Another Day, Another Scam

[striderman]

there is little point in attempting to lobby anybody.

the jet ski rental and rip off generates so much money it will continue whatever anyone says on here.

you might as well campaign against pay 4 play in pattaya.

but it is through publicity on the various pattaya and thai forums that tourists can be made aware of the potential downside

[Danlo]

To be fair this has been going on for yrs and I find it hard to believe people still use Jet Ski's, I guess not everyone reads the internet, as for bikes I guess is similar but never rent off dodgy looking Thai sharks, use foreign owned bike rental companies, I use one called mai Pang on 3rd road just past the fire station and you can deal direct with an English guy.

[sharecropper]

To be fair this has been going on for yrs and I find it hard to believe people still use Jet Ski's, I guess not everyone reads the internet, as for bikes I guess is similar but never rent off dodgy looking Thai sharks, use foreign owned bike rental companies, I use one called mai Pang on 3rd road just past the fire station and you can deal direct with an English guy.

While you are right, that this scam has been going on for years, it has never been this bad.

I think the number of jetski scams and the amounts of money being extorted suggests whoever is running this scam has decided to milk this easy money, probably until someone is killed.

[saintofsilence]

When these jet skis are repaired it is highly likely that they are covering up scratches with a quick bit paint out of a spray can that only lasts a day or two and when people rent them the paint is coming off.

I really doubt repair work is being done to a high standard.

The person renting should not have to pay for fair wear and tear caused by thrashing a ski in the water.

Crashing the ski is a different matter .

[pattayapeople2]

Saw the scam played out at the bottom of soi 12. 3 young Indian boys. 20,000 baht changed hands. Police in uniform offered them to go to the police station but they settled on the spot. I caught up to them afterwards and they confessed they have no more money left now. Their holiday is ruined. The policeman shook their hands! I would've gone to the police station. Maybe it would've dissolved.

[saintofsilence]

Saw the scam played out at the bottom of soi 12. 3 young Indian boys. 20,000 baht changed hands. Police in uniform offered them to go to the police station but they settled on the spot. I caught up to them afterwards and they confessed they have no more money left now. Their holiday is ruined. The policeman shook their hands! I would've gone to the police station. Maybe it would've dissolved.

Whas that today ?

[surangw]

To be fair this has been going on for yrs and I find it hard to believe people still use Jet Ski's, I guess not everyone reads the internet, as for bikes I guess is similar but never rent off dodgy looking Thai sharks, use foreign owned bike rental companies, I use one called mai Pang on 3rd road just past the fire station and you can deal direct with an English guy.

While you are right, that this scam has been going on for years, it has never been this bad.

I think the number of jetski scams and the amounts of money being extorted suggests whoever is running this scam has decided to milk this easy money, probably until someone is killed.

Maybe they actually see what is going to happen to their business from all the exposure, and they are trying to get all the $$ they can now.

( thais actually planning ahead a bit, hey it mite happen)

Edited November 22, 2010 by surangw

[balo]

To prevent this all you need is a warning sign at the beach , like the one you have in Bangkok outside the Grand Palace, warning tourists against scams , im sure it would have some effect, .

[surangw]

To prevent this all you need is a warning sign at the beach , like the one you have in Bangkok outside the Grand Palace, warning tourists against scams , im sure it would have some effect, .

just don't be the one putting up the sign

[pipo1000]

Hi,we were in Thailand for the first time and left yesterday.We rented a jetski opposite royal garden with a guy if I recall correctly.We had a minor accident together.One jetski had minor scratches and the other had the rubber strip damaged.Initial claim was 80.000 Baht which we talked down to 40.000.

A friend of ours who lives here came to our help when the jetski guy already had made up and signed the papers in which he agreed to a 40.000 baht damage claim,but we hadn't paid yet.He contacted the president of the pattaya jetski organisation who he knows personally,and asked if he could mediate but he said he couldn't get involved.He talked to the guy over the phone and advised us to go to the police station if we thought we didn't get a fair deal.Untill that time no police had been involved yet.

So up we went to soi 9.

As soon as we got out of the car with the rental guy an FPV in plain clothes jumped in and advised us not to enter the police station as it would cause more problems.This is the guy waiting for us outside http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee500/saintofsilence/d5c7f8c6.jpg

Anyway we went inside and were immediately contacted by another FPV in uniform who has a desk in the soi 9 office at the left side when you enter.He listened to our story and then called another FPV,also in uniform,who would help us out.

From that point it went completely the wrong direction.He first explained us what the consequences could be and warned us that the Thai guy was a very violent person and we should be aware that all this was a scam with many police officers involved.

He asked about the issue to the Thai guy who got upset almost immediately and left the office to go wait outside.The FPV went talking to him outside and returned with the message that the claim was now again 80.000 Baht and he would not accept a deal because he lost face because of our friends involvement and blah blah.

Again we were explained that if there was made an official claim,our passports would get taken a copy of and we would not be able to leave the country that night.

( This I actually don't understand clearly.He said the passport would not get confiscated but only taken a copy and this would then faxed to the airport immigration to prevent us from leaving the country.Do you have any knowledge as if this is the case or only scaring tactics)

The FPV went talking to the guy outside several times on his own,and warned our friend to leave because he had upset the Thai and with his presence he would not come to a deal.At the end we pointed to the documents written by him previously and in which he agreed to the claim reduced to 40.000 Baht but the FPV told us that they had no value.After talking for more then an hour the guy seemed to settle for 59.000 Baht.At that time a Thai police volunteer who was in the office entering claims on his laptop all the time started shouting at us what a scum we actually were by not paying for damage we caused to thai people and demanding our passports and that we should go to jail and so much more.To avoid further escalation of the case we went outside the office and decided to pay the 59.000 Baht.

So in fact after contacting the police the claim was raised from an initial agreement of 40.000 Baht to 59.000 Baht.

The FPV who was "helping" us all that time offered several times to drive us to the bank to withdraw the money.He also answered our question as to why the claim went up again after coming to the police station as that since the police was involved now that they needed their share of the scam.

So at the end ONLY police volunteers,foreign and Thai,were involved here however there were several Thai officers present but they didn't want to get involved.

Later I also found out that the FPV in plain clothes was mediating in another scam case with some Iranian guys involved,which was going on for 5 hours already,and where the Iranians refused to pay an 8000 Baht claim.I saw later that an official claim was opened with the Thai police volunteer.

At the same time there was also a claim negotiated between some Indian guys from which I don't know the outcome.

After all this I really have my doubts that the FPV's are not involved in this scam.The one involved with us said that many Thai police were involved but that he could not do anything about other then advising us to make it all public in our home country's as much as possible,but I ask myself the question if he was genuine or not in his words.

Since we are back in our homecountry we decided to make this public.

Please don't let this thread die,it may be valuable information to people who do a google for Pattaya before they visit this Land of Scams.

Edited November 23, 2010 by Rimmer
Names

[TheWalkingMan]

pipo1000 said... "A friend of ours who lives here came to our help when the jetski guy already had made up and signed the papers in which he agreed to a 40.000 baht damage claim,but we hadn't paid yet.He contacted the president of the pattaya jetski organisation who he knows personally,and asked if he could mediate but he said he couldn't get involved."

There you have it people. The president of the jetski organization has basically given everyone the bird and told them to take a flying leap.

Ridiculous. Absolutely, ridiculous.

TheWalkingMan

[Tolley]

What do these guys do if you don't have the money?

There must be plenty of tourists who don't have 40k baht or more just lying around in spare cash.

Many people budget pretty close to the line when it comes to holidays.

I wonder if you are prepared to sit tight and wait them out what would be the outcome?

[saintofsilence]

At the moment there is also another thread running on the jet ski

scamhttp://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/419222-jet-ski-

scam/page__p__4040673__fromsearch__1#entry4040673

and a closed one

can one of you smart guys on here try to get them integrated or something , we have info all over the place , I personaly think the jet ski scam needs to be kept seperate .

Edited November 23, 2010 by saintofsilence

[pattayapeople2]

What do these guys do if you don't have the money?

There must be plenty of tourists who don't have 40k baht or more just lying around in spare cash.

Many people budget pretty close to the line when it comes to holidays.

I wonder if you are prepared to sit tight and wait them out what would be the outcome?

If it were me, I would not pay without at least trying to escape from the police station's rear door. Hire a taxi or leg it to Central Festival and then leg it over the low wall into Viewtalay condo's parking area and then turn around and see if you were followed. Or pay.

[saintofsilence]

Hi,we were in Thailand for the first time and left yesterday.We rented a jetski opposite royal garden with a guy named Cop if I recall correctly.We had a minor accident together.One jetski had minor scratches and the other had the rubber strip damaged.Initial claim was 80.000 Baht which we talked down to 40.000.

A friend of ours who lives here came to our help when the jetski guy already had made up and signed the papers in which he agreed to a 40.000 baht damage claim,but we hadn't paid yet.He contacted the president of the pattaya jetski organisation Charoen,who he knows personally,and asked if he could mediate but he said he couldn't get involved.He talked to the guy over the phone and advised us to go to the police station if we thought we didn't get a fair deal.Untill that time no police had been involved yet.

So up we went to soi 9.

As soon as we got out of the car with the rental guy an FPV in plain clothes jumped in and advised us not to enter the police station as it would cause more problems.This is the guy waiting for us outside http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee500/saintofsilence/d5c7f8c6.jpg

Anyway we went inside and were immediately contacted by another FPV in uniform who has a desk in the soi 9 office at the left side when you enter.He listened to our story and then called another FPV,also in uniform,who would help us out.

From that point it went completely the wrong direction.He first explained us what the consequences could be and warned us that the Thai guy was a very violent person and we should be aware that all this was a scam with many police officers involved.

He asked about the issue to the Thai guy who got upset almost immediately and left the office to go wait outside.The FPV went talking to him outside and returned with the message that the claim was now again 80.000 Baht and he would not accept a deal because he lost face because of our friends involvement and blah blah.

Again we were explained that if there was made an official claim,our passports would get taken a copy of and we would not be able to leave the country that night.

( This I actually don't understand clearly.He said the passport would not get confiscated but only taken a copy and this would then faxed to the airport immigration to prevent us from leaving the country.Do you have any knowledge as if this is the case or only scaring tactics)

The FPV went talking to the guy outside several times on his own,and warned our friend to leave because he had upset the Thai and with his presence he would not come to a deal.At the end we pointed to the documents written by him previously and in which he agreed to the claim reduced to 40.000 Baht but the FPV told us that they had no value.After talking for more then an hour the guy seemed to settle for 59.000 Baht.At that time a Thai police volunteer who was in the office entering claims on his laptop all the time started shouting at us what a scum we actually were by not paying for damage we caused to thai people and demanding our passports and that we should go to jail and so much more.To avoid further escalation of the case we went outside the office and decided to pay the 59.000 Baht.

So in fact after contacting the police the claim was raised from an initial agreement of 40.000 Baht to 59.000 Baht.

The FPV who was "helping" us all that time offered several times to drive us to the bank to withdraw the money.He also answered our question as to why the claim went up again after coming to the police station as that since the police was involved now that they needed their share of the scam.

So at the end ONLY police volunteers,foreign and Thai,were involved here however there were several Thai officers present but they didn't want to get involved.

Later I also found out that the FPV in plain clothes was mediating in another scam case with some Iranian guys involved,which was going on for 5 hours already,and where the Iranians refused to pay an 8000 Baht claim.I saw later that an official claim was opened with the Thai police volunteer.

At the same time there was also a claim negotiated between some Indian guys from which I don't know the outcome.

After all this I really have my doubts that the FPV's are not involved in this scam.The one involved with us said that many Thai police were involved but that he could not do anything about other then advising us to make it all public in our home country's as much as possible,but I ask myself the question if he was genuine or not in his words.

Since we are back in our homecountry we decided to make this public.

Please don't let this thread die,it may be valuable information to people who do a google for Pattaya before they visit this Land of Scams.

so is this guy saying he is FPV ? I have seen him many times he is called in by the scammers it looks to me that he is not on the side of the victim

Edited November 23, 2010 by saintofsilence

[kevkev1888]

Over £1200 for some small scratches and a piece of rubber strip!

Total cost probably less than 1000B £20.

In fact the scratches are a bonus can be used over and over again, no need to ever repair.

Edited November 23, 2010 by kevkev1888

[kevkev1888]

At the moment there is also another thread running on the jet ski

scamhttp://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/419222-jet-ski-

scam/page__p__4040673__fromsearch__1#entry4040673

and a closed one

http://www.thaivisa....treated-fairly/

can one of you smart guys on here try to get them integrated or something , we have info all over the place , I personaly think the jet ski scam needs to be kept seperate .

Would be a good idea.

[sharecropper]

Pipo1000 thanks for posting this. It would be useful to hear more incidences of scams from aggrieved and ripped-off tourists.

Isn't there a National Police Office in Bangkok or Tourist police head office in Bangkok who could be written to/called to ask them about what they are going to do about this, as tourists in Pattaya have no police protection from the scammers it seems.

At least in Phuket because of the international publicity the governor was shamed into getting involved and doing something about it.

[saintofsilence]

Edited November 23, 2010 by saintofsilence

[balo]

So then we know theres nothing we can do here , dont go to the police , just pay and shut up.

If I was scammed I would let the whole world know , lets hope more of the victims will tell their story.

[surangw]

As soon as we got out of the car with the rental guy an FPV in plain clothes jumped in and advised us not to enter the police station as it would cause more problems.This is the guy waiting for us outside http://i1230.photobu...ce/d5c7f8c6.jpg

FPV guy is there to convince you its a scam, you have no hope and to pay up asap ( so the all can move in to their next prey)

could be the scammers see their plan ending soon with all the internet chatter, and they are stepping things up to get what they can while they still can/

[contemplating]

I dont think the scamers have any plans of quitting. They have just found out that this is a gold mine, and no one will stop them. Why should they quit? Does anyone think they read Thai Visa, or any other forum? They are on a roll, and will continue as long as there are people to rent their garbage. They have never made money this easy, people are lining up to be scammed, and these guys cant believe how easy it is to get money from tourist. They can give the renter any discount they want, because they know that in one hour, they will make maybe 40 times the rental amount. Only thing we can do is try to spread the word, but I sure wouldnt be the one to put up a poster on the beach. I dont think that person would make it back home. Our Embassy's should be doing something also to help. Maybe if we all started sending messages to our own Embassy, they would react to this scam. This is not the same as getting scammed out of the price of a t-shirt. I for one, couldnt even pay this amount that they want, so for me it would have to be a case of "fight or flight". Families are having their holiday completely destroyed. Just depressing to see this going on.

[actiondell4]

Well,First lets analyse it.

Who.What Government Dept rents the Jetski Operators the beach area they are on ?

Doesnt the LandLord,whoever it is,have ANY control over the Leasee?

Didnt they require them to have insurance beforehand ?

Secondly its a CIVIL matter not a CRIMINAL matter so how can they keep your passport ?

Where is the farang that use to own the jetski business down that way ?

I was walking along the beach footpath a few weeks ago,some Thai guy with long hair carrying a jetski placard was trying to entice a a woman and her 2 teenage children onto them,for some reason he didnt say anything to me,maybe too old,maybe I looked too old or fat ? anyway he didnt say anything to me.

I dont have 80,000 baht so i wouldnt be able to pay them,so what is the CRIMINAL charge ?

I never see any of the young Bangkok Thai guys who come here on weekends use the Jetski s,do they try it on THai's too or just foreigners,

As for the alleged involvement of the FPV ,they are starting to lose my respect nowadays,before I jumped to their defence but now I see they dont really seem to want to help farangs.

Look,I will tell you this and I will be honest with you,YES if I was a FPV,I too would have done the same,AND i would of expected a cut,we all all probaly would of done it .Money Talks.

Geez if I was a FPV or tourist volunteer I too would be standing near the jetskis to "mediate" the situation,lets face it,WE all would !

Edited November 23, 2010 by actiondell4

[striderman]

I dont think the scamers have any plans of quitting. . Families are having their holiday completely destroyed. Just depressing to see this going on.

that's about the jist of it.

it's not possible to stamp it out everybody except the tourists are making money at it.

the only reason i started the scam thread on another forum was because i stumbled across a scam going down and it gave me a reason to try and find more examples to try and prevent newbie visitors getting caught.

but to get it stopped, i don't think it can be done as there is a daily supply of dumb tourists who do not read pattaya forums

[kevkev1888]

There are plenty of tourists who don't read the Pattaya forums before traveling here.

Don't think that makes them dumb necessarily, green yes.

Most of the people I see on the jet skis are non English speakers, Indians Russians etc, is this info easily available on the Internet for them in their own languages? I don't know?

All we can do is keep the publicity as high as possible.

Unfortunately I think nothing will be done until there is a major incident which reaches the international press, probably a death sadly.

Edited November 24, 2010 by kevkev1888

[doggie888888]

Just tell people you know, your friends etc NOT to come to Pattaya for their holidays...go BKK, Samed, Ko Chang, anywhere else but here...until Pattaya cleans up its act. Nothing like hitting the hip pocket before the authorities take note. Vote with your $$$ by spending your holidays elsewhere.

[saintofsilence]

Just tell people you know, your friends etc NOT to come to Pattaya for their holidays...go BKK, Samed, Ko Chang, anywhere else but here...until Pattaya cleans up its act. Nothing like hitting the hip pocket before the authorities take note. Vote with your $$$ by spending your holidays elsewhere.

Thats the problem no matter how many people we tell they will still get customers everyday to rip off , there needs to be a lot more done about this and these mafia moved off the beach .

[doggie888888]

Just tell people you know, your friends etc NOT to come to Pattaya for their holidays...go BKK, Samed, Ko Chang, anywhere else but here...until Pattaya cleans up its act. Nothing like hitting the hip pocket before the authorities take note. Vote with your $$$ by spending your holidays elsewhere.

Thats the problem no matter how many people we tell they will still get customers everyday to rip off , there needs to be a lot more done about this and these mafia moved off the beach .

I know what you are saying and agree. But until the authorities wake up, perhaps small measures by each and everyone of us will slowly drum the message home. Threads like this one is another way of alerting potential customers...it's a slow process but it is better than no action as in the case of the authorities! It's a small number, but I had maybe 20 people throughout the year who wanted to come visit...I basically told them that I'd see them in Samed, BKK, Ko Chang, etc becasuse Pattaya is not worth coming to visit these days, although my beef was the filthy state of the beach (not even looking for pristine, just NOT strewn with all manner of rubbish). I guess I can now add scams as part of the filth that inflicts Pattaya. It is a pity but Pattaya can really be a great all-in-one resort, if only beaches were a little cleaner, scams a little less prevalent and law enforcement a little more honest.

But I agree that a lot more can and should be done by the "authorities". One can only hope...

[Tolley]

You can direct people to other areas of Thailand but don't think the same sort of scams aren;t going on there too.

Unfortunately scams are a way of life in LOS.

I was on Koh Chang last year just before New Year and there was a few of us 2 Thais and 2 Farangs who wanted to go for a quick tour around on a songtaew for an hour. We asked the songtaew drivers who were all sitting around and they quoted us 2k baht for an hour ride around the island and then one of the Thais said no that is too cheap for farang and said it should be 3k.

Of course this is not really a scam as they are stating the price up front but really this is the attitude that too many Thais have in the tourist industry.

Farang is there to be milked and when this lot goes there will be more farang coming on the next plane.

[gmac]

Going a bit quiet here on the jet ski scam front. Just to confirm that the scams are as prolific as ever. I walked along Beach Road this evening, at a little after 5 o'clock, and saw no less than 4 separate groups of Asians on the beach having heated discussions with what I took to be jet ski operators (2 definitely were as they were looking/pointing to alleged damage on the ski's). This was all in the area between Walking street and Mikes. The regular policeman was involved with one group and two more Bib's on a motorcycle were making their way (along the pavement for some reason) towards the area. We can always hope that they were actually going to help out the victims but I fear not!

The situation is scandalous but what can we do apart from keep threads like this current in the hope that enough people read them and word gets around. Jet-skiing in Pattaya really isn't worth the risk now.