Approached by two guys outside Sorya Shopping Centre...

[fey]

Best case scenario, they want to take you around to tourist sites and get commission when you enter.
Worst case, you end up robbed and in a ditch.

Never get involved with local males.
The rule works well for me, but I don't switch hit either.

Speaking from a purely hetero perspective, it's always either a scam or sometimes a joke, but it's never a budding genuine friendship in my experience. Goes double if there is more then one guy or a group. Only thing you can do is not respond. If they sit down finish your beer and leave.

Getting in someone's car in PP is a definite no-go. Not sure where your from, but should be pretty obvious. Very poor location, drug addicts and scams everywhere, etc.

Edited December 30, 2015 by fey

[Chicog]

It's funny, I got so many warnings about phone snatchers, pickpockets, bag snatchers, etc., but never saw any evidence of it.

I didn't feel to scared walking home along the big streets and didn't see any evidence there either.

But I dropped one bird off in a tuk tuk and she asked me to wait outside until she was in and locked up. Apparently she was scared of being robbed.

Seems there is something to be wary of, although probably not worried.

[Sheryl]

There is a lot of bag/phone snatching. Often by thieves on motos, and even in broad daylight. That it hasn't happened to you yet doesn't mean it won't. Best to heed what the locals say.

Women are obviously the most vulnerable due to handbags. But men need to careful when taking out their wallets and also their phones, especially if it is an expensive phone.

[Chicog]

Like I said I was wary but I don't think you need to be paranoid. I didn't see a single incident the while time I was there, day or night.

[genobkk]

Some guys tried to do that to me in Bangkok back in 84. I guess that was "The Thai blackjack scam" so doesn't count?

It was common here in BKK and also in Penang (where they used to hang near the Thai Consulate and on Lebuh Chulia, trying to prey on visa runners in the 90s and 80s but usually orchestrated by Flippers....it got so rife they even began getting on the train in Hat Yai.

It seems the MO has changed a little as they used to dangle a carrot with a picture of their 'sister' who was invariably a red hot dolly who was going to study in your home country and would love to meet you and ask some questions thus assuring the bloke would start thinking with his other organ (the one nor designed for thinking)...

same happen to me in KL years back 2005 or so. the Study scam yes it seems wrong from the start these were not Filipinos doing this scam it was Malay that was first and only time I had it happen but I had read about it later. The scam works like this they get you to play BlackJack, or some card game, they start out letting you win and you end up drugged and cashless dropped on the street some place in the end that is the fast version of how things go down. and NO I did not fall for the scam