TheBarbarian

By the way, almost All Thai people use their birthday as PIN code, so at least that part is understandable. Ask your friends their pin will always start with 25..

What a nonsense story. his card was in the car, probably with a sticky note on it with the PIN code. Than the bank was closed, obviously never realized that you could simply phone a 24 hour call center. And yes you still can dial the TOT for information, or DTAC or AIS.

How sad... but how many have been closed due the sight of soldiers killing people in the street? How many businesses have been closed because of the airport occupation and how many have been closed due to the incompetence of Abhisit's boss Suthep? Lots more, the difference is that it is pretty convenient to complain when business is bad with this bunch of yellow shirt lovers, they will pay out and they can easily do so by cutting the absurd military budget.

<br>I don't think anyone was forced to live in Pattaya. Everyone has their own reasons for living there and it's nobody else's business . If you don't like it - don't go there - simple. You don't need to slag it off at every opportunity.<br><br>As Pattaya has probably the greatest concentration of farangs than any other city in Thailand - the odds are that it will have the greatest number of 'incidents' involving farangs - that is hardly an excuse to critisise everyone else who lives there, as if it were a disgusting place. Some people may think so - fine, we may not like where you choose to live but don't look for every opportunity to tell you what a horrible place it is.<br>

<br><br>I agree with you that the number of incidents can expected to be higher when it involves foreigners. But I am pretty sure that if you look at the number of incidents per 1000 visitors or so that it will baffle you how far they are off from the average. It is of course no coincidence that Interpol has opened a office in Pattaya. It is of course more likely that a big time criminal goes to Pattaya than he will go to let;s say Udon Thani of Si-Sa-Ket. He or she will find already big foreign networks that are in place, there is lots of fun that attracts the wrong people. But surely not everybody living in Pattaya or surrounding areas are criminals. Still the odds that you will find more big time criminals and desperate people who fell in love with an entertainer and lost everything are far higher in Pattaya than even in Bangkok.

Will there be a follow up to this story as to where the money and equipment goes ( refunds) or will it all be "dissipated" ?

There will be no follow up except by the prosecution who will make a deal. These people will get send home after a short sentence for immigration offenses (working without a work permit) unless Thai citizens have been duped, but I think that is unlikely. It will all end just like the huge Chiangmai explosion ten years ago where potassium caused an entire village to disappear. The owner (Taiwanese) was arrested, the news papers claimed he was on the run. While he was actually held in remand till he had paid a huge amount to certain people after which he was put on a plane and showed up in Hong Kong.

What exactly is this fraud?? Calling to people and asking them to transfer money to an account? Well....I would call that begging....not fraud.....????

No they mostly dupe mainland Chinese people in giving them their electronic banking details. I think that the Chinese authorities are getting sick of it and have requested action. But even a crook does understand that when somebody is shaving you, you sit tide and wait till the problems have passed. They are obviously in need of a big Chinese community (You know the yellow shirt like people who are quite good in fraud and are mostly Chinese). They could still go to a few other Asian countries which large Chinese speaking communities used to fraud like Indonesia, where they can recruit new staff.

Thai people must have lost money, otherwise very little is done. There are still numerous boiler rooms active, where only foreigners lose their money. I assume they pay only the right people. Maybe it is time for the Taiwanese to close shop and start doing it somewhere else, they arrest people them in the hundreds.

It makes good sense to be very careful convicting this man on the forums. 90 years? 4 sisters, if one runs away he is out of breath. A father who files a complaint , it could be just as easy money that is behind it. Let the courts decide. I assume there must be plenty of medical evidence if rape has taken place. 

7000 years ago? 2000 years ago? How did they measure it? According the Suthep Scale or through the Newin scale? Depending on how much kickback is required.

A good name for a an official (Bandit). I am under no doubt that we will get to see beautiful growth figures from now on. I am only a bit afraid that the head of the greek statistical office is running that of Thailand for a few years now.

Unfortunately the police is as unreliable as the potential fraudster themselves. While staying in a Bangkok hotel my hotel room was completely ransacked, a Video and a Photo camera stolen and although the police came with an impressive number of people who even opened the ceiling to see if valuables were hidden there (Probably to check if I had not found a way to store them) they refused to make a report for over a month. It cost me five trips to the station and a sum of money to get the report. Reason: Crime is registered, it reflects badly on them and thus they are always questioning the person that is reporting it.

This was many years ago and on my very first trip to thailand my European girlfriend was very upset, Four years ago during the world cup I stayed in a Pattaya hotel. I woke up from the sound of a closing door, my door. I rushed downstairs and nobody had anyone seen coming out of the building. My passport, my wallet with 12,000 Baht and my credit-cards were gone. I had no insurance so no need to commit any fraud. Still they were treating me as if I had stolen it myself. Two weeks later the staff was robbed by one of their own they found my passport and my empty wallet inside his room. Still the police refused to make a report. Unfortunately for me the staff that was robbed too insisted that the person was arrested (it worked out he had gambling debts) Unfortunate because it took me close to 11 appearances in the court room, 10 of which were postponed. So I will never ever report a crime anymore. After all when you steal enough in this country you become the most wanted son in law and you can become Prime Minister.

Let's wait till he is convicted before having an opinion. Something is fishy here. Why searching his home NEXT week? All the time in the world to plant or remove stuff I would think.

Wasn't this the man that was working for many years with the Chiangmai police? In that case it is just a matter of following Thailand's dual justice system. Completely within expectations.

"... prohibits the selling of alcohol in temples, hospitals, pharmacies, government agencies and public parks... "

After being here for years can't remember ever seeing any for sale in these places! But the fine will really deter me - 3,000, wow - heavy man!!!

The Pharmacy in our village sells beer and probably will continue to do so.

No it is the new cabinet. new people means new policies. New policies in thailand means doing things the way they have done if for over 100 years, crackdown stealing and going back to a winter sleep after three months, in order to wait for a new person to take over after which the cycle will repeat itself. It are the hallmarks of a failed state.

It would make perfectly good sense for this website not to make any mention anymore about crackdowns. Just mention that Thailand is a banana republic, and that in banana republics every time when they has been a change in government or when a cabinet reshuffle have taken place in order to leave the opportunity for other interest groups to steal a bit more from the Thai people, there will be a new policy a new crackdown that always comes with blackmail and money demands.

I am not sure but I would think that their is also a new minister for injustice in Thailand. Just mention next time: New ministers on the block, new crackdowns, keep change in your pocket.

No security fears whatsoever. It is just the very long toes of the Thai old money people who cannot handle the loss of an icon. The new ICT minister immediately showed off his reconciliation skills by threatening to hit Thaksin on the head for selling the company. In the circles of the old money who think they own the money and the poor are their virtual slaves here is never any lack on rhetoric. Singapore is more stabile than Thailand. The company is therefore in better hands with temasek than with the Thai government.which is corrupted to the bone.

Very good, there is obviously a need for clean politicians. Dirtier than those of The Democrat party and Bhumjaitai are unthinkable. But new blood is always better than all those established crooked political families from left to right in the Thai political landscape.

WOW world news, Nation News 10 USD per person. Maybe the Bangkok police should grow up and close down all those gambling dens in their respective districts from which they themselves make lots of money. Those do far more harm.But because this nice site is affiliated with the establishments mouthpiece news papers I gently take off my head and say "Chapeau" keep on the good work, maybe motorists are no longer extorted now the upstanding men are busy.

These upstanding men were probably targeting other upstanding residents of this sleazy resort town.

It seems that the brains of Thai visa readers have been deteriorated from the long time that they have been exposed to the intellectually lazy and slavish way the Thai media do their reporting. They are like dead row prisoners they have no understanding anymore of what is going on outside. Only very simple people would be able to call the reporting of the international press biased towards the reds and that of the local press fair. How can you call something fair when you close down each and every website, newspaper, TV and radio station that reports something that is not to your liking.

I bet that all those people who voted "Fair" for the Thai press and "biased" towards the redhsirts for the international press find their shoe-prints on the toilet seat and use toilet paper with texts that the airport occupation was fun... I personally use toilet paper with the picture of Thai ministers that wipes better.

Because the journalists form the Nation are not biased they forgot to tell that Apichatpong has lambasted the Thai censors in Cannes and called the Thai leaders "Mafia". At least the Post had the balls to report on these issues, and also the fact that Thailand will probably not see his movie because of the censorship laws. Tres bizarre.

This government must be dreaming that they will get the situation in hand. They have staged a military coup and asked their corrupted friends in court to send two governments home on very flimsy grounds. We can be pretty sure that if the DP will not be banned anger will spiral out of control.

Because it is good for business and tourism. That is why we call protesters terrorists and terrorists in the South "insurgents". The DP would have better looked into the fact why there were no attacks in the South during the murderous attempts to kill people in Bangkok. Are their certain people who used the opportunity?

This is the kind of "proof" that will never stand up in any court, not even in Burma, but in Thailand it does, because the judges are sitting on any given chair. A youtube video? What a joke, it could have been cut fifteen times and taken out of context.

I could make a Youtube video in which it appears that Suthep or Abhisit told the people to set fire to it. It is just a matter of cutting and pasting.

Besides if I tell the yellow shirts to occupy the airports and they do it, am I to blame?

Looks like they are the same as the yellow shirts. After the government house occupation they had so much weapons that a third world country would have ammunition for three years.

Ernie (Suthep) and Bert (Abhisit) have another reason to do nothing about Thailand's problems. They are only talking just like chuan always did. Lots of talking and no action. they could have attempted to re conciliate when they stole the power of the people through the courts, than they could have done it after the Pattaya summit and now they could start again. But what is more interesting than making a mess out of it, staying in power fill up your pockets and than next year when the next violent outbreak is there you start talking about reconciliation again. It is an illegal government not the biggest arms cash in the world can change a thing about that.