Chiang Mai to curb on 'extortive' Karaoke Bars

[Chicog]

I did actually see him on one of the occasions and he was doing a fair impression of a Weeble.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Chicog

[ChicagoCubs98]

I thought I'd post my experience at Rose the other night in Chiang Mai (Dec 29, 2015). I didn't realize it was a Karaoke bar. I thought it might be a soap massage parlor, but I wasn't sure.

After two hours, 4 or 5 drinks of scotch and a small amount of food, I'd succeeded in racking up a bill for $19,000 Baht. Of course this was fraud and I was a total idiot for paying it. Not only that, but I left without a receipt.

When I saw the bill, I asked to see a breakdown of each item on it. The bill consisted of probably 20 small pieces of paper stapled together. I don't remember seeing the word "Rose" on any of them. Some of the bill was even handwritten. About half of the bill was for the dozen or so women that came into the room at some point during the evening. They charged me 800 Baht (400 per hour) for each of these women, even though most were only there for 5 or 10 minutes. I did not realize that I was being charged for all the women who stepped foot in the room.

One of the owners of Rose, a small dorky looking guy, (sorry, had to say that) kept walking in and pouring drinks. One of the items on the bill was a couple 1000 Baht for him doing that.

I consider myself a complete and total idiot for being scammed like this. It's the only time it's ever happened in my life and it certainly won't happen again.

The real problem is that the city of Chiang Mai suffers because of this. I had a good time during the 4 days I was in Chiang Mai and had planned to return, but I'm never going back. I doubt that anyone who gets scammed like this would want to visit the city again; it's just too much of a bad experience.

I've read an article on the web that stated that the Mayor of Chiang Mai was cracking down on tourists being overcharged in Karaoke bars. I'm not sure exactly what he's doing about it. Actually, besides shutting them all down, I'm not sure exactly what could be done to stop this.