Brits Flee Bangkok Boiler Room

[timekeeper]

Another good reason to limit the working practices and impose strict enforcements of the prohibited professions laws on foreigners in Thailand.

I find anyone seeking employment here have to be desperate people. Am I wrong? They don't pay a decent wage. They pay you in peanuts.

pay peanuts, get monkeys

[SantiSuk]

Sign of the times

The worm has finally turned for good. From now on people will be trafficked into Asia on the promise of riches from the West, not the other way around

Edited December 3, 2010 by SantiSuk

[manta]

What is a boiler room?

Normally located in the basement it's where they place a boiler to heat the buiding

[sydneyjed]

No one's missed the point Vicco..I mean anyone whose been in this town long enough knows full well what has been going on here..it's more or less been a standing joke amongst ex-pats for years !Before this latest financial meltdown Bangkok was awash with Brits passing themselves off as financial advisers..Soi Cowboy on a friday night you couldn't move in there celebrating their kills for the week!The guy who has the Irish theme pub had heaps of guys working for him from back in the U.K. To be honest this news aint nothing new..and neither is the fact that they keep setting up here and all this is punishable by 100 lashes with a feather!!!It's Thailand and nothing will change here as long as you grease the right palms!

[sarahsbloke]

Another good reason to limit the working practices and impose strict enforcements of the prohibited professions laws on foreigners in Thailand.

I find anyone seeking employment here have to be desperate people. Am I wrong? They don't pay a decent wage. They pay you in peanuts.

You can earn big money in a boiler room.

You forgot the one where they get the 'investors' credit card/debit card number and clean it out in an hour.

[toonsai]

Nice discussion. Awareness really needs to be elevated on these scams.

I created a Facebook Group to discuss and share experience, especially for expats based in Thailand and South East Asia.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=79817724505

[evanson]

I must be missing something. How come people be so naive (stupid) as to invest in shares they don't know anything about via investment companies that they don't know anything about? That's beyond me! Only Greed? If so, I guess these "victims" asked for it!

You seen the movie Boiler Room? There's an education for ya! And sounds like you need one. 'How can people be so naive as to believe they've just won a huge amount of money on some lottery (via email), they never entered/deposit large sums of money into African bank accounts to 'release deceased's relative's inhetitance' etc ... blah blah. FYI There are a lot of incredibly stupid people around ...

Apart from the movie you quoted, everything else you mentioned has nothing to do with boiler rooms. Who's the naive one? What you're talking about is for another topic.

My post is pertinent to this topic insofar as there are a lot of stupid naive people out there.

By the way. Do look up the meaning of the word 'naive', your grasp of English vocabulary is sadly lacking.

[rubl]

I must be missing something. How come people be so naive (stupid) as to invest in shares they don't know anything about via investment companies that they don't know anything about? That's beyond me! Only Greed? If so, I guess these "victims" asked for it!

You seen the movie Boiler Room? There's an education for ya! And sounds like you need one. 'How can people be so naive as to believe they've just won a huge amount of money on some lottery (via email), they never entered/deposit large sums of money into African bank accounts to 'release deceased's relative's inhetitance' etc ... blah blah. FYI There are a lot of incredibly stupid people around ...

Apart from the movie you quoted, everything else you mentioned has nothing to do with boiler rooms. Who's the naive one? What you're talking about is for another topic.

My post is pertinent to this topic insofar as there are a lot of stupid naive people out there.

By the way. Do look up the meaning of the word 'naive', your grasp of English vocabulary is sadly lacking.

Even if not addressed personally as non-native (sic) English speaker I dislike when others say 'grasp of English voc. lacking'. Although this forum uses English as basic language for communication, posters don't have to be native-English speakers, nor do they need to show a certificate to prove their knowledge of this peculiar language called English.

PS it seems naive and native may come from the same latin nativus, makes you wonder

Edited December 3, 2010 by rubl

[vicco]

No one's missed the point Vicco..I mean anyone whose been in this town long enough knows full well what has been going on here..it's more or less been a standing joke amongst ex-pats for years !Before this latest financial meltdown Bangkok was awash with Brits passing themselves off as financial advisers..Soi Cowboy on a friday night you couldn't move in there celebrating their kills for the week!The guy who has the Irish theme pub had heaps of guys working for him from back in the U.K. To be honest this news aint nothing new..and neither is the fact that they keep setting up here and all this is punishable by 100 lashes with a feather!!!It's Thailand and nothing will change here as long as you grease the right palms!

I kinda think you missed the point of my post.. Did you read the whole thing, or just the first few words? I thought the....:part might be a clue that I was joking. (ya know the bit about British...unions...work.. etc) ...and yes I'm quite familiar with the kind of stuff that goes on in Bkk and many other places in LOS for that matter. That's why I joke about it......and each time I do someone pops up to tell me that I've not been here long enough to know nearly as much about Thailand as they do........:jap::

Edited December 3, 2010 by vicco

[wallcracks]

Weren't a couple of the well known Irish pubs in BKK financed by the boiler room scams?

Financed yes, and still owned by....

Hang em High

[Arkady]

What is a boiler room?

An stock broker operation that sells shares of useless companies or shares that the "boiler room" actually own.

It's misrepreseting the value of the investment in order to rip off customers.

The Wikipedia quote aptly describes the classic type of boiler room as in the US and depicted in the movie. There are many variations. The boiler rooms operating in Thailand don't necessarily go to the trouble of actually having a product at all. They often go through the same rigmarole with the pumped up pink list stock but never even transfer ownership of the worthless stock to the mark. They just get him to transfer money to a bank account and provide nothing in return and disappear. The the additional structure required for that might create a better paper trail of securities fraud in developed countries without giving them any particular benefit, since they can just vaporize from Thailand. Those based in developed countries are already potentially guilty of securities fraud in those countries and the additional structure for them might make it harder for them to be convicted, since they provided a product. A lot of the action in the US has switched to just spamming people with information about pink list stocks to avoid having a physical presence with salesman.

Some of the expat financial advisers based in Thailand who target the savings of expat businessmen and retirees can also be regarded as a variant of the boiler room operation. They are more like the traditional boiler room operators in that they deliver a product but the product is often misrepresented and their advice is usually not objective because they are tied to offering only products that pay them a large front end load and ongoing commissions known as trailers. Often the products are poor investment performers, compared to the entire universe of similar products, and there is usually a stiff penalty for early withdrawal that is not pointed out by the salesman. Some of the advisers get bored of simply earning commissions on other people's products, lucrative though that is, and go so far as to set up their own funds via man-of-straw companies domiciled in offshore tax havens which they represent as being managed by reputable money managers in financial centres like London or Edinburgh. In these cases the investors risk losing their entire investments in the flimsy man-of-straw structures, rather than just suffering poor or negative returns and being charged unjustifiable fees and penalties.

The Thai SEC takes a somewhat craven and nationalistic view towards all these businesses in Thailand which obviously generate very substantial income in protection money to various influential people. They have adequate securities laws to prosecute all of them, including the expat financial advisors, since none of them are able to pass the exam in Thai that is required to be licensed to sell securities, not to mention fraud laws in the Penal Code. But while the victims are foreigners based abroad and no Thais are scammed, they prefer to look the other way. Even under great pressure from Western governments the most they have ever done is post the names of suspicious companies on their website (the companies are either long gone or disappear the next day) or let the police prosecute for immigration offences. On the other hand the foreign scammers, posing as Revenue Department officials, who persuade Thais to hand over ATM details in order to receive a "tax refund" find themselves in Thai prisons jailed for fraud relatively quickly.

When all is said and done, it is amazing that people who will agonize over the decision to buy the most basic consumer item will readily hand over their savings to a spiv over the phone but human greed will always produce variants of the perennially successful Nigerian letter.

[jayceenik]

Bangkok is the boiler-room capital of the world (the term reflects the high pressure put on salesmen and their clients, and was first used in the cult movie of the same name starring Ben Affleck, which dealt with illegal share-trading firms in the US).

[marinediscoking]

I had a friend who worked in one in Bangkok, he made quite a lot of money doing it. It is easy to get away with and with VOIP phones one can work alone or from anywhere. It is difficult to catch these criminals as they do close quickly. I was surprised to hear about the UK recruitment as I would have thought there are plenty of expats willing to do anything to stay here.

[laban]

Weren't a couple of the well known Irish pubs in BKK financed by the boiler room scams?

The most (in)famous one, so those in the know tell me, is the one beside the Washington theatre on Suk, I have never set foot in it and never will.

Can't remember the name but on the corner of Washington Square (near Suk.22) was the pub owned by John Kealy who use to run the Brinton Group, the biggest boiler room in Bangkok about 10-12 years ago. The press reported he and 6 others were arrested at the time, God knows whether they actually did jail time.

I was once invited to one of their big birthday parties at the Sheraton Grand with live band, with food and booze galore and no expense spared. A friend of mine at the time who worked for them, only moved with some of the Brinton Group people to set up again in Philipines, Indonesia and some more junior executives went to Cambodia. I am sure they returned to Bangkok as they all earned enormous commissions and had to spend it on the nightlife and flash cars & condos.

[thairet]

To round this discusssion off and lighten it up:

The investors are fools, the perps are criminals.

Client to broker: Hey, that stock you put me into for $5 is up to $20. Thanks!

Broker: That's nothing ... it's even better value now than when you bought it!

Client: dam_n, I knew I should have waited!

Edited December 3, 2010 by thairet

[Lite Beer]

Several nonsense posts removed.

[brahmburgers]

How much more of a scam is it than:

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and the other crooks at the giant roulette wheel called the NYSE?

The difference is, when a thrown-together low budget boiler room in Bkk gets busted, the folks run out in the street looking for the first ticket out of the country.

When a high budget boiler room on Wall Street gets busted, the folks run out in the street looking for the first ticket out of the country, then the Feds shower billions of dollars in their corporate laps, and when the Wall Streeters come back from their Caribbean vacations (all tanned and rested) they give themselves million dollar raises.

Edited December 5, 2010 by brahmburgers

[sydneyjed]

That is a very good point as saw the doco' where they actually fictitiously printed stock returns for years informing clients how much their portfolio's had gone up each quarter...Some just kept investing more not having the foggiest that it was all 'paper talk' and just relying on the investment houses reputation.The 'Pied Piper' syndrom..everyone followed ..all blinded by word of mouth,greed and perception.. When the sh.t hit the fan they found one whole floor of an office block crammed with fake portfolio returns that had been painstakingly typed out to disguise a major 'con' and make it look kosher!..Another great movie script this one when we've read the book!!

Edited December 5, 2010 by sydneyjed

[andrewdrummond]

How much more of a scam is it than:

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and the other crooks at the giant roulette wheel called the NYSE?

The difference is, when a thrown-together low budget boiler room in Bkk gets busted, the folks run out in the street looking for the first ticket out of the country.

When a high budget boiler room on Wall Street gets busted, the folks run out in the street looking for the first ticket out of the country, then the Feds shower billions of dollars in their corporate laps, and when the Wall Streeters come back from their Caribbean vacations (all tanned and rested) they give themselves million dollar raises.

Well I rather tend to agree with you here. The difference possibly is that 70 per cent of the Bangkok boiler room guys are complete 'oiks' whereas somebody from the above would probably be able to hold a passable conversation about finance. And in the second case they also all go away on holidays come back tanned and after entertaining the local authorities, start up business again. Of course they do not get government grants, but then again they dont pay tax, except on their entertainment venues, which makes them all legit.

[HardenedSoul]

How much more of a scam is it than:

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and the other crooks at the giant roulette wheel called the NYSE?

The difference is, when a thrown-together low budget boiler room in Bkk gets busted, the folks run out in the street looking for the first ticket out of the country.

When a high budget boiler room on Wall Street gets busted, the folks run out in the street looking for the first ticket out of the country, then the Feds shower billions of dollars in their corporate laps, and when the Wall Streeters come back from their Caribbean vacations (all tanned and rested) they give themselves million dollar raises.

Without doubt it's despicable that the sharks on Wall Street seem to be back to their old tricks again but it's also fair to say that it would have been impossible for the megabanks to acquire such omnipotence without OUR willing collusion. Fractional reserve banking and the derivatives industry it spawned is directly or indirectly responsible for the employment, mortgages, credit cards, car loans, business loans, construction etc that billions of people around the world rely upon for their standard of living.

The fact that it's all a massive Ponzi scheme is besides the point since without it, many in the West wouldn't enjoy the standard of living that most here in Thailand aspire to.

I guess my point is; Don't hate the players, hate the game !

[sirchai]

I doubt they give them work-permits, they just help people get Non-B visas ('looking for job/investment opportunities') - as they company will fold/disappear before 1 year anyway...and it seems most sellers don't stand it too long.

No work permit, for sure. Just a hot boiling office with nothing inside and a Non-B visa which is worth shit.

[Piengrudee]

So there are bad Brits too? Not only bad Thai (like Thaksin).

[onnut]

Be careful. Spreading rumours on the net can come back and bite you on the arse.

Edited December 5, 2010 by onnut

[kbill]

I worked in a boiler room for a while in 2000-2001.Some people there were making a very good living.$1000+ a day.

The act of someone being stupid enough to hand at least $10,000 over to someone who had cold called them we termed as

"the greedy robbing the greddier"

BTW anyone know where I can get a job in a boiler room now?

PM me:)

[Nawtier]

What happened to the new BR article by Drummond ??

Mysteriously removed.........mmmmm

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2011/01/23/bangkok-boiler-rooms-the-tasty-truth/