Was This A Scam!

[lecram]

Look out for this one as it may be a new scam but then again others may know of similair incidents!

I have lived in Thailand for the last 5 years and had a mate from Australia come visit me. As he stayed 3 months we had covered all the tourist traps and decided on some outings close to my home 3 hours east of Bangkok and close to the Cambodian border. On one such outing we decided to visit a very large border Market some 50 klm's from my home. We jumped into our rental car and sauntered our way through the many little towns leading to the border. By the time we arrived it was hot and humid as hel_l. We opted for a Golf buggy to get around as this seemed our best option rather than both suffer heat stroke.

Around an hour had passed and we enjoyed stopping at shops stocking items my friend was looking to purchase. We drove through row after row of market stalls sometimes exchanging cheeky grins with mainly female traders but at the end of one row found it blocked by a group of about 5 men. I thought nothing of it given the Thai males habit of congregating together rather than actually working and attempted to politely weave our way through. Not to be!!! One very aggresive guy stopped us and told us we needed to come to the police station and told us he infact was a policeman. As he had initially spoken to us in english I asked what the problem was but for some reason it seemed he no longer spoke English. The 5 or so guys were gibbering away in Thai and all I really understood was that they were mentioning a young lady at which point I thought oh gosh had we been overly cheeky to one of the shopkeepers. I reassured myself that neither my mate or myself had been and on listening futher realised they were saying we had a young lady with us. I told the guy that seemed in charge that what ever the problem was we were travelling alone and they could ask the guy hiring the golf buggies if we presented on our own or with a young lady in toe. A young lady with us two old buggers, I wish was my instant thought. Anyway no ammount of discussion would sway him from the fact that he wanted us to go to the police station.

At this stage I realised that one of the guys did infact have a police uniform. He promptly asked my mate to get in the back of the buggy and jumped in next to me and made us drive to the Tourist police station. Not a farang tourist policeman in sight so we had to deal with Thais with little english and one actual regular Thai policeman that had taken us there in the buggy. On arrival we were asked confusing questions by the "angry one" at which point I must say I started to get a bit agitated and answered ubruptly continually asking why we had been stopped. Neddless to say this made him furious and my mate could see my approach was not going to work and asked me to settle down. I did not need much convincing because I quickly saw this could get nasty.

We noticed that another man had entered the conversation and he did not look like a tourist policeman or regular police but rather one of the traders and in fact was. This guy kept pointing fingers at my mate and myself and mentioning a young female. He also kept taking his very full wallet out and showing its contents to the "angry one". On and on it went and maybe an hour had passed and still we had not been told what the problem was. We were not acually being held as such and at intervals we would walk off within the confines of the large outside foyer to the station. I made several phone calls to local prominent Thai friends from the area so as to verify I was a local Farang but to no avail.

Ok so I will cut to the chase ! 3 hours 30 minutes later and several calls to the Australian embassy saw us signing statements claiming we had no involvement in any crime syndicate.

As the statements were in Thai I told them that we cannot sign anything we cant read and we would have to clear it with our embassy. Another 2 phone calls saw the statements faxed to our embassy. We hesitantly signed on reasurrance from the embassy that it was ok to do so.

For three and a half hours we were held and had the rental searched and asked numerous questions, half of which we could not answer because they were being asked as if we were guilty of some wrong doing.

You must be wondering what it was we were being held for? After some three hours and a Thai interpreter on the phone we were told by the Embassy that the little guy pointing his finger and showing the contents of his wallet to the police wanted us charged. He claimed that my friend and myself accompanied by a young female had entered his shop and asked him to see some Thai money. He then claimed he handed his wallet over to us and when we returned it had some 30,000 Baht missing. Handed over his wallet hmmmmm !!!!

This to me is a "believe it or not" scenario and not one I would like anyone to go through so maybe now we FARANG need to present ourselves to the tourist police before undertaking any activity. Ok I am being rediculous ofcourse but I am at odds to understand why this happened and how this helps thailands lack or tourists. My guess is that it was a set up of sorts and the hope was that we "tourist farang" would be so scared by all this that if a claim for compensation arose we would pay it just to get out of there. We were having none of this and my warning is ! Do not wait as long as I did to ring your embassy as they and only they got us out of it. Also a thing that came out of this was that the embassy told me that they were happy in some regards that we did not have our passports with us as the less information the police had on us the better. What did they mean do you think.?

A Scam or misunderstanding??? Make up your own mind!

[malcolminthemiddle]

Who knows?

But one thing is for sure, this post is BS.

Try getting 30,000 Baht in notes into an already

very full wallet

.

[filingaccount]

How about editing your post to a standard font size (2) and to a more readable font (ex. Lucida Sans Unicode)?

[TheWalkingMan]

...He claimed that my friend and myself accompanied by a young female had entered his shop and asked him to see some Thai money. He then claimed he handed his wallet over to us and when we returned it had some 30,000 Baht missing. Handed over his wallet hmmmmm !!!!...

If they were trying to scam you at least they could have been respectable and said that you dented his stall table or broke a window in the shop.

TheWalkingMan

[perousing]

Who knows?

But one thing is for sure, this post is BS.

Try getting 30,000 Baht in notes into an already

very full wallet

.

there never was another 30,000baht in the wallet, cant you see it was a scam

this is thai's at work!!! scamming 2 elderly tourists,, no one is out of bounds. see the boys in brown involved again. only because there embassy got involved were they spared

[dantilley]

Sounds more like a case of mistaken identity than a scam, e.g. why would they feel the need to invent this other girl who was supposedly with you? And, as someone else said, why not come up with something a bit more believable than someone taking some cash out of a bulging wallet which was willingly handed over? Actually, this last bit sounds like something was lost in translation, just sounds too stupid to be true, or to be touted as a true story.

[Naam]

A Scam or misunderstanding??? Make up your own mind!

how can we make up our mind if you don't tell us how it ended? did they give 30,000 Baht or did you leave with empty hands and went hungry in the evening?

[GungaDin]

Interesting first post.

Why not include the name and location of the market?

A note for Aussies, if you need a good contact at the Aus Embassy,

ask for the young Thai male staffer if you need a phone translator.

He's brilliant.

[lecram]

...He claimed that my friend and myself accompanied by a young female had entered his shop and asked him to see some Thai money. He then claimed he handed his wallet over to us and when we returned it had some 30,000 Baht missing. Handed over his wallet hmmmmm !!!!...

If they were trying to scam you at least they could have been respectable and said that you dented his stall table or broke a window in the shop.

TheWalkingMan

Haha I never said it was a smart well thought out scam walkingman and look as I cannot be 100% sure maybe it happened in some form but I can say it certainly was not perpertrated be my mate and me.

[Travel2003]

Absolutely amazed about the outstanding service the Aussie Embassy give to their citizens.

[mahtin]

It was obviously two other blokes.

We all look the same...

[scorecard]

Absolutely amazed about the outstanding service the Aussie Embassy give to their citizens.

In fact I'm very sceptical about this part of the 'story'.

My understanding is that the Aust. Embassy do NOT provide this type of service.

Can you really amagine that every Australian who happens to be in Thailand can fax documents to the Aust. Embassy to get the 'OK'.

Sorry, I don't believe it.

[Jonathanpattaya]

Look out for this one as it may be a new scam but then again others may know of similair incidents!

I have lived in Thailand for the last 5 years and had a mate from Australia come visit me. As he stayed 3 months we had covered all the tourist traps and decided on some outings close to my home 3 hours east of Bangkok and close to the Cambodian border. On one such outing we decided to visit a very large border Market some 50 klm's from my home. We jumped into our rental car and sauntered our way through the many little towns leading to the border. By the time we arrived it was hot and humid as hel_l. We opted for a Golf buggy to get around as this seemed our best option rather than both suffer heat stroke.

Around an hour had passed and we enjoyed stopping at shops stocking items my friend was looking to purchase. We drove through row after row of market stalls sometimes exchanging cheeky grins with mainly female traders but at the end of one row found it blocked by a group of about 5 men. I thought nothing of it given the Thai males habit of congregating together rather than actually working and attempted to politely weave our way through. Not to be!!! One very aggresive guy stopped us and told us we needed to come to the police station and told us he infact was a policeman. As he had initially spoken to us in english I asked what the problem was but for some reason it seemed he no longer spoke English. The 5 or so guys were gibbering away in Thai and all I really understood was that they were mentioning a young lady at which point I thought oh gosh had we been overly cheeky to one of the shopkeepers. I reassured myself that neither my mate or myself had been and on listening futher realised they were saying we had a young lady with us. I told the guy that seemed in charge that what ever the problem was we were travelling alone and they could ask the guy hiring the golf buggies if we presented on our own or with a young lady in toe. A young lady with us two old buggers, I wish was my instant thought. Anyway no ammount of discussion would sway him from the fact that he wanted us to go to the police station.

At this stage I realised that one of the guys did infact have a police uniform. He promptly asked my mate to get in the back of the buggy and jumped in next to me and made us drive to the Tourist police station. Not a farang tourist policeman in sight so we had to deal with Thais with little english and one actual regular Thai policeman that had taken us there in the buggy. On arrival we were asked confusing questions by the "angry one" at which point I must say I started to get a bit agitated and answered ubruptly continually asking why we had been stopped. Neddless to say this made him furious and my mate could see my approach was not going to work and asked me to settle down. I did not need much convincing because I quickly saw this could get nasty.

We noticed that another man had entered the conversation and he did not look like a tourist policeman or regular police but rather one of the traders and in fact was. This guy kept pointing fingers at my mate and myself and mentioning a young female. He also kept taking his very full wallet out and showing its contents to the "angry one". On and on it went and maybe an hour had passed and still we had not been told what the problem was. We were not acually being held as such and at intervals we would walk off within the confines of the large outside foyer to the station. I made several phone calls to local prominent Thai friends from the area so as to verify I was a local Farang but to no avail.

Ok so I will cut to the chase ! 3 hours 30 minutes later and several calls to the Australian embassy saw us signing statements claiming we had no involvement in any crime syndicate.

As the statements were in Thai I told them that we cannot sign anything we cant read and we would have to clear it with our embassy. Another 2 phone calls saw the statements faxed to our embassy. We hesitantly signed on reasurrance from the embassy that it was ok to do so.

For three and a half hours we were held and had the rental searched and asked numerous questions, half of which we could not answer because they were being asked as if we were guilty of some wrong doing.

You must be wondering what it was we were being held for? After some three hours and a Thai interpreter on the phone we were told by the Embassy that the little guy pointing his finger and showing the contents of his wallet to the police wanted us charged. He claimed that my friend and myself accompanied by a young female had entered his shop and asked him to see some Thai money. He then claimed he handed his wallet over to us and when we returned it had some 30,000 Baht missing. Handed over his wallet hmmmmm !!!!

This to me is a "believe it or not" scenario and not one I would like anyone to go through so maybe now we FARANG need to present ourselves to the tourist police before undertaking any activity. Ok I am being rediculous ofcourse but I am at odds to understand why this happened and how this helps thailands lack or tourists. My guess is that it was a set up of sorts and the hope was that we "tourist farang" would be so scared by all this that if a claim for compensation arose we would pay it just to get out of there. We were having none of this and my warning is ! Do not wait as long as I did to ring your embassy as they and only they got us out of it. Also a thing that came out of this was that the embassy told me that they were happy in some regards that we did not have our passports with us as the less information the police had on us the better. What did they mean do you think.?

A Scam or misunderstanding??? Make up your own mind!

I just don't believe this yarn.

[soundman]

The market in question is called "rohng gleuah" (salt factory), and having been there nearly 50 times in the last five years, I would find it very hard to believe a sting op. like this was carried out against a few unsuspecting, stall hopping farangs with the usual "lost" expression on their faces, unless they were making complete asses out of themselves.

The only sting ops, or perhaps roundup is a better description, you will witness in this market area on a regular basis, are the Thai Customs and Excise department trying to bring some sort of order to the mayhem surrounding the import and sale of all the NGO's donated clothing/shoes, and all the knock-offs that have a problem getting sold elsewhere on the globe.

[khundon]

lecram has written

"Haha I never said it was a smart well thought out scam walkingman and look as I cannot be 100% sure maybe it happened in some form but I can say it certainly was not perpertrated be my mate and me".

"At this stage I realised that one of the guys did infact have a police uniform"

Sounds like he is a troll and has owned up to it.

How bad does your eyesight have to be, not to see a BIB in full uniform amongst only 5 men?

5 Years in LOS and only 2 posts. The clue was in the first 2 lines of his OP, plus he can't spell .

Edited September 11, 2009 by khundon

[lecram]

The market in question is called "rohng gleuah" (salt factory), and having been there nearly 50 times in the last five years, I would find it very hard to believe a sting op. like this was carried out against a few unsuspecting, stall hopping farangs with the usual "lost" expression on their faces, unless they were making complete asses out of themselves.

The only sting ops, or perhaps roundup is a better description, you will witness in this market area on a regular basis, are the Thai Customs and Excise department trying to bring some sort of order to the mayhem surrounding the import and sale of all the NGO's donated clothing/shoes, and all the knock-offs that have a problem getting sold elsewhere on the globe.

Thankyou detective soundman you atleast got the market in question correct. Did you use a gps?

Find it hard to believe or not I it happened as I told it and I find it amazing some readers find it hard to believe. How many other scams or incidents have we heard of or been involved in that also seem unreal but very very true in this part of the world.

[lecram]

lecram has written

"Haha I never said it was a smart well thought out scam walkingman and look as I cannot be 100% sure maybe it happened in some form but I can say it certainly was not perpertrated be my mate and me".

"At this stage I realised that one of the guys did infact have a police uniform"

Sounds like he is a troll and has owned up to it.

How bad does your eyesight have to be, not to see a BIB in full uniform amongst only 5 men?

5 Years in LOS and only 2 posts. The clue was in the first 2 lines of his OP, plus he can't spell .

[/quote

Yes my spelling needs correcting and I am happy to send any future posts to you for editing. Is that a deal?

You must be a very smart guy because for the life of me I cant workout what a troll is in reference to a person.

Personally I dont trust a farang that refers to himself as Khun, a simple Don would suffice but hey we cant all be western budhists can we Khundon.

Can you please check my spelling of Budhist please as I am not sure of how it is spelt.

HAHA KHUNDON !!!!!still trying to impress that cute little Thai lady.

[lecram]

It was obviously two other blokes.

We all look the same...

Well here is the thing mahtin you could not get two blokes that stood out as we did. I am 51 dark skinned and only 5'6" and my mate is 63 stands 6'2". I actually mentioned to my mate " How the hel_l could we be mistaken for the wrong people" as we stand out by our very different physical appearance.

[lecram]

Absolutely amazed about the outstanding service the Aussie Embassy give to their citizens.

In fact I'm very sceptical about this part of the 'story'.

My understanding is that the Aust. Embassy do NOT provide this type of service.

Can you really amagine that every Australian who happens to be in Thailand can fax documents to the Aust. Embassy to get the 'OK'.

Sorry, I don't believe it.

I am sorry you dont believe the Australian embassy will look after Aussies this way because you will obviously in this situation not call on them for this type of help as your "understanding" is they will not do it. Cool have it your way scorecard!

[lecram]

How about editing your post to a standard font size (2) and to a more readable font (ex. Lucida Sans Unicode)?

Filingaccount thankyou for your input but the font is fine as is the font size. Perhaps a new prescription for glasses may be in order as I cant really see what you are on about. But if you would like to re-write any future posts by me and edit etc I am sure it will make it easier for hmmmm lets see who????? well you actually.

How did you get so far with my post given your visual impairment?

Sorry mate I dont hold back either but dont have any real problems with your comments. I just happen to disagree!

[GungaDin]

The market in question is called "rohng gleuah" (salt factory), and having been there nearly 50 times in the last five years, I would find it very hard to believe a sting op. like this was carried out against a few unsuspecting, stall hopping farangs with the usual "lost" expression on their faces, unless they were making complete asses out of themselves.

The only sting ops, or perhaps roundup is a better description, you will witness in this market area on a regular basis, are the Thai Customs and Excise department trying to bring some sort of order to the mayhem surrounding the import and sale of all the NGO's donated clothing/shoes, and all the knock-offs that have a problem getting sold elsewhere on the globe.

Thanks.

Can you post the g-map co-ords pls.

[Rionoir]

He said he handed over his wallet cuz you guys wanted to "see thai money" ???

That doesn't even make sense... LoL

[dantilley]

How about editing your post to a standard font size (2) and to a more readable font (ex. Lucida Sans Unicode)?

Filingaccount thankyou for your input but the font is fine as is the font size. Perhaps a new prescription for glasses may be in order as I cant really see what you are on about.

One of the moderators edited your original post, before they did that it was very hard on the eyes, but they've changed the font size to be something more standard and palatable. That's what fillingaccount's on about.

[longstebe]

Personally I wouldn't waste my time typing all that if it were not true.

In the OP's defense it's difficult to put it all into words exactly what happened.

Ah well, whatever the story maybe always go with the wife

[ozzieovaseas]

The whole thing sounds bizzare to me.The way in which the OP writes doesnt seem indicative of an aussie for a start.

Also can you tell us how you were able to get this sort of service from the embassy...

They open the phonelines for around 2 hours per day and in those two hours the phones are ALWAYS engaged

Ive never been able to talk to a human when phoning the AE, please tell me how its done!

So..two guys walking around without a passport..no big deal..but how many people have the phone number of their embassy with them or in their phone?? I certainly have never bothered for the above reason

[Payboy]

5 Years in LOS and only 2 posts.

Perhaps OP has a life.

[Briggsy]

If the story is true, it will be a case of mistaken identity or detection by fishing by the police. You have been in an area when a theft occurred and the police nab you on the off chance you committed the theft. If you had been a Khmer, you would have been beaten to extract the location of the stolen money.

So, not a scam.

[CelticBhoy]

My wife is forever looking in my wallet

to see what Thai money looks like . . .

. . . and how well it spends! I don't need

my embassy to tell me I'm being had!

[dantilley]

Ive never been able to talk to a human when phoning the AE, please tell me how its done!

The British Embassy has a 24 hour emergency mobile number you can call, so I expect the Aussie Embassy has also. Granted, the service provided by the British Embassy over here is generally awful, and there's no way you'd get them to do the things the OP is describing, but it has a reputation as being one of the least helpful Embassies in Thailand so perhaps the Aussie Embassy would do a bit more to help one of their citizens.

how many people have the phone number of their embassy with them or in their phone??

It's not that unbelievable is it? As for the British Embassy, I remember the main office number of by heart as it's relatively easy to remember. If you phone the main switchboard, the recorded messages you reach includes details of the emergency number (again, I'm talking about the British Embassy here, I'm only guessing that the Aussie Embassy does the same).

[ozzieovaseas]

Ive never been able to talk to a human when phoning the AE, please tell me how its done!

The British Embassy has a 24 hour emergency mobile number you can call, so I expect the Aussie Embassy has also. Granted, the service provided by the British Embassy over here is generally awful, and there's no way you'd get them to do the things the OP is describing, but it has a reputation as being one of the least helpful Embassies in Thailand so perhaps the Aussie Embassy would do a bit more to help one of their citizens.

how many people have the phone number of their embassy with them or in their phone??

It's not that unbelievable is it? As for the British Embassy, I remember the main office number of by heart as it's relatively easy to remember. If you phone the main switchboard, the recorded messages you reach includes details of the emergency number (again, I'm talking about the British Embassy here, I'm only guessing that the Aussie Embassy does the same).

Yeh,fair enough comments,thanks

Glad to say ive never had such a crisis that ive needed to contact the AE...just hope it stays that way

Am happy just to keep reading about it!