A funny story about these scammers calling themselves Buddhist monks here in Thailand. On the way from Isan to Pattaya, my wife and I noticed two monks hitchhiking on the side of the road. One of them was holding out his hand with an empty bottle. Usually, I don't pay attention to these religious figures. But I saw people who seemed to have run out of drinking water, so I stopped the car. We had three bottles of water in the car, and I told my wife to hand them over to them.
Almost immediately, I regretted stopping the car: my wife started kneeling before what were essentially her peers (as "that's the only way to interact with these "holy" people"). And then things got even worse. Apart from their lustful looks at my wife, one of the monks pulled out a whole list of needs: they needed money, not just water. They also wanted to travel somewhere 200 kilometers away from where we stopped and were trying to hitch a ride in our car.
We barely got rid of these beggars and opportunists by giving them 100 baht. I promised myself never to help these con artists again.