Pattaya: 100+ foreigners want their money back from Thai bank - "you stole our future" says one

[1FinickyOne]

4 hours ago, Berkshire said:

A little more detail would be helpful.  Did these people voluntarily invest in this scheme?  Or was it done without their knowledge?  If the latter, it's simply fraud and the bank must redeem.  If the former....might be a little more complicated.

not sure, but likely the former... the bank [not Kasi] makes some spoken word promises w/my wife that do not always tell the whole story, which is probably written in in the contract... I remember one gimmick where they guaranteed 50% interest the first year... of course, they were just giving her 1/2 of her money back - she did not fall for that one, but others, surely. 

[Liverpool Lou]

2 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

You are completely ignoring the fact that this was a Criminal Rip-Off !

...by one rogue employee, not by the bank.

[JackGats]

4 hours ago, dyertribe said:

Just because they are Caucasian, it doesn't mean that English is their first language ...

Indeed, people from the Caucasus will have some slavonic language as their mother tongue.

[Liverpool Lou]

1 hour ago, robblok said:

Will be a long hard fight against a bank with a lot of money and time. 

The bank and police have promised a result by 5th January, as clearly reported, so, a long, hard nine days to go.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Liverpool Lou

[ikke1959]

43 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

You're ‘victim blaming’ - this occurred in a Bank.....

 

If you want the back story you can put a little effort into searching the story (plenty of news on this out there) and then make a comment which doesn’t blame normal people going into a bank and depositing money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do not blame anyone....

[Liverpool Lou]

1 hour ago, hioctane said:

I don’t understand something. If you deposit or withdraw money from your account, wouldn’t you notice that the your account is not in the system?

This is an ongoing story, initially reported some time ago, you need to read the previous reports.

[Liverpool Lou]

1 hour ago, ikke1959 said:

So if you hae the complete background tell us please...

Google has it all.

 

[ikke1959]

1 minute ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Google has it all.

 

Not exactly... Why were the customers only going to 1 employee?? That is strange.. Besides that 3,5 % interest a month is a bit much( 42% a year)... Why did the manager not question what was going on every last days of the month?? and much much more....What happened with the money? 

[Liverpool Lou]

5 minutes ago, ikke1959 said:

10 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Google has it all.

 

Not exactly... Why were the customers only going to 1 employee?? That is strange.. Besides that 3,5 % interest a month is a bit much( 42% a year)... Why did the manager not question what was going on every last days of the month?? and much much more....What happened with the money? 

Google will answer all your questions!

[Dave0206]

I am not aware of the all of the  unfortunate Investors circumstances but if I was one of them I would be happy to get my initial sum back.if any of them already received a monthly dividend common sense should dictate this was part of your own money back? 

Why would they think money plus 7.5%?

If they can tell where 7.5% is safely achieved I want some oh wait a minute perhaps I should not take there advice ???? 

[FRM-BKK]

Thailand too has the doctrine of vicarious liability, which I am sure would be applied here. The test in Thai law revolves around two questions:

1. Remuneration on the basis of the employee being at work all the time, or on the basis of completed work.

and

2. Who has control over the employee and what he/she does in terms of manner, time and place of work. 

I think in both questions, the employees are most often paid for being present at work and 2. that the employer controls what, where and when the employee performs their duties.

 

I think the bank in question would have a hard time trying to deny both parts of the test and become therefore vicariously liable for the actions of their employee ..

Edited December 27, 2021 by FRM-BKK

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

I don't think it's that complicated. As best I recall the original story, these unfortunate people were persuaded to deposit their funds by a bank employee working in his bank and issuing them with passbooks which were not recorded on the bank's database, and he pocketed the funds himself.

My guess is the bank is trying to say the employee was not acting on behalf of the bank.. 

A Thai caveat if ever there was one.

[MasterBaker]

There is one born every minute... here's a proof

[shackleton]

Well it looks like the old saying if it looks to good to be true it is 

Would have thought most Farangs would be wary of investing their hard earned cash. In Thai money making  schemes I mean scams apparently

not ????

 

[easydoor]

I had a similar case some years ago. It was not with a bank but a Thai insurance Co. It was an endowment program over 8 years with NO EXCEPTIONAL high yield: 4.5%/yr. The agent stole all the money, was after 5 years I did find it out and it was already about 1 mil TBH.

The insurance Co did pay me back, without the rente, as they never received the money. I could accept this. I didn't use a lower but negotiate with the Co myself. The fact is: the Co is  the end responsabel of the actions done by they agents.  This is also the low in Thailand.

It is easy to say: FARANGS always loose .... that is NOT CORRECT.

[Mr Meeseeks]

4 hours ago, smedly said:

many have fallen victim to this sort of crime, what is different here is that this crook was a representative of K Bank and selling none existant investment products to customers on bank premises and openly lying and stealing their money, K Bank needs to return the money and this crook needs to go to jail

Indeed, if the fraud was being perpetrated by a KBank employee, during working hours and on company premises, that is enough for any barely competent prosecutor to prove that they could have been complicit, at least at Branch level. 

[jacko45k]

5 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

If the interest is low and you want to make more of your money you have to take more risks. I worked a long time in the bank and I know it for years... If it goes wrong there is always a chance that you loose your money more or less, but that is the risk.. Results from the past are not sure in the future..

Perhaps you should research the background to their complaint and the fraud they were subjected to.

[jacko45k]

5 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

we don't know what they did with the money... invest in bad enterprises?? Stock exchange? Crypto?

You need to learn the background as you are way off here.

[Mr Meeseeks]

1 hour ago, Liverpool Lou said:

"Seems to be a lot of stories like this".

Nonsense.  It's be interesting to see you quote specifics of there "seeming to be a lot of stories like this".    I've never seen anything similar reported before or since, can you detail just one similar case?

 

" How can they expect farang to deposit 800k for retirement visa?"

Very easily.  This was a one-off, it is not typical of Thailand's banks.

Really? A quick search returned the following:

 

https://www.samuitimes.com/bank-ripped-off-100000-baht-claims-woman/

 

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/crime/banks-confirm-refunds-to-recent-cyber-fraud-victims

 

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/130m-stolen-from-over-10000-thai-bank-accounts-in-just-four-days/

[jacko45k]

4 hours ago, Don Chance said:

Banks in India and Nepal give 10% or more. So not that unrealistic.

 

Seems to be a lot of stories like this. How can they expect farang to deposit 800k for retirement visa?

This is not India nor Nepal... interest rates have been low for manu years here. 

I would not say a lot of stories, just some. Up to 1mil should be covered under deposit insurance. wrt Retirement Extensions..... in this case, well, looks like the bank isn't accepting responsibility.

[jacko45k]

4 hours ago, Thaifly88 said:

Was it really theft or a recommended investment gone bad ?

Fraud.... deposits were not in the banks system.

[ivor bigun]

the wife was watching this on the news the other day ,their money was stolen ,not lost ,the bank should be liable it was their employee who stole it under the guise of the bank ,

if they do not take responsabilaty ,what is to stop them saying next time you deposite money"oh sorry the manager did not deposite it but stole it ,nothing to do with us"

Edited December 27, 2021 by ivor bigun

[jacko45k]

2 hours ago, hioctane said:

I don’t understand something. If you deposit or withdraw money from your account, wouldn’t you notice that the your account is not in the system?

I doubt their bankbooks would work in the update machines...... 

[Gsxrnz]

4 hours ago, shady86 said:

Must be farangs from non English speaking countries. 

England?

[jacko45k]

2 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

this story has changed, originally i recall about 4% a month ponzi going on? now they are asking for 7.5% maybe that's based on their actual deposits plus a greedy rate of 7.5%

Rather optimistic to expect the bank to cover the fraudsters claimed interest rates (or even more)..... be lucky if they get their original deposits back.  

[lodstewart]

4 hours ago, khunPer said:

7.5 percent interest from a bank sounds unrealistic to me, there must be more to that story than revealed here...????

yes , I agree , because it wasn't all this so called 'investment with high returns' he stole the pensions deposited from abroad, of these guys accounts, together with thier expat retirement deposit . just ordinary bank deposits. he used out of date bank books that should have been destroyed, and also knew how to configure the print machine to fake the balances. Remember he is the bank under manager, how did other Bank employees not notice something strange? how was the Lady Manager not aware ? , many questions need to be answered here by the Bank.

[Cake Monster]

6 hours ago, ezzra said:

Getting money back from a Thai being a foreigner is like getting water out of a stone, but i'm sure that this story has a lot more to it than just handing the money over without any solid guarantee and full documentations to back up their claims, Or did they?...

The Employee worked for, and on behalf of the Bank, and any paperwork at all with the Logo of the Bank upon it means the Bank will be liable, as they would have had full knowledge of the Employees motives ( or they should have )

The Bank in question would be very wise to pay out to the affected people in full.

Long term ramifications for their Business, and indeed that of all Thai Banking Institutions would be serious if they did not.

[jacko45k]

1 hour ago, Liverpool Lou said:

It's the latter.

I had not heard that.... was he doing business in Starbucks or a food court?

[jacko45k]

1 hour ago, Liverpool Lou said:

The bank and police have promised a result by 5th January, as clearly reported, so, a long, hard nine days to go.

Or to be exact, 5 working days. Isn't happening!

[jacko45k]

15 minutes ago, Gsxrnz said:

England?

Scotland,