Disguised As A Tourist

[jumnien]

Buy a car and stay away from overrun tourist areas; it eliminates 98% of the hassle. Do not follow the farang hordes and your day will be pleasant.

[PadThaiGuy]

Buy a car and stay away from overrun tourist areas; it eliminates 98% of the hassle. Do not follow the farang hordes and your day will be pleasant.

That's good advice for expats but what about the millions of tourists that are getting the 'treatment' at all the tourist sites?

It ticks me off the TAT won't warn people on arrival to be wary of the thousands on Con Artists working the sites.

I believe people at the TAT are in on the scams, especially the Gem Scam.

Google "GEM SCAM".

It's pitifull that these con artists are allowed to ruin Thailand reputation.

[HobbsTheFerociousTiger]

Let me dare submit a different angle..

Sure, the scams are totally out of control... but... at least it keeps Thailand's aura of a somewhat adventurous place in tact.. In a way, many tourists in Thailand WANT some challenges here and there. Just listen to their stories, they almost brag about (nearly) getting scammed, along with all the other dangers, real and perceived, that people expect from a trip to Thailand.

I actually think Thailand's biggest threat is being seen as too 'easy' and westernized.. At least the scammers keep some of that original spark of dodgy excitement alive.

Ok I'll get me coat now.

[FroggyQc]

All this remind Me the first time I came to Thailand!

The real mess was at the Emerald Buddha Temple!

People running to Me to sell any kind of thing!

Maybe, 10 people was walking around Me to try selling Me their stuff.

That was 5 years ago!

Last year when I went back there, surprisely, they was not running to Me! Cool!

They was offering but staying at their spot like if they was afraid to lost it!

But the funniest episodes in Thailand that happened to Me was definitely during my first visit.

I was at the Bangkok train station waiting on the stairs facing the street for my train departure time.

I was smoking a cigarette there and when finished, I've been looking for an ashtray and couldn't find one.

I saw that on the top of a garbage trash that it was burned by cigarettes that peoples light off there.

I considered that completely dangerous because there was a lot of paper also.

So I throw it in a sewer.

At the same moment, hand on the shoulder, a voice said: Passport Please! yeah! First trouble with justice!

Did your country told You that You can't throw cigarettes on the ground of Thailand!

If answer is Yes: 5000 baht

if answer is No: 2000 baht

So my answer been No but mention that I was just wishing to not cause fire on the top of the trash!

He doesn't care!

So He started to fill a form but just wrote on it 2000 baht and gave Me back my passport.

So I said, you're not writing my passport infos?

Don't need he said!

So I understood that it was dealing time!

After 10 minutes, I've been able to reduce my penalty fees to 200 baht!

Yeah! Was maybe for his dinner!

A week after, I was going to MBK by SkyTrain.

When you go out from the station, just after the stairs where you can access Tokyu store, I 've been smoking a cigarette there. No problem, there was an ashtray.

So get in MBK for shopping and went back to the same spot after to smoke a cigarette before I get in the BTS Station.

Time to light off, men! The ashtray disappear and my cigarette nearly finish.

Try to find it somewhere around, nothing! Only upstairs, about 5 Thai Police, looking at Me and waiting!

I understood right a way that it was a trap!

So I let the cigarette in my hand until it light off itself!

Now ready to go take the BTS, walk upstairs and again, Passport Please! So I showed them the cigarette left in my hand and they all start to laugh and say ok! You can go!

It been the situation that showed Me how it really work here!

They hide ashtrays to make money!

Thailand!

yeah!

Edited December 25, 2007 by FroggyQc

[pumpuiman]

This thread reminds me of a time I was accosted by about 10 children selling bracelets.

They would not take no for an answer......"you buy, 20 baht...20 baht"

I was surrounded.

I decided to buy 20 bracelets.

I then followed the troop around and when they approached another victim.....I stepped in to the circle screaming.."you buy,mine only 5 baht...5 baht"

There was a great silence as I sold my bracelet to the farang.

Then I laughed like a madman,the kids laughed and started chasing me away from their marks.

We were all in tears from laughter.

I get annoyed with touts as well, sometimes to the point where I feel like strangling someone (tailors).....but a smile and a "mai au" (don't want) usually suffice.

Edited December 25, 2007 by pumpuiman

[Macx]

This thread reminds me of a time I was accosted by about 10 children selling bracelets.

We were all in tears from laughter.

I get annoyed with touts as well, sometimes to the point where I feel like strangling someone (tailors).....but a smile and a "mai au" (don't want) usually suffice.

Great one! That made me laugh. Very original!

If you don't mind, I think I'll try that for a laugh too

[eek]

Thing is, arent the TAT actually in on it as well? At least, individual offices?

The only scam i can recall falling for was a "grand palace is closed today" scam when i first arrived. Ended up going on a suckers tour around bangkok, with a stop off at a tailors shop and trying to get me to go into a gem shop (by which point i had cottoned on.). Anyway, during the "tour" the driver asks where i plan to go etc (obviously rehearsed small talk) and then stops outside a TAT office to say he must collect something and that i should go in as they have cheap cheap deals for xyz etc. I said id wait and he was oh so smiley and sugary and says "no no no..inside cool and glass of water, just look, no need to buy". I thought ok, may as well, and went in. The sideways looks on the faces of the staff was enough to tell me this was a ploy and that it was done before. I sat while the girl went through the motions and after a respectable amount of time i said id "think about it" and thanked her. Cunning smile becomes bitter smile. Left. It was after here the driver tried to get me to the gem shop, using all kinds of excuses when i refused, such as "i dont get petrol voucher from TAT if i dont go as i need shop owner to sign paper" "family very poor" "u dont need to buy, go in, then i get voucher". Eventually he got the message and took me to my drop off point. When i paid him the agreed price he practically snatched it from me, smile totally gone.

I had planned on giving a tip until i realised the scam.

I posted the full story some time back here, as was really beyond belief, with several players acting out their parts. If u read the lead up to how i fell for this scam u would understand how well this trap was set. It really wasnt so easy for me to see it as a set up, for even though i was new, i wasnt totally naive (well, so i thought). Anyway..it left a bitter taste in my mouth.but was a good warning, esp as im a solo female traveller. Trust noone.

[billp]

It obviously wasn't a "TAT office" but a travel agency licensed by TAT (as all must be, pro forma). TAT itself doesn't sell stuff AFAIK, just promotes Thailand travel. It's a government agency, not a travel packager.

[PadThaiGuy]

Tud,

Can't post a link but I did google 'Erawan Shrine Con Artists' and found the shots.

[sutnyod]

Hey! I saw they have those posters outside MBK now. (the side facing Siam - Erawan) Have you seen them? They go like: "If somebody offers you cheap jewelry, just say "no". But then: call 1155

Could it be they want to refine their strategy?

@ eek: your post is scary!

[Simmo]

Well I had the opposite experience this week. I took my first time in Thailand parents to Wat Po , Wat Phrakaew & Sanam Luang & a river ride on Tuesday and didn't once have any problems with touts, scammers or tuk tuks.

The only time we were approached was by students in Wat Phrakaew wanting to video interview my parents for their english class assignments - which my parents enjoyed a lot.

[PadThaiGuy]

.

Ah Ha !... the old fake student trick, eh? I'm never quite sure about them. I think they are up to somthing myself.

My housekeeper says her neighbor puts on school outfits and leaves the house and she isn't going to school.

I know there are allot of fake students doing the fake tourist survey everywhere. They even stole the TAT slogan and have AMAZING THAILAND embroidered across their shirts.

There are even fake Monks all over the place now.

Edited December 27, 2007 by PadThaiGuy

[Simmo]

.

Ah Ha !... the old fake student trick, eh? I'm never quite sure about them. I think they are up to somthing myself.

My housekeeper says her neighbor puts on school outfits and leaves the house and she isn't going to school.

I know there are allot of fake students doing the fake tourist survey everywhere. They even stole the TAT slogan and have AMAZING THAILAND embroidered across their shirts.

There are even fake Monks all over the place now.

Strange kind of scam -- seeing as they don't ask for anything and they had there professor with them who showed me her Chulangkorn id card,. It's a common university assignment.

Next time , don't chip in with your uninformed thoughts.

[PadThaiGuy]

.

Ah Ha !... the old fake student trick, eh? I'm never quite sure about them. I think they are up to somthing myself.

My housekeeper says her neighbor puts on school outfits and leaves the house and she isn't going to school.

I know there are allot of fake students doing the fake tourist survey everywhere. They even stole the TAT slogan and have AMAZING THAILAND embroidered across their shirts.

There are even fake Monks all over the place now.

Strange kind of scam -- seeing as they don't ask for anything and they had there professor with them who showed me her Chulangkorn id card,. It's a common university assignment.

Next time , don't chip in with your uninformed thoughts.

Their professor was with them?

I've been around too long... maybe, but my BS meter goes to red alert whenever a stranger walks up to me, starts a conversation and shows the ID tag... especially near tourist sites.

Maybe they were legit?

[RusticCharm]

I was sitting roadside, enjoying a plate of fried rice and a "student" sat at my table. I told him I was going to take a boat on the river.

"River closed" he says... King on the river today........ I show you around, OK?

All these smiling , devious people are giving me the creeps.

Funny how these 'students' are never hot chicks though.

[bulmercke]

Let me dare submit a different angle..

Sure, the scams are totally out of control... but... at least it keeps Thailand's aura of a somewhat adventurous place in tact.. In a way, many tourists in Thailand WANT some challenges here and there. Just listen to their stories, they almost brag about (nearly) getting scammed, along with all the other dangers, real and perceived, that people expect from a trip to Thailand.

I actually think Thailand's biggest threat is being seen as too 'easy' and westernized.. At least the scammers keep some of that original spark of dodgy excitement alive.

Ok I'll get me coat now.

Very skewed logic.

[Amethyst]

I would be carefull as some of those scammers are probably cops.

They certainly have some protection since they work so openly.

So what if they are cops ? Tell them Try me and ill show them who owns them

I hate to see this people trying to bully foreigner at tourist attraction area

Edited December 29, 2007 by tytus

[PeaceBlondie]

On our first visit to Bangkok, my Chinese friend wanted to visit Chinatown, so we got in a tuk tuk and said, "Chinatown." Of course, Chinatown was closed. We said, "Chinatown, we go Chinatown." He wanted to take us to a gem factory, we said "NO gem factory, we go Chinatown." Finally we began an endless chant of "Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown,..." finally, he drove us to Chinatown, and it wasn't closed! But there wasn't a Mandarin speaker to be found; they all spoke Thai.

Chiang Mai isn't one tenth that bad. Not one tenth. I used to get a tuk tuk driver at Tha Phae gate, asking me to let him take me somewhere (I was 15 meters from my destination at that point), so from then on, I only spoke to him in Spanish. Same thing in Ayuttayha, I knew the guy was scamming us, so I spoke only in Spanish.

Turn the tables on them. Have a worthless piece of string around your wrist, and offer to sell it to him for 55 baht. "Very good quality, blessed by Mother Theresa in India, lucky charm, make you strong in bed, no need viagra, ....."

[geriatrickid]

Turn the tables on them. Have a worthless piece of string around your wrist, and offer to sell it to him for 55 baht. "Very good quality, blessed by Mother Theresa in India, lucky charm, make you strong in bed, no need viagra, ....."

Might be worthless to you, but I could use some help if u know what I mean.......

Tonight I am in BKK (awake cuz of the big fire on soi 11 that burnt some building and cut off our power for an hour)

so anyways me and the freeloading pal were walking around tonight over in Silom and we couldn't move more than 50m without some guy shoving a piece of cardboard that said sex DVD in our faces or getting some greasy glop to offer us sexy ladies. I made the mistake of saying to one guy no to which he promptly said you want boy? no? want dvd of animal yes?

See the thing is, I doubt we'd even get a decent sexy dvd, it'd probably be last year's leftover dvds or defects nicely packaged with some naked girl (or boy or farm animal) on the cover. That's how much I trust the touts now.

[Robski]

tuc-tuc specialists

Now I know you're exagerating...

[zzdocxx]

Finally we began an endless chant of "Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown,..." finally, he drove us to Chinatown, and it wasn't closed!

[seonai]

One of my first experiences with a Thai taxi was in Lardprao, Bangkok and I couldn't speak Thai at the time. I wanted to go to Central and kept repeating that and the driver didn't have a clue what I was saying. Days later I learned to say CENTRAN really exagerated on the TRAN and he got it first time

[PeaceBlondie]

Turn the tables on them. Have a worthless piece of string around your wrist, and offer to sell it to him for 55 baht. "Very good quality, blessed by Mother Theresa in India, lucky charm, make you strong in bed, no need viagra, ....."

Might be worthless to you, but I could use some help if u know what I mean.......

Tonight I am in BKK (awake cuz of the big fire on soi 11 that burnt some building and cut off our power for an hour)

so anyways me and the freeloading pal were walking around tonight over in Silom and we couldn't move more than 50m without some guy shoving a piece of cardboard that said sex DVD in our faces or getting some greasy glop to offer us sexy ladies. I made the mistake of saying to one guy no to which he promptly said you want boy? no? want dvd of animal yes?

See the thing is, I doubt we'd even get a decent sexy dvd, it'd probably be last year's leftover dvds or defects nicely packaged with some naked girl (or boy or farm animal) on the cover. That's how much I trust the touts now.

Ah yes, the Patpong night market, and the vendors beneath the Sala Daeng BTS station. They will say "Sex VCD?" until they're blue in the face. It does no good to counter with something about "Gay sex VCD" because they'll quickly get anything you want, including Alice's brother. I would like to say in central Thai, "Which part of maichai do you not understand?" but it sounds so much better in Spanish.

[Rionoir]

So get in MBK for shopping and went back to the same spot after to smoke a cigarette before I get in the BTS Station.

Time to light off, men! The ashtray disappear and my cigarette nearly finish.

Try to find it somewhere around, nothing! Only upstairs, about 5 Thai Police, looking at Me and waiting!

I understood right a way that it was a trap!

So I let the cigarette in my hand until it light off itself!

Now ready to go take the BTS, walk upstairs and again, Passport Please! So I showed them the cigarette left in my hand and they all start to laugh and say ok! You can go!

LOL!

[bulmercke]

Patpong's a bit like Pahantip - they never give up until they think they've got the correct order - a bit like a combination lock in their minds:

you - want - sex - DVD - hey

want - hey - DVD - sex - you

DVD - sex - you - want - hey

DVD - sex - you - like - want

you - sex - DVD - like - want

you - DVD - sex - want - like

you - like - sex - you - want - DVD

have - sex - DVD - you - want

want - sex - DVD - you - like

They go on - and on - and on -

Sometimes I've literally stood there for hours while they exhaust themselves running through the various combinations of words. I guess it's the problem with having a very limited vocabulary in english

[PadThaiGuy]

Sex, DVD, CD, porn, software, young lady....

I hate those sex touts on Silom.

Why get a job when you can annoy thousands of visitors all day?

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Welcome to the big city.

Hm. Problem is: I almost belong to the furniture here, go waaaayyyyyyyyy back. It's just that my daily life and then this tourism stint do not seem to fit together. Like I was on a completely different planet. I have found quite a lot of consistency in the Thai society (talking to taxi drivers, cleaners; to bio-engineers or farmers, NGO staff, private sector etc.) but THIS did just not fit in.

its the same in any big city ,if you look like a tourist you will be pestered.

True story.

Back in the mid nineties I arrived back in Bangkok from a business trip to Korea. It was late afternoon and those days the trip down to Pattaya was a four hour minimum hel_l ride so I decided to overnight in Bangkok and do the trip early morning.

So I checked in at the hotel, the Nana , and grabbed my camera to go out and have a scratch around. I thought I'd play the dumb tourist and see what scams I'd experience. I ended up walking round the ground floor of NEP staring around me wide eyed and grinning at all the girls. I eventually parked up at a beer bar and sat down.

"What you want some dink?" the girl asked.

"Could I have a bottle of beer" I replied in the best English accent I could muster.

"What beer you want?"

"What beers do you have."

"Singha, Amarit, Klosatter." No Heineken, Chang, Leo those days.

"Is Singha a Thai beer."

"Yes."

"OK I'll have one bottle of Singha."

I got the beer and when she returned with my bin she said "How long you work Thailand?"

Never underestimate these people.

The Nana

[Spee]

I googled 'Erawan Shrine Con Artists' and found the shots.

BOY! More than 20 full time scammers working the crowd at that shrine.

Most of them look like cops.

Amazing Thailand.

How 'bout amazing Thai Visa Forum! I did the same search on the same search engine and this thread came up just below the desired link.

[asiaworld]

From a perspective of a tourist Thailand has changed dramatically over the past ten years!

Bangkok is still filthy in many places, and most of the people poor. But what has changed is people's attitudes! Sellers, hotel staff, and tuk-tuk drivers are plain RUDE, and taxi drivers having no clue of where the place is you want to go to, thereby giving you a tour and wasting your time and money...

Back in 1997 when I first came to Thailand I loved the smiles and the friendliness of the locals; I was always out and about, hardly in my hotel room, always eating Thai food...

Now in 2007 I mostly try to avoid contact to Thais, stay a lot in my room watching TV, and eat almost exclusively western food.

Just look at the faces of Westerners who come here for the first time, and who have been here for a few days in the so-called 'Land of Smiles'. Many of them get disillusioned with the place and the people quickly these days...

Thailand hasn't changed a bit .. You did ! . When i was here 10 years ago, i already saw this being a land of hiena laughter>(read 'smiles') .. i was approached by the same scamsters, which were NOT less numerous at all.. now i've seen a lot of scams in other countries before, so guess i could see them throu.. But for most people it takes longer to see it throu .. To tourists they are hardly noticeable , because after the west Thailand is SOO much cheaper, these chaps don't even qualify as crooks on a scale of relative damage.. Just sellers of 'tourist entertainament' where you get, what you pay for .. Compare them to pickpockets in some European countries.. thats way more damaging..

[gburns57au]

Been going there since the early Nineties....

Scams....lets see...

Oh yeah....the food place in the old Mo Chit bus station....tried to charge me double for a can of beer....until I read the chalkboard price list back to him....result.....big wais and sorries...but we had a laugh about it.

Patpong Bar...after a dalliance with a girl....Very big Thai man demanding I pay for this and that....told him in Thai I have many friends and policemen as friends, I go find my friends now....result...sorry sir, only pay for drinks.

Young cotton bracelet seller in Pattaya....kicked me cos I didnt buy from her (I pretended I was going to chase her and she scarpered)...later that day she was sitting out the front of my regular bar showing an old lady who had a severe head injury disability (this lady was a friend) how she made the cotton bracelets...the little darling gave me two for free....I gave her 40 baht before she left, twice the asking price....because her gesture in giving was genuine. OK not a scam but a good memory.

I did donate to the the deaf and dumb guys outside the Royal Garden once....only to see the guy in McDonalds later talking to his family.....but even he was honest enough that when another one approached me he warned them off, still playing the part. I had a good chuckle about that, He knew he had been sprung.

Thats it folks....apart from two tier pricing but that happens in other places....even in Oz....Yes....Health care card holders (including the unemployed) get better prices than me for a lot of things.

So in nearly 18 years that is the total of rip offs I have encountered...What are you guys doing wrong??