Irish man claims his house, land worth Bt65 million defrauded

[steelepulse]

13 pages on some farang gets ripped of by thai authorities ....

Not just the authorities, his lawyers and loan sharks also. It was one giant big collusion. Let's hope justice prevails and all of these crooked and dishonest people get some time in the gray bar hotel.

[bander]

Welcome to the land of scams (LOS).

When are foreign people going to learn about Thailand and Thais before they invest here?

You always loose because Thais are the best scam artists in the world.

[bander]

13 pages on some farang gets ripped of by thai authorities ....

Not just the authorities, his lawyers and loan sharks also. It was one giant big collusion. Let's hope justice prevails and all of these crooked and dishonest people get some time in the gray bar hotel.

Yes that'll be the day

[NamKangMan]

13 pages on some farang gets ripped of by thai authorities ....

Not just the authorities, his lawyers and loan sharks also. It was one giant big collusion. Let's hope justice prevails and all of these crooked and dishonest people get some time in the gray bar hotel.

Once again, even if that did happen, how does that get 1 baht back for this guy????

[NamKangMan]

13 pages on some farang gets ripped of by thai authorities ....

Laugh as you may, just don't have a motorbike accident, even if it's not your fault, or you will suffer the same fate.

[Gweiloman]

This is a sad story for a man who strove to do the right thing by his family, starting a business, investing heavily in it with the full understanding and realisation that all his assets would one day pass to his children upon his eventual demise. It seems that he exercised due diligence in engaging lawyers, skirted a bit around the law by having nominees etc.

Sad fact is that he was eventually taken advantage of by criminals and (at the present moment) lost it all. According to badbanker, there is a chance that he will be able to recover his assets, let's hope this is so and that the criminals are punished accordingly (though I won't hold my breath).

The simple fact of the matter is that while some have made it, the risks are extremely high (and the returns not justifiably so). Those of us that have lived here for an extended period of time have seen with our own eyes how corrupt this society is, from way on high down to the police on the street corner. We may have done everything legally, not committed any crime but to put our full trust onto the LAW is naive, to say the least. If any one of us is unfortunate enough to be the victim of a scam, there is very little recourse for us.

Posters such as Nam Kang Man hit the nail right on the head - to live a happy and relatively stressless life here in Thailand, keep your assets offshore (for non-native English speakers, this merely means outside of Thailand). Have money transferred in on a monthly / quarterly / bi-annual / annual basis - sufficient to meet visa requirements and your spending habits and patterns. If for whatever reason you lose it (through scams or whatever), then at least, it merely constitutes a small percentage of your assets and you can walk away from it easily.

This country does not operate in a way that most of us are familiar with or can fathom. Coupled with the language barrier, it becomes too much of a hassle to have everything done the right way. Even something as simple as opening a bank account requires jumping through hoops (residency certificate etc etc).

I own a few motor vehicles, a couple of condos and have a savings account with no less than 800k for the visa requirement. However, if I have to leave Thailand tomorrow for whatever reason (civil unrest, being a foreigner or whatever), it would not be an issue for me to leave with just my toiletry bag as the bulk of my assets are not here anyway. That is what each and every one of us foreigners should consider and have the appropriate exit strategy.

[micmichd]

"skirted a bit around the law" is great.

If I were about to invest 65 MB, I would check the legal situation very carefully and also ask for some guarantee that the laws don't change to my disadvantage.

[Spaniel]

This is a sad story for a man who strove to do the right thing by his family, starting a business, investing heavily in it with the full understanding and realisation that all his assets would one day pass to his children upon his eventual demise. It seems that he exercised due diligence in engaging lawyers, skirted a bit around the law by having nominees etc.

Sad fact is that he was eventually taken advantage of by criminals and (at the present moment) lost it all. According to badbanker, there is a chance that he will be able to recover his assets, let's hope this is so and that the criminals are punished accordingly (though I won't hold my breath).

The simple fact of the matter is that while some have made it, the risks are extremely high (and the returns not justifiably so). Those of us that have lived here for an extended period of time have seen with our own eyes how corrupt this society is, from way on high down to the police on the street corner. We may have done everything legally, not committed any crime but to put our full trust onto the LAW is naive, to say the least. If any one of us is unfortunate enough to be the victim of a scam, there is very little recourse for us.

Posters such as Nam Kang Man hit the nail right on the head - to live a happy and relatively stressless life here in Thailand, keep your assets offshore (for non-native English speakers, this merely means outside of Thailand). Have money transferred in on a monthly / quarterly / bi-annual / annual basis - sufficient to meet visa requirements and your spending habits and patterns. If for whatever reason you lose it (through scams or whatever), then at least, it merely constitutes a small percentage of your assets and you can walk away from it easily.

This country does not operate in a way that most of us are familiar with or can fathom. Coupled with the language barrier, it becomes too much of a hassle to have everything done the right way. Even something as simple as opening a bank account requires jumping through hoops (residency certificate etc etc).

I own a few motor vehicles, a couple of condos and have a savings account with no less than 800k for the visa requirement. However, if I have to leave Thailand tomorrow for whatever reason (civil unrest, being a foreigner or whatever), it would not be an issue for me to leave with just my toiletry bag as the bulk of my assets are not here anyway. That is what each and every one of us foreigners should consider and have the appropriate exit strategy.

Well said, I agree.

[micmichd]

This is a sad story for a man who strove to do the right thing by his family, starting a business, investing heavily in it with the full understanding and realisation that all his assets would one day pass to his children upon his eventual demise. It seems that he exercised due diligence in engaging lawyers, skirted a bit around the law by having nominees etc.

Sad fact is that he was eventually taken advantage of by criminals and (at the present moment) lost it all. According to badbanker, there is a chance that he will be able to recover his assets, let's hope this is so and that the criminals are punished accordingly (though I won't hold my breath).

The simple fact of the matter is that while some have made it, the risks are extremely high (and the returns not justifiably so). Those of us that have lived here for an extended period of time have seen with our own eyes how corrupt this society is, from way on high down to the police on the street corner. We may have done everything legally, not committed any crime but to put our full trust onto the LAW is naive, to say the least. If any one of us is unfortunate enough to be the victim of a scam, there is very little recourse for us.

Posters such as Nam Kang Man hit the nail right on the head - to live a happy and relatively stressless life here in Thailand, keep your assets offshore (for non-native English speakers, this merely means outside of Thailand). Have money transferred in on a monthly / quarterly / bi-annual / annual basis - sufficient to meet visa requirements and your spending habits and patterns. If for whatever reason you lose it (through scams or whatever), then at least, it merely constitutes a small percentage of your assets and you can walk away from it easily.

This country does not operate in a way that most of us are familiar with or can fathom. Coupled with the language barrier, it becomes too much of a hassle to have everything done the right way. Even something as simple as opening a bank account requires jumping through hoops (residency certificate etc etc).

I own a few motor vehicles, a couple of condos and have a savings account with no less than 800k for the visa requirement. However, if I have to leave Thailand tomorrow for whatever reason (civil unrest, being a foreigner or whatever), it would not be an issue for me to leave with just my toiletry bag as the bulk of my assets are not here anyway. That is what each and every one of us foreigners should consider and have the appropriate exit strategy.

What would you consider an appropriate exit strategy for someone who can't go back because he experienced torture?

My exit strategy is political asylum.

[thaibeachlovers]

Tell me is there any shortage of trolls on here, a guy and his family have had everything stolen on them, they are fellow expats and from what i read, just drivel comes out of some people statements, quick and short troll comments, have you guys no intelligence or emphaty, what if it happened to you or your best mate or your family??

2 children locked in a water well and only for a neighbour found them they could have died!

Properties stolen with the full knowledge fo the family lawyer.

Trolls should be banned and their IP blocked in such circumstances. The whole meaning of an expat community is the word Community, a place of support and protection

TV is also a place of information. Sadly there will be many that will not learn the lesson and like him will be blaming everyone else for their ( future ) loss. Thailand is not the place to be investing in land/ houses etc. These scams have been known for over 20 years at least.

[thaibeachlovers]

13 pages on some farang gets ripped of by thai authorities ....

Laugh as you may, just don't have a motorbike accident, even if it's not your fault, or you will suffer the same fate.

I had a m'bike accident. Cost me 70,000 ( mainly hospital bills )and I didn't get ripped off by anyone. Got 50,000 back with travel insurance, but they didn't cover m'bike repairs.

[Jai Dee]

Several off-topic posts and subsequent replies have been removed from this thread.

[NamKangMan]

13 pages on some farang gets ripped of by thai authorities ....

Laugh as you may, just don't have a motorbike accident, even if it's not your fault, or you will suffer the same fate.

I had a m'bike accident. Cost me 70,000 ( mainly hospital bills )and I didn't get ripped off by anyone. Got 50,000 back with travel insurance, but they didn't cover m'bike repairs.

If a Thai died in the accident, you would be extorted out of more than 1 million baht, whether the accident was your fault, or not.

[micmichd]

What would happen if you don't pay?

[NamKangMan]

What would happen if you don't pay?

You go to gaol.

That's why steven100's post laughing at "a farang getting ripped off by Thai authorities" is naive.

Edited June 21, 2015 by NamKangMan

[Jai Dee]

You guys are going off topic again...

[cdnvic]

This is a forum, not a text message. Please use basic capitalization and punctuation or it will just wind up in the trash.

[MaeJoMTB]

This is a sad story for a man who strove to do the right thing by his family, starting a business, investing heavily in it with the full understanding and realisation that all his assets would one day pass to his children upon his eventual demise. It seems that he exercised due diligence in engaging lawyers, skirted a bit around the law by having nominees etc.

So he couldn't have invested the money for his children in his home country?

He had to do it illegally in Thailand?

As others asked, the police said he would have the land back in his name a week ago,

Happen or not?

I'm thinking not, all hot air and corruption.

[jpinx]

If I read it correctly - the land was in his wife's name, or possibly a company name within which he had a minority share. Any restitution would never revert ownership to the farang, so It's unclear how he will recover any of his losses.