This Chinese gentleman has a construction company here in Phnom Penh, before he took a loan due to a client missing some payments, when he took the loan from another Chinese company they took his passport among other collaterals. Since he took a long time to get his passport back he is now a few months in overstay.

He paid already to some fixer 4k for the overstay but I am afraid he might have been scammed (it's been 3 months since he paid the fixer) so now he is almost 6 months in overstay. I tried to contact the ministry and the answers where an absolute mess as they apparently already got his passport trought the fixer but they still want to blacklist him due to the extended overstay, about the money paid nobody acknowledges anything of course.

Quite a hard case, the main point is the avoid for him to be blacklisted as that would ruin is business here.
I made a few calls but this case has already several parties involved making very difficult to unravel the mess.

Any input is welcome.

I have nothing to offer re help but I am amazed he paid 4k for a relatively short overstay unquestionably.

Good on him for being able to run any sort of business for any length of time.

Heartbreaking...

that genius wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 7:07 pm Heartbreaking...

There there.

that genius wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 7:07 pm Heartbreaking...

While seeing a Chinese business fail might not be heartbreaking there are at least 30 khmer families depending on it, without counting those who supplied material to him and expect payment later (as it is common for construction companies) so while for the guy and his family losing their business might not ruin them completely, a lot of local people will very likely get screwed if he gets kicked out.

Jack.R. wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 8:07 pm

that genius wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 7:07 pm Heartbreaking...

While seeing a Chinese business fail might not be heartbreaking there are at least 30 khmer families depending on it, without counting those who supplied material to him and expect payment later (as it is common for construction companies) so while for the guy and his family losing their business might not ruin them completely, a lot of local people will very likely get screwed if he gets kicked out.

Are you suggesting that he was unaware he was heading into troubled waters? "Chinese businessman" might be a stereotype, but some stereotypes exist for a reason, especially here.

I too have Khmer (and their families, by extension) dependent on me being here, and so I make pretty damned sure I'm legit, otherwise I wouldn't sleep at night.

PSD-Kiwi wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 8:49 pm

Jack.R. wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 8:07 pm

that genius wrote: ↑Sat Aug 11, 2018 7:07 pm Heartbreaking...

While seeing a Chinese business fail might not be heartbreaking there are at least 30 khmer families depending on it, without counting those who supplied material to him and expect payment later (as it is common for construction companies) so while for the guy and his family losing their business might not ruin them completely, a lot of local people will very likely get screwed if he gets kicked out.

If your client cared about those 30 Khmer families, he wouldn't have got himself into this mess...I do feel sorry for them...but not your client. He could try lawyering up and appealing the deportation and blacklisting, but it sounds like too many people are involved and its gone too far now...although a donation of several thousand dollars might help.

Maybe is because I spent some time with the gentleman but I think you guys are judging him a bit too harshly.
When the client told him that he was going to be a month late
(which turned into a several months long delay)
on his weekly payments he could have just stopped everything and fired his staff till the client paid up, yet since he trusted the client
(which indeed, even if very late, eventually paid his dues including penalties).
Also my client didn't want to screw his staff, he had a 9 months long contract with them so he kept the construction going out of his pocket first and trough a loan later which made is passport unavailable.

The client made some minor payment along the way but just not enough for him to clear the loan and retrieve his passport.

I think that my client planned to recoup the cost of overstay from the late payment penalty from his own client and didn't realize that he could be blacklisted so he didn't worry too much as the client was continuously promising to pay asap.
He his relatively new here and held a pretty good contract with the building itself as collateral in case of non payment, if he was more ruthless he could have fired all his staff due to force majeure and used his contract to take action against his client,
Yet he is quite an agreeable person imho and so he got himself into this mess.


Since he still willing to to pay is way out of it I will organise a nice dinner with Madam Chou Bun Eng if she is kindly enough to dedicate him some time.
If even she can't find a solution I will be essentially out of ammo, yet I think I will come up with something "out of the box" as last resort if everything else fails.

Anyway thanks for the inputs.