Bank staffer arrested after siphoning tens of millions of baht from Pattaya expats

[scubascuba3]

1 minute ago, The Theory said:

Per month means the interest will be deposited to the account monthly, it does not mean 42% annually !!

 

are you splitting hairs? you don't think 42% annual is on the high side? or are you saying it was 3.5% annual but paid monthly? 

[FritsSikkink]

4 hours ago, redwood1 said:

And by the way    3.5% X 12 = 42% interest a year.... 

No, it is more as you get interest over interest.

[AlfHuy]

2 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

No, it is more as you get interest over interest.

Called "compounding".

[The Theory]

5 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

are you splitting hairs? you don't think 42% annual is on the high side? or are you saying it was 3.5% annual but paid monthly? 

Monthly does not mean anything in the world of interest. 
and monthly interest means the interest will be deposited to the account monthly (interest usually paid by financial institutions by the end of contract, not monthly). 

not 3.5%x12 ????????

 

[wangotango]

4 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

From that article:

 

"The branch apparently had two senior managers, one was Mr. Gob. The other bank manager, a female, told investors yesterday that she had no idea about the situation and hadn’t asked any questions about the hundreds of investors queueing up to visit Mr. Gob at the start of each month."

 

Amazing Thailand!

Mr Gob<deleted>e !????

[Clydesdale]

 "Was the head bank manager unaware of the assistant manager's actions? Is that possible?" > very unlikely, but how often does bad/illegal behaviour by colleagues get reported ? The Manager has to be fired by the bank for inadequate supervision. If the Manager was aware then he/she is complicit.

[FritsSikkink]

8 minutes ago, AlfHuy said:

Called "compounding".

That word is too difficult for a lot of people.

[scubascuba3]

2 minutes ago, The Theory said:

Monthly does not mean anything in the world of interest. 
and monthly interest means the interest will be deposited to the account monthly (interest usually paid by financial institutions by the end of contract, not monthly). 

not 3.5%x12 ????????

 

I think you're getting mixed up, the Tiger story says 3.5% per month

[The Theory]

1 minute ago, scubascuba3 said:

I think you're getting mixed up, the Tiger story says 3.5% per month

No

because you did not read my original post and the "quote" !!!'

Ok

you are absolutely right. 

whatever
 

[sead]

And their Thai wife's...... 

[Fex Bluse]

 

2 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

Problems are many.

 

These old farang blokes are often not too clued up.

 

They marry and date and open joint account with hookers and other lowly Thai people (almost never decent Thai women). I know "she only work cashier"... sure

 

Their Thai lady companions often constantly drip money from their accounts, constantly buying stuff or giving money to "cousin" or some other handyman, overpaying said "cousin" ... for some reason

 

The blokes almost never audit their accounts

 

Thailand in general is a very low trust society where nobody should be trusted implicitly, least of all people in positions of authority -- like bankers. Thais know this, but Westerners take for granted.

 

=

 

This all equals a recipe for disaster.

 

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

The ones you listed are not anything to do with this fraud really... and you make a lot  of generalizations.... but I got one too..... judging by that crowd I am surprised they have tens of millions of baht of free money to 'invest'

 

I rather think all the points I mentioned are relevant. Of course they are indeed generalizations but, looking at the photo, VERY highly likely to be fairly accurate. Come on, we all know how it is here.

 

Key points -

 

Hooker girlfriends and wives constantly funnel money out of the accounts making them difficult to audit. For example, if a guy doesn't spend much or takes our money in lump sums to spend on things but has a lady who is constantly transacting (after which he generally does not check his account every time), that makes knowing at any one time how much money is in the account difficult. This is common sense.

 

Westerners not generally being aware that in Thailand danger MORE OFTEN lurks in places it occurs LESS OFTEN in developed countries is also a huge risk. In most developed Western countries you'd hardly encounter a person in your entire life who will have had money stolen from them by inside people in a bank. It happens but far less frequently because of many things - more checks and balances, fewer destitute people, harsher penalties. This, too, is common sense.

[Aussiepeter]

Dodgy behaviour by staff in Thai banks does not surprise me at all. Back in the early nineties I did an army posting in LOS. My salary was paid each fortnight into my bank in Australia and then, wired direct to a Thai bank. For months, every time I tried to get money out at the counter the bank would say "it's not here yet", for up to two, or even three weeks at a time. I contacted my bank in Oz, who confirmed that it had been wired on schedule and should have been available, at worst, the next day. They also told me that there had been many complaints on this subject about Thai banks and that they had reports of some bank staff in LOS playing the 'short-term' money market, using funds in accounts belonging to foreigners. I did not ask them how they knew this. I contacted the bank in LOS again the day after my next fortnightly pay was wired, only this time I went in uniform, with a senior-ranking Thai army Officer to sort it out. Their answer, "Sir, it has arrived in Bangkok, but is stuck in the wire between there and here" - here being Chiang Mai. After that little doozy of an answer,  I closed my Thai bank account immediately and just used my credit card to get cash at atm's for the duration of my posting.

[hoopsandyoyo]

...considering it occurred at the branch, why is the bank/company not liable for the actions of it’s employee?

It says nothing about reimbursement 

[Andy from Kent]

 

This clearly never happened!

 

There's not one single finger pointing.         ????      

[Clydesdale]

3 minutes ago, hoopsandyoyo said:

...considering it occurred at the branch, why is the bank/company not liable for the actions of it’s employee?

It says nothing about reimbursement 

The bank clearly is liable for the conduct of its employees on its premises. The bank will need to reimburse.

[RJRS1301]

Where were the auditors in all this?

[scubascuba3]

Just now, RJRS1301 said:

Where were the auditors in all this?

they're the last people to find anything, their job depends on finding nothing 

[Rimmer]

An off topic post removed, topic is not about KBank shares

[ctxa]

2 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

Problems are many.

 

These old farang blokes are often not too clued up.

 

They marry and date and open joint account with hookers and other lowly Thai people (almost never decent Thai women). I know "she only work cashier"... sure

 

Their Thai lady companions often constantly drip money from their accounts, constantly buying stuff or giving money to "cousin" or some other handyman, overpaying said "cousin" ... for some reason

 

The blokes almost never audit their accounts

 

Thailand in general is a very low trust society where nobody should be trusted implicitly, least of all people in positions of authority -- like bankers. Thais know this, but Westerners take for granted.

 

=

 

This all equals a recipe for disaster.

You’ve made very good points here. 
 

I’ve had more than just a couple a hundred thousand between Bangkok Bank and Krungsri for several years and never ever had a single trouble. 
 

But not a single time I have trusted their investment advice. Why? 
 

 1. I don’t trust bankers, not in Thailand, not in China, not in Spain, not in the UK.

 

2. If things actually turn out as they claim and the returns of that investment are good, I will have to abide by the Thai comprehensive tax. Which adding all together might end up causing me to pay close to 30% tax on those investment returns. What’s the point? 
 

I see Thailand as a good way to keeping a part of your savings (others being cryptos, cash in your home country, banks in other countries....) . But forget about investment in bonds, mutual funds, blah blah... 

 

And then there’s the obvious, set a daily limit for card payments, daily limit for transfers (set it rather low, as whenever you need to transfer a large sume you can change), check your account movement’s daily, don’t give access to your account to a  hooker, and, unless there’s no other choice, do not let the bank workers know how much money you have in your account.

[eastendanto]

14 hours ago, ctxa said:

Good that they rejected me when I tried to open account with them for "not having work permit"

If the assistant bank manager was the ring leader shows the complete lack of controls of this bank's checks and balances. The bank manager says (off the record, but reported in newspaper interview from a quote by a victim)  "she had no idea what was going on". Either lying or not fit for the job. What chance of the victims getting their money back.

[ctxa]

1 minute ago, eastendanto said:

If the assistant bank manager was the ring leader shows the complete lack of controls of this bank's checks and balances. The bank manager says (off the record, but reported in newspaper interview from a quote by a victim)  "she had no idea what was going on". Either lying or not fit for the job. What chance of the victims getting their money back.

I would say high, with police involved and this story going viral. I am sure HQ will bite the bullet and cover that money. Even if they never even saw it.

[Enzian]

5 hours ago, whaleboneman said:

I think the 800k baht should be in an account without debit card access.

This might be an advantage of a Foreign Currency Deposit account, which I use to keep the 800K equivalent. My Thai (mostly owned by Japanese) bank doesn't even offer a debit card with such an account. The problem is they don't provide a standard bank book also, just a magnetic stripe ID card which can only be used by a teller or manager for verification. I go in on the last day (or close) of every month and have a random employee print out a statement of balance. 

[Neeranam]

2 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

Problems are many.

 

These old farang blokes are often not too clued up.

 

They marry and date and open joint account with hookers and other lowly Thai people (almost never decent Thai women). I know "she only work cashier"... sure

 

Their Thai lady companions often constantly drip money from their accounts, constantly buying stuff or giving money to "cousin" or some other handyman, overpaying said "cousin" ... for some reason

 

The blokes almost never audit their accounts

 

Thailand in general is a very low trust society where nobody should be trusted implicitly, least of all people in positions of authority -- like bankers. Thais know this, but Westerners take for granted.

 

=

 

This all equals a recipe for disaster.

I knew a Norwegian retiree around 1998, who married a bank worker in Pattaya. He was worth approximately 1 billion baht. Not all pr*£t*$es are low society. 

[sydneyjed]

The saying 'If it sounds too good to be true..it probably is'. immediately springs to mind!A similar case now being highlighted in Sydney Australia where a woman replicated Commonwealth Bank statements for years which gave the unsuspecting victims the impression they were making big returns on their money with her when she was actually siphoning it off and using the proceeds in a 'Ponzi Scheme 'to finance her own extravagant life style at their expense.Ran out the door 'jogging' one morning and never been seen since..20 million AUD vanished!!

[Neeranam]

20 minutes ago, ctxa said:

2. If things actually turn out as they claim and the returns of that investment are good, I will have to abide by the Thai comprehensive tax. Which adding all together might end up causing me to pay close to 30% tax on those investment returns. What’s the point? 
 

I see Thailand as a good way to keeping a part of your savings (others being cryptos, cash in your home country, banks in other countries....) . But forget about investment in bonds, mutual funds, blah blah... 

Are you sure it's 30%?

 

I made quite a bit with TMB Set 50 dividend account and paid little tax. 

 

I've never heard of any law taxing crypto profits yet. 

[RJRS1301]

43 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

they're the last people to find anything, their job depends on finding nothing 

Not in the world of business I have been in .

They are a safety stops and required by law to sign off on annual reports for direcctors and shareholders

[GAZZPA]

13 hours ago, Jingthing said:

I can see there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Of course it's horrible that many people have lost their money.

On the other hand, as is usual with con man scams in general, they prey on the greed of their victims.

You've have to be a very naive expat or local to actually believe that 3.5 MONTHLY percent return on a bank deposit in Thailand isn't extremely suspect. Danger Will Robinson!

Obviously any perps should have to face the consequences under the law, but I'm wondering, in a situation like this where people weren't putting their money in normal bank financial vehicles, is there really much chance that the bank in question will be legally obligated to pay the money back? 

 

I would think if they invested in a legitimate bank scheme and that lost money they have obviously lost money, however if an employee of the bank is siphoning off their money surely the bank would return this to them?

 

[Enzian]

I decided a couple of years ago to leave Kasikorn bank when a US$9K transfer from my bank in CA got put in my Kasikorn baht account at something like 28 or 29 to the dollar when the going rate was around 31 at the time, and nothing like that had happened before. I couldn't figure out how to make a complaint (though it must have cost me at least a few hundred) so just ate it, and later just closed the account and put the balance in an account at a different bank I used to pay my rent. 

Always monitor and approve the actual rate being used before doing anything. 

[Aussiepeter]

Given the name of the bank employee - you could say that when the foreigners found out what had happened to their money , they were all gobsmacked !

[Percy P]

15 hours ago, CharlieH said:

Probably a few (a lot) of resident expats will be checking their balances/banking affairs shortly in and around Pattaya.

 

This is not the first time this has been publicised about bank staff behaving in this manner.

 

15 hours ago, CharlieH said:

Very unsettling for many.

^{you bet and the Bank  saying  theY will not be refunding the money.}