Atm Scam For Thais

[sweetchariot]

A friend of my g/f had this happen to her yesterday, the scam goes like this:

Thai receives a phone call from AIS.

"Congratulations you have won 20,000 baht in the monthly AIS lucky draw. Do you have a bank account? Do you have an ATM? Ok how far is the nearest ATM, you go there now and I will call back in 5 mins and have the money paid straight into your account"

5 mins later

"OK you at the ATM now? Enter you card and PIN. Now hit the ENGLISH LANGUAGE button. Hit this, then that. OK your prize is 20,000 so enter this amount now. On the next screen you have to enter your 10 digit claim number. OK hit enter. Bye"

They are assuming that the Thai cannot read English, and the 10 digit claim number is the scammer's bank account number. The excited Thai has just transferred 20k to the scammers account.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would fall for this, but apparently it is quite prevalent at the moment. I think it says alot about the greed culture in Thai society that they would fall for this, added to the fact that widespread ATM use is a relatively new thing.

This was a SCB ATM btw (run out of abbreviations), and they obviously knew exactly which buttons to press and when.

Anyone else come accross this before? Just a thought when your little darling dashes off to the ATM after receiving a phone call.

[chiang mai]

A friend of my g/f had this happen to her yesterday, the scam goes like this:

Thai receives a phone call from AIS.

"Congratulations you have won 20,000 baht in the monthly AIS lucky draw. Do you have a bank account? Do you have an ATM? Ok how far is the nearest ATM, you go there now and I will call back in 5 mins and have the money paid straight into your account"

5 mins later

"OK you at the ATM now? Enter you card and PIN. Now hit the ENGLISH LANGUAGE button. Hit this, then that. OK your prize is 20,000 so enter this amount now. On the next screen you have to enter your 10 digit claim number. OK hit enter. Bye"

They are assuming that the Thai cannot read English, and the 10 digit claim number is the scammer's bank account number. The excited Thai has just transferred 20k to the scammers account.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would fall for this, but apparently it is quite prevalent at the moment. I think it says alot about the greed culture in Thai society that they would fall for this, added to the fact that widespread ATM use is a relatively new thing.

This was a SCB ATM btw (run out of abbreviations), and they obviously knew exactly which buttons to press and when.

Anyone else come accross this before? Just a thought when your little darling dashes off to the ATM after receiving a phone call.

This scam has been around for a while and been the subject of many comments here previously. It's a sad way to lose money but if you don't know, you don't know.

[Chloe82]

A joke surely, no one could be so dumb as to fall for this

And of course they are counting on the person having 20K+ in the account Bull sh1t.

Edit... BTW, why does the victim not just go to the bank, they can find out who the account belongs to? Like i said, Bull.

Edited November 27, 2007 by Chloe82

[KhaoNiaw]

As some ATMs have a Chinese option, this is also being used.

Police in fact made several arrests a couple of days ago. The accounts where the money transferred belonged to people who were paid to open them. They gave up a couple of bigger fish who had numerous bank accounts and I think these people led police to someone else involved in this and other crimes.

[chiang mai]

A joke surely, no one could be so dumb as to fall for this

And of course they are counting on the person having 20K+ in the account Bull sh1t.

Edit... BTW, why does the victim not just go to the bank, they can find out who the account belongs to? Like i said, Bull.

You would imagine that nobody in the UK or Europe could ever possibly fall for the Nigerian style scam emails nor the "you have won the lottery draw" scam, but they do and it's big business. So if "intelligent" Westerners can fall for those things, little reason to believe that uneducated locals living in a third world country wouldn't fall for the posters stated scam.

[JetsetBkk]

A joke surely, no one could be so dumb as to fall for this

And of course they are counting on the person having 20K+ in the account Bull sh1t.

Edit... BTW, why does the victim not just go to the bank, they can find out who the account belongs to? Like i said, Bull.

It's not bull. It's been on the Thai TV news. In one particular case, they were conned into transferring 200,000 baht, not 20,000.

There was another case where the con woman was at an ATM talking on the phone to the target (the 'mark') and telling him which buttons to press. She got 100,000 baht. But her picture was taken by the ATM's camera (SCB) so the police at least know what she looks like.

So 'Yes', some people are greedy and stupid enough to fall for it.

[sweetchariot]

A joke surely, no one could be so dumb as to fall for this

And of course they are counting on the person having 20K+ in the account Bull sh1t.

Edit... BTW, why does the victim not just go to the bank, they can find out who the account belongs to? Like i said, Bull.

Chloe its not bull, I find it as hard to believe as you. If they try enough people then someone will have the 20k (or 200k on a previous post).

I guess the accounts are quickly closed and new ones opened. TiT

[Etrigan]

This was on the front page of the Bangkok Post just a month or two back. It's real.

[tuffy]

Speaking of dumb....Amazingly enough I just received an email , apparently I won' t the Dutch lottery!!!! all I have to do is email them back my name and info and i am a guaranteed winner!!!

I can't wait..just as soon as i send them my full name banking account number and other personal information i will receive 1.2 million euro!!!!!!

can't talk now i have to prepare my bank account to be emptied....

[lazeeboy]

This was on the front page of the Bangkok Post just a month or two back. It's real.

of half the thai people i know ,they would fall for this scam for sure ...

[thai_narak]

A joke surely, no one could be so dumb as to fall for this

And of course they are counting on the person having 20K+ in the account Bull sh1t.

Edit... BTW, why does the victim not just go to the bank, they can find out who the account belongs to? Like i said, Bull.

It's not bull. It's been on the Thai TV news. In one particular case, they were conned into transferring 200,000 baht, not 20,000.

There was another case where the con woman was at an ATM talking on the phone to the target (the 'mark') and telling him which buttons to press. She got 100,000 baht. But her picture was taken by the ATM's camera (SCB) so the police at least know what she looks like.

So 'Yes', some people are greedy and stupid enough to fall for it.

and they did this to a thai person i guess (who cannot comprehend english menu). and how they knew that he/she have the available 200,000 baht in his/her bank? if the funds to be transferred aren't enough the transactions won't go through even for 20,000 baht. for sure one cannot have a negative account balance.

so i guess this is an inside job.

[chiang mai]

A joke surely, no one could be so dumb as to fall for this

And of course they are counting on the person having 20K+ in the account Bull sh1t.

Edit... BTW, why does the victim not just go to the bank, they can find out who the account belongs to? Like i said, Bull.

It's not bull. It's been on the Thai TV news. In one particular case, they were conned into transferring 200,000 baht, not 20,000.

There was another case where the con woman was at an ATM talking on the phone to the target (the 'mark') and telling him which buttons to press. She got 100,000 baht. But her picture was taken by the ATM's camera (SCB) so the police at least know what she looks like.

So 'Yes', some people are greedy and stupid enough to fall for it.

and they did this to a thai person i guess (who cannot comprehend english menu). and how they knew that he/she have the available 200,000 baht in his/her bank? if the funds to be transferred aren't enough the transactions won't go through even for 20,000 baht. for sure one cannot have a negative account balance.

so i guess this is an inside job.

I doubt it. Sit down with a mobile and start dialing numbers. For every nine people where it fails the tenth one may be successful.

[sweetchariot]

and they did this to a thai person i guess (who cannot comprehend english menu). and how they knew that he/she have the available 200,000 baht in his/her bank? if the funds to be transferred aren't enough the transactions won't go through even for 20,000 baht. for sure one cannot have a negative account balance.

so i guess this is an inside job.

Thai_narak...............

We just had a verbal (well syntax) exchange on another thread for the exact same reason.

Do you ever read the OP and subsequent posts before you comment, or do you have some nervous system problem that means your fingers have to be moving all the time.

Of course it was a Thai person - thats why they asked them to select the English menu (if you actually read the thread you will see a previous post where they have done it in Chinese also).

If the funds to be transferred aren't enough, they move on to the next greedy sucker.

Please tell us why this is an inside job.

[KhaoNiaw]

I think the report I heard said that the people who opened the accounts where the money was transferred were paid 500 baht to do so. The criminals themselves then took over the bankbooks and ATM cards.

[Gary A]

It certainly DOES happen. I don't know all the details as to exactly how, but I know the Thai man it happened to quite well. He worked in Bangkok several years and finally came back home with a whopping 30,000 baht. He and his wife were enjoying life when he got a phone call saying he had won a prize. When it was all said and done they scammed him out of his life savings, all 30,000 baht. He is now back working in Bangkok. Sad but true.

[JetsetBkk]

I must admit, I do have a sneaky admiration for the way these scammers find ways of extracting money from unsuspecting - if a little greedy - people by using everyday things, eg. bi-lingual ATMs, in a way that no one would have thought.

Sometimes I come across an old ATM that does have English language, but whenever anything goes wrong (eg. no 'receipt' paper), the error messages and selection options are only in English! That really p1sses me off because it shows what poor testing/software design has gone into the machine. So I end up pushing buttons to get my card back hoping that I'm not doing anything that's going to lose me money.

[konjianghai]

It has been broadcasting for a while on tv show 'Ruang Jing Parn jor' and i thought everyone in TH would know by now.

Still cant belive how many peoples got scam on this. How can they be so innocense beliving they won the money out of no where.

[JetsetBkk]

It has been broadcasting for a while on tv show 'Ruang Jing Parn jor' and i thought everyone in TH would know by now.

Still cant belive how many peoples got scam on this. How can they be so innocense beliving they won the money out of no where.

What's the Thai equivalent for "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." ?

[thai_narak]

and they did this to a thai person i guess (who cannot comprehend english menu). and how they knew that he/she have the available 200,000 baht in his/her bank? if the funds to be transferred aren't enough the transactions won't go through even for 20,000 baht. for sure one cannot have a negative account balance.

so i guess this is an inside job.

Thai_narak...............

We just had a verbal (well syntax) exchange on another thread for the exact same reason.

Do you ever read the OP and subsequent posts before you comment, or do you have some nervous system problem that means your fingers have to be moving all the time.

Of course it was a Thai person - thats why they asked them to select the English menu (if you actually read the thread you will see a previous post where they have done it in Chinese also).

If the funds to be transferred aren't enough, they move on to the next greedy sucker.

Please tell us why this is an inside job.

i'm not in a mood going down to your level this time but i will make it clear to all.

of course he/she is a thai person but my point is how they instantly nailed a thai person with such money in the bank? calling randomly may fall 90% to a thai (as one poster have said) but how many of those are keeping much money in one ATM card? most thais have 2-3 ATM accounts i guess and the huge amount of their money are deposited in a fixed account. i may be wrong...

here is where i'm coming from... one day i went to BBL with my wife to open another joint account and during this transaction the attendant was going through our application forms. as she type my passsport number all my other BBL accounts profiles (name, address, telephone number, etc.) from another branch popped-up. although she didn't went through my account balances i just realised how easy it was for someone working in the bank to pull-out such information. this is why the question "was it possibly an inside job?".

they can also pull the scam on farangs using thai menu...

and sweetchariot, idiots are all around us you know? don't forget to drink that green pill before sleeping...

[egg]

A joke surely, no one could be so dumb as to fall for this

And of course they are counting on the person having 20K+ in the account Bull sh1t.

Edit... BTW, why does the victim not just go to the bank, they can find out who the account belongs to? Like i said, Bull.

No joke Chloe82 ,,, my brother-inlaw got scammed for over 100 grand , and he is supposed to be an intelligent man ( l have great doubts about that)

[Oleg_Rus]

funny. Love it.

There's no patch for human stupidity.

[xyborg]

<br />

This was on the front page of the Bangkok Post just a month or two back. It's real.

<br /><br /><br />of half the thai people i know ,they would fall for this scam for sure ...<br />

<br /><br /><br />

And the other half are the ones doing the scam ?ha ha ha

[hiromj]

<br />

This was on the front page of the Bangkok Post just a month or two back. It's real.

<br /><br /><br />of half the thai people i know ,they would fall for this scam for sure ...<br />

<br /><br /><br />

And the other half are the ones doing the scam ?ha ha ha

It's called "Transfer of Wealth". Happens all the time.