Foreigner Begging for Money in Bangkok Sparks Investigation

[spongeman]

32 minutes ago, bbko said:

Well there is a requirement for visiting foreigners to have a certain amount of money &/or enough money to support themselves, and if they are tourists, where's their follow-on airplane/travel ticket? It's not just Thailand that feels this way, many countries have the same requirement.

Interestingly enough when applying for the E Visa through London I was not asked to upload a bank statement etc.

[FritsSikkink]

Give them some food and shelter in the IDC

[Ben Zioner]

2 hours ago, swm59nj said:

I don’t know why tourists and expats complain about how expansive things are.

I would have thought that this was more of a bargirl's complaint?

[Peterphuket]

1 hour ago, StayinThailand2much said:

 

Guess, he's not planning to fly First Class then...

You'll never know.

[Captain Monday]

44 minutes ago, Drumbuie said:

Used to be a young guy hanging round the bus terminus in my town with a sad story about having lost the cash for the bus fare home. Every single day.

You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to spot the telltale signs that he was spending the money on drugs.  I'm guessing this farang beggar is doing the same. 

Approach me nearly every time I walk around Sukhumvit

Can there really be that many well dressed young men who “just

need a couple hundred baht for bus fare” ?

Grifters

[Serenity_Now]

could be a ukrainian
could be russian
he may well have had adequate funds at one time immigration would come to a standstill if they asked everyone to prove cash
who carries cash anyway
on a flight into cm one time i got pulled aside
show money
i showed a few hundred dollars 
plus 2+k of travelers cheques
this not money the 4ft io said
i corrected him better than money if lost get it back
it was lost on him it was a scam marched to atm take 20k baht out
i pointed to the balance more than enough mate
take money take money
i eventually seceded to their demands
now show return ticket there was the scam
unfortunately for him and his chums i had a ticket to loas 
they were so disappointed............

made me fan out the cash holding it up whilst they stood proudly by my side for a photo as if they were gifting it to me like i had won a prize.

as for this poor guy his fate is sealed hes white begging in a foreign land where he sticks out like a sore thumb
i find far to many are hurtfully judgmental here 
its hardly surprising thais look upon some of us old geezers like we are a dog turd
a certain sense of entitlement because you have succeeded in some way in life
im glad im not young the world is not a good place at this time
and the thought of being drafted to go to a front line would not be my ideal choice

he is obviously alone without two cents to rub together
no chance of repatriation 

maybe once he dies someone will open a go fund me page 

the world is upside down
you dont have to give him cash or your vitriol

[newbee2022]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

 

Bangkok—On January 31st, 2024, Mr. Varawut Silpa-archa, the Minister of Social Development and Human Security (SDHS), publicly revealed to the Thai media a complaint about a foreigner in elephant pants asking for money at the Mo Chit BTS station, in Bangkok.

In response to the complaint, the Rapid Response Centre for Accelerating Public Welfare Management of SDHS investigated the reported area, however, the unidentified foreigner was nowhere to be found.

 

Upon investigation, unidentified vendors at Mo Chit BTS station reportedly told the SDHS officials that the foreigner had been asking for money with a message saying he needed a flight ticket to return home, please donate 20 baht, thank you.

The foreigner had been at Mo Chit BTS station for a few days, and each time Bangkok municipal officials warned him to stop asking for money, the witnesses said to the SDHS officials.

 

By Kittisak Phalaharn

 

Full story: THE PATTAYA NEWS 2024-02-01

 

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By 20 Baht donations it will be a long time to buy a flight ticket 😂

[Destiny1990]

I-see hundreds of local beggars day in day out and who don’t get stopped,  so what’s the problem with the foreigner? Stealing thai jobs? 

[NanLaew]

3 hours ago, sumongkhwai said:

I thought you had have R/T ticket when entering the Kingdom, assuming he flew into BKK. I guess coing from Laos or Cambodia land crossing maybe not an issue?

 

Having a return air ticket doesn't obligate the holder of said return air ticket to actually use it, either on the date stipulated, or ever.

[8OA8]

1 hour ago, ChipButty said:

I saw one guy many years ago in the airport he approached us asking for 500 baht, in the days when you had to pay as you leave, he was a farang

I also saw this maybe 25 years ago and I gave the guy ฿500

I understand how I myself many years ago used to get rid of every last bit of whatever local currency I had, just as I was leaving each country and that ฿500 departure tax was a surprise for me the first time I rocked up at the counter and handed over my ticket and the lady asked me for it, fortunately I still had it.

Anyway he asked for my details so he could send the money to me once he returned to his home, I told him to forget about it and consider it as a gift, but he said he wanted to refund me so I told him to donate the amount to a local charity instead.

 

[Almer]

3 hours ago, sumongkhwai said:

I thought you had have R/T ticket when entering the Kingdom, assuming he flew into BKK. I guess coing from Laos or Cambodia land crossing maybe not an issue?

Or maybe he is on a visa that you do not need a return ticket

[AhFarangJa]

2 hours ago, DjSilver said:

And when Thai people are begging and scamming foreigners, the Thai officials do nothing. 

Reserved occupation for Thai National only is my guess.

[Cereal]

I have a solution. Round these people up, put them in a local holding cell and keep them there until they can have money sent from home to cover their flight out. Oh yeah, and charge them for their stay in the crowbar hotel. 

 

These sleazy scum give all backpackers a bad reputation. 

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, Serenity_Now said:

as for this poor guy his fate is sealed hes white begging in a foreign land where he sticks out like a sore thumb
i find far to many are hurtfully judgmental here 
its hardly surprising thais look upon some of us old geezers like we are a dog turd
a certain sense of entitlement because you have succeeded in some way in life
im glad im not young the world is not a good place at this time
and the thought of being drafted to go to a front line would not be my ideal choice

he is obviously alone without two cents to rub together
no chance of repatriation 

maybe once he dies someone will open a go fund me page 

the world is upside down
you dont have to give him cash or your vitriol

 

Thanks for your empathy. As you rightly point out, there's a global shortage.

[bbko]

1 hour ago, Destiny1990 said:

I-see hundreds of local beggars day in day out and who don’t get stopped,  so what’s the problem with the foreigner? Stealing thai jobs? 

So you'd be ok if Thai tourists started visiting your country and were begging on a daily basis?

[sambum]

4 hours ago, Masterton said:

Funny how some on here automatically assume he has fallen on hard times and actually needs a plane ticket. Most of these types are scam artists praying on the genorisity of other people (mostly Thais) to fund their 'stay' in Thailand. Personally I find 'begpackers' despicable and give foreigners here a bad name. 

Not just foreigners that are scam artists!

 

There are a couple of Thais (man & wife team?) in the tourist town where I live that regularly walk round with the begging bowl. Apparently he is blind and semi crippled, and "sings" along karaoke style to distorted sounds coming from a recording machine that he carries, while she holds out the begging bowl hopefully to passers by, but they even come into the doorways of bars and restaurants where quite a few people will pay just to get rid of them. You think I am showing a lack of compassion? One night a pal of mine was making his way home down one of the side sois at the end of the main street, and he came across this pair sitting in a corner gleefully counting the night's takings - he was obviously no more blind or crippled than she was, as they walked briskly off together into the night. 

[Wrwest]

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

There are some pretty harsh people on this forum, it seems like when someone falls on hard times most jump on the bandwagon of harsh criticism and accusations of poor planning and things like that. The reality is that people do fall on hard times, there's a dozen different reasons why somebody could run out of money, and it sucks.

 

So perhaps a little bit of sympathy is appropriate? 

 

The other comical aspect of this post is the name of the organization that investigated. The Rapid Response Centre for Accelerating Public Welfare Management of SDHS. Quite a fancy name for an organization that likely does very little to help the people. 

Perhaps part of the general frustration/anger being evidenced in the harsh responders home countries. Sorry, just looking for a potential reason for the observation you make and I agree with.

 

[radiochaser]

13 minutes ago, bbko said:

So you'd be ok if Thai tourists started visiting your country and were begging on a daily basis?

I hear that is happening in New York City.  Only they aren't Thai and they aren't tourists.   Undocumented immigrants the progressive left calls them. 

[tigerbeer]

where are the white brothers to help him? or just sitting behind their mobiles and computers mocking the other races that come to thailand? 

[maddox41]

Thailand is a crack up its ok for Thai to steal Rob and scam the Farang (mai pen Rai)  but not a farang why? What's good for the goose is good for the gander double standards as usual  screw the farang. 

I see Thais living in Australia and they have all the rights as any other person here, but not in Thailand all about protecting  the Thai , There not prejudice at all are they we are just atm cards  to them. 

[PremiumLane]

This will get the old boomers on here all frothed up. Nothing like a story about a farrang beggar, someone working with out a work permit, someone in hospital facing a huge bill etc. to get the righteous warriors of this forum all worked up. 

[Kerryd]

2 hours ago, ChipButty said:

I saw one guy many years ago in the airport he approached us asking for 500 baht, in the days when you had to pay as you leave, he was a farang

Happened to me on my very first trip here back in 1993. Spent all my money except what I needed to get back to the airport. Got to Don Muang with 35 baht in my pocket. I'd screwed up looking at my ticket and thought "12:05" was 12:05 "am" and not "pm" and found myself there 12 hours earlier than need be.

So I spent some money on a sandwich and newspaper and hung around for hours until check-in opened. In those days, they did a security check and secured your bag/suitcase with a security strap before you went to the check-in.
I'm one of the first in line and when I get to the counter - there's a sign saying I have to pay a 500 baht "Departure Fee" ! Nowhere was that mentioned except at the check-in counter.

I had to leave and have security cut the strap off my bag. I went to an exchange booth but all I had was some Croatian and Hungarian currency (I was on a Peacekeeping Mission in Croatia when I went on holiday.) They wouldn't take it because they didn't know the exchange rates (no internet yet back then).
I went to the airline office (Lufthansa) and they suggested I speak with the flight steward (head guy for that flight). So back into the security check and while waiting in line I saw some Germans who were on a Peacekeeping Mission in Cambodia who had the same problem I did. They were talking to the co-pilot of the flight, who agreed to loan them them the money. I tried to get him to do the same for me and showed my UN ID and everything but because I wasn't German he wouldn't help.

So I get up to the front of the line (again) and the guy ahead of me is causing a problem. He's drunk, missed the flight he was supposed to be on and was demanding to be let onto this flight. The clerk told him he'd have to talk to the steward.
I step up and tell the girl that I need to talk to the steward as well as I didn't know about the departure tax. A guy behind me, who was a bit frustrated at this point, asked what the problem was and I told him about the tax. He asked the clerk how much (500 baht) and gave her 1,000 and told her to pay for both of us just to speed things up.
I told him I'd pay him back in Frankfurt as soon as we landed. He was in business class though and even though I rushed as fast as I could (being in economy class), he was long gone by the time I got to the luggage carousels. (Not sure he even had luggage actually.)

After that though, I always made sure I had a couple thousand baht extra on me at the end of every trip "just in case". If nothing else, it was "taxi fare and first night in the hotel" on my next trip, which was important back then as the exchange booths in the airport closed in the evenings and ATMs weren't common. So if you arrived at 1 or 2 am with no local currency, it could be an issue.

Not a big deal these days of course.
 

2 hours ago, Ironmike said:

I used to donate to these people when I travelled to the UK, in London subway but then I watched a very informative show on tv about a blond women that woke up in the morning in her Knightsbridge  house,, she did her dirty make up and put on <deleted> clothes then went begging,, never again will I give money to these people

We had the same problem in Canada. Back in the late 90s a newspaper did an "undercover" story on the beggars and buskers around Vancouver. Turns out the average beggar was making over $200 (Canadian) a day ! Which was quite a bit more than I was making as a Sergeant in the military at the time !

And they found a lot of the "beggars" were actually spoiled rich kids from well-to-do neighbourhoods. They'd get paid to watch someone's dog, take it downtown, through an empty food bowl on the street and pretend they needed money to buy food for the dog.
And, like all of them, as soon as they have a couple dollars in their hat/bowl/guitar case, they scoop it out and leave a few coins to make it look like they haven't been getting many donations when in fact their pockets are nearly overflowing.

A lot of those "beggars" were just collecting cash to party with on the weekends. When they got bored or scammed enough for the day, they'd go around the corner, hop a bus to the next stop, go to wherever they parked their car and drive home.
(It seems that a lot of them were also trying to "score" with whichever homeless chicks they encountered as they tended to be "easier" than the girls in their own social circles.)

Vancouver had to actually pass a bylaw to prohibit buskers and beggars from sitting within a few meters of ATM machines and the entrances to convenience stores, especially as many of those beggars had become very "aggressive" and hostile towards people that didn't give them money (and that's all they wanted). 

The city even installed "donation meters" in place of the old "parking meters" so you could drop spare change in them that was supposed to go to social services and helping the homeless. As you can imagine, that didn't go over well with a lot of those beggars.

[Adumbration]

I am a self funded retiree.  But I also have no family back home whatsoever and a chronic genetic blood disease.

 

I would never cast the first stone at this lad, because it could easily be me sitting behind that cardboard sign.

 

That said, why the *uck would you wear elephant pants?

 

He could of purchased a half decent looking outfit at one of the second hand shops, and for less than he paid for the elephant pants.

 

If he was not dressed like a drug addict from Pai his chances of donations from both expats and Thais would of increased significantly.  Probably also treated better by Thai authorities.

[eyeman]

✅ Pony tail

✅ Elephant pants

✅ Yoga positions

 

100% has a macbook that he can sell... probably has a lifestyle / travel blog/youtube channel too.. all goes hand in hand

[Goat]

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

There are some pretty harsh people on this forum, it seems like when someone falls on hard times most jump on the bandwagon of harsh criticism and accusations of poor planning and things like that. The reality is that people do fall on hard times, there's a dozen different reasons why somebody could run out of money, and it sucks.

 

So perhaps a little bit of sympathy is appropriate? 

 

The other comical aspect of this post is the name of the organization that investigated. The Rapid Response Centre for Accelerating Public Welfare Management of SDHS. Quite a fancy name for an organization that likely does very little to help the people. 

Gee you like to whine.

You start of by calling other people harsh. Then you criticise the people who are actually helping the foreigner assuming, without actually researching what they do, and how many people they help every single day.

While you do nothing yourself to help these people.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=ศูนย์ตอบสนองอย่างรวดเร็วเพื่อเร่งการจัดการสวัสดิการสาธารณะของ+SDHS&oq=ศูนย์ตอบสนองอย่างรวดเร็วเพื่อเร่งการจัดการสวัสดิการสาธารณะของ+SDHS&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg70gEIMzk2NGowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Goat]

4 hours ago, DjSilver said:

And when Thai people are begging and scamming foreigners, the Thai officials do nothing. 

Reminds me of a bloke down in Phuket about 10 years ago. I thought it might have been him but it doesnt look like it in the photos.

 

https://www.thephuketnews.com/bad-mouth-brit-beggar-gets-rough-phuket-lesson-43439.php

[roo860]

7 minutes ago, Goat said:

Reminds me of a bloke down in Phuket about 10 years ago. I thought it might have been him but it doesnt look like it in the photos.

 

https://www.thephuketnews.com/bad-mouth-brit-beggar-gets-rough-phuket-lesson-43439.php

He's no more British than you. 👍🏾👍🏾

[BadBouy]

Clean clothes, hair nicely combed, perfectly prepared sign in 2 languages, gets a no from me. 

[Chris Daley]

Me at immigration:  One of our bent cops put the wrong stamp, so you have two options leave the country in 24 hours or pay an 11,000 baht fine.

 

Homeless foreigners:  Not a problem.

[HauptmannUK]

Given that Thailand is a huge backpacking destination it seems to me that they cause relatively few problems. Its not like the guy was wandering around with a knife or threatening people or (as far as we know) selling drugs. If you don't want to give, then don't. Just ignore him.  Its not like they is any shortage of Thai beggars and scammers - and don't forget that during Covid a lot of foreigners were helping out starving Thais....

 

On this theme, the wife and I were having a drink outside Amazon on Jomtien Beach Road last night when we were approached by a middle-aged Asian guy. He was begging money for food. He was cleanly dressed and spoke pretty good English. He said he was Chinese, from Cangzhou near Beijing, and had run out of money.  I didn't entirely believe his story but he was so polite that I reached into my pocket are gave him about ฿10 in coins.  He had a slight look of disappointment on his face, but thanked me with a wai and went on his way.  Be interesting to know if anyone else has encountered this chap.