Woman arrested and freed on bail in Furby doll scam

Wisit Chuanpipatpong

The Nation

Due to its popularity, the cute little Furby doll has been used by scammers to lure their victims.

The increasing popularity of the robot toy, Furby, has led to some Internet scams.

BANGKOK: -- A woman suspected of being behind an Internet scam turned herself in after a court approved an arrest warrant for her earlier this week, police told the press yesterday.

Chonnikarn Taichilasoonthorn, 27, faces fraud charges for allegedly using a 16-year-old girl to post advertisements on Instagram to sell Furby dolls and scammed buyers to put money in her bank account.

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However, the suspect has denied these allegations.

The Criminal Court later yesterday granted her temporary release on a bail of Bt1.7 million paid by her father.

Chonnikarn claims that one of her regular customers called Nat wanted to use her website to sell the Furby toys, and as the website included her personal banking data, Nat decided to use her bank account for the transactions.

The suspect said she withdrew the money earned from the sales of Furby and at times sent up to Bt1 million in cash to Nat via messenger. She said that Nat claimed that since she was half-Italian, she was not able to open her own bank account.

So far, 52 buyers have filed complaints about being scammed out of money, and police estimate a loss of up to Bt7 million and believe there might be more victims.

Police added that Chonnikarn would be detained and an investigation would be launched to see if she was telling the truth.

Furby, resembling a hamster or owl-like creature, became a "must-have" toy in the late 1990s. More than 40 million Furbies were sold during the three years of its original production.

The interactive speech-mimicking toy recently became a big hit among Thai youngsters and adults after popular actresses were pictured with their Furbies. The price for each toy sold on the Internet ranges from Bt3,900 to Bt6,000.

A new Furby released last year has more expressive LCD eyes, a wider range of motions, its own iOS app, and the ability to adapt its personality in reaction to user behaviour.

-- The Nation 2013-02-09

It is nothing less than staggering to read that this womans bail was set at 1.7 million when some high profile Thais/MP's etc not only charged but sometimes convicted of the most serious crimes including murder, terrorism, breaching bail and corruption involving hundreds of millions of baht will pay bail between 200k to 1.5 million.

All men are equal just some more than others!

Watching the massively extended news about this dastardly crime, one would have thought she had committed mass murder or something.

Problem was no doubt that she forgot to include politicians and the police in the scam,hence she got pulled by the police. .

Good on police to catch her and even better that bail was so high.

Such a common practice here in Thailand to collect money into their accounts and either do not post or post different or under post.

PayPal is available here along with a number of other companies yet Thai websites, including bigger corporations still only want bank deposits.

Oh...Furbies! Did I fall asleep and got secretly send back to 1991?

Can some one explain the scam to me please, i am missing some crucial information or maybe i should have a coffee first!

Can some one explain the scam to me please, i am missing some crucial information or maybe i should have a coffee first!

From my understanding, scam is people pay but nothing is posted

People buying many dolls because they are over half off the US retail price....thinking they would then resell them and make money. How in the world would they be over half price in the real world? A fool and their money is quickly parted. Greedy minds....

So Furby's aren't inflatable?

They paid, someone didn't deliver.

Huuuuuuuuuge scam of 4mn baht. This is like taking down a mega criminal.

Thats a sh*tload of furby's. Are these things 'really' that good? Fads ... they will soon be over. Maybe time to reintroduce Troll Dolls...

I have a shipment of pet rocks I need to move. Any takers?

the ability to adapt its personality in reaction to user behaviour

Handy abilities at the Bkk Hilton.

Didn't those 3 policemen who were sentenced to death for murder get released with lower bail amounts?

BTW, I never saw a follow up for that story. Are they in Cambodia or did some frightened witnesses retract their testimonies?

Furbies they are really digging up some old stuff to reintroduce back to the market

maybe they just cannot design new toys these days

Furbies they are really digging up some old stuff to reintroduce back to the market

maybe they just cannot design new toys these days

These come with iphone control

So Furby's aren't inflatable?

If they're not I'm not buying one.

the ability to adapt its personality in reaction to user behaviour

Handy abilities at the Bkk Hilton.

Furby for sale.

Masturbates a lot.

Going cheap.

"So far, 52 buyers have filed complaints about being scammed out of money, and police estimate a loss of up to Bt7 million and believe there might be more victims."

Given that the Furbies go for as much as 6,000baht each, and there is a loss of 7million baht, I think the police may have stumbled onto something.

Either that or she sold those 52 Furbies for 134,615 each.

1,7 Mill. bail for sell copy fur dolls !

Many get out on a few hundred thousand for murder !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1,7 Mill. bail for sell copy fur dolls !

Many get out on a few hundred thousand for murder !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that murder was caught on CCTV .......

So a quick review:

Murder: 200,000

Fake doll sales: 1,700,000 ??????

For a nation obsessed with face, I sometimes wonder if Thailand knows how silly they

look with stories like this one..... My best guess is that in the story says she made 7 million

baht. So the police setting a high bail with is simply a way to force her to give her cut to

the police. Trial is set for a year in the future, the bail money goes to a mia noi, she is

a no show for her trial, and then the whole story goes away. And now Thailand is

back on balance....

Edited February 9, 201313 yr by EyesWideOpen

It is nothing less than staggering to read that this womans bail was set at 1.7 million when some high profile Thais/MP's etc not only charged but sometimes convicted of the most serious crimes including murder, terrorism, breaching bail and corruption involving hundreds of millions of baht will pay bail between 200k to 1.5 million.

All men are equal just some more than others!

You can kill someone in thailand and that is perfectly acceptable but if you SCAM A THAI then you will face the wrath in all it's glory and power.

Problem was no doubt that she forgot to include politicians and the police in the scam,hence she got pulled by the police. .

ah the gremlins. Well do do just look like pirated copies of the gremlins.

Edited February 9, 201313 yr by chooka

52 victims lost THB 7 million ??

Anyone want to buy mine, one careful owner , slight mark on left ear

I have a shipment of pet rocks I need to move. Any takers?

got any cute ones?

These new Furby`s are a technological wonder.They speak Furbish, can be trained to speak English and the deluxe models today available for only 12000 baht can even be trained to scam people.

Edited February 9, 201313 yr by Beetlejuice

Didn't those 3 policemen who were sentenced to death for murder get released with lower bail amounts?

BTW, I never saw a follow up for that story. Are they in Cambodia or did some frightened witnesses retract their testimonies?

I think they just get transferred and pay some tea money.

It is nothing less than staggering to read that this womans bail was set at 1.7 million when some high profile Thais/MP's etc not only charged but sometimes convicted of the most serious crimes including murder, terrorism, breaching bail and corruption involving hundreds of millions of baht will pay bail between 200k to 1.5 million.

All men are equal just some more than others!

If they pay anything at all, given the fact that they use the position they hold and used to commit crimes is used to get freed.

Yes doing the math is pretty difficult in Thailand. If the average loss is around 5000 baht we are talking 260K not 7 million.