself, which are marked with planted stones, quite customary from the colonial era. Angah said he would do that with his workers and then would provide me with a quotation.

A week later we met and Angah handed to me a quotation and letter of intent to extract and clear the land. After perusing the documents and listening to what he had said, I told him that he had probably over estimated the land as it was much bigger than what my brother and I really own. Angah then agreed to get a survey done on the land and would provide me with another quotation and letter of intent. I also requested him to provide me contact details of his former customers because I intend to perform a site visit to see for myself how the extraction and replanting were done. Angah agreed and also offered to accompany me, but I told him that I would be travelling extensively for the coming months and the visit has to be done after my return.

I then had several business visits namely to Hong Kong for 3 days contract review, Singapore business meeting day trip, then another Singapore trip for a 3 days course and lastly a 2 weeks training in The Hague, The Netherlands. All these happened in the month of May and June. Somewhere in between my travelling itenary, Angah sent me a text message insisting to have the site visit and claiming RM500 for the land survey. I reminded him of our agreement on the timing of the site visit and declined to pay the land survey cost, as it was suppose to be his business expenses. After all I had already commissioned a survey prior to this and the only thing that Angah needed to do was to locate the land boundaries demarcated by the stones mentioned earlier.

Apparently, Angah was not very pleased with the answer. He transformed himself completely opposite to what he had portrayed to me prior to this. He then became demanding and abusive in his text messages to me. He claimed that I had misinformed him on the actual land area and I failed to pay him the land survey cost as promised. Neither of these was true as I clearly pointed to him his mistakes in his quotation (which was higher than what it should have been) and had given him some pointers on how to locate the land boundaries demarcated by the stones so that he can correctly provide his quotation. Clearly this was not my scheme to con him, more to save him from financial loss.

We then arranged for a meeting to discuss this over. He did not turn up and gave me a call instead. We spoke for more than an hour. He was demanding and abusive throughout the conversation. After the call, I concluded that the only thing he was interested in was to claim the RM500 and not in the work which was supposed to yield him a few thousand ringgit. I then decided enough is enough. I then informed him via text message that I am no longer interested to appoint his company, as I did not have the confidence that he has placed my interest in this venture. I also told him that I would not pay him the RM500, as this claim was not part and parcel of the discussion. He replied with a sarcastic text message that was abusive nonetheless.

It was quite obvious that Angah was more interested in short term business gain. He put a lot of pressure to regain his RM500 but did not pursue the potential long-term business relationship that was to be profitable, as he had informed me. Though he had portrayed himself quite positively in the beginning, but throughout the short business engagement he had with me, he did not possess the realm of business that should be based on trust, goodness, righteousness, truth and positive values. Truly a different experience than what I had with Ah Kow in my earlier posting.