'Defrauded by my wife and criminals in Thailand' - BBC special report

[lostoday]

I am a 34 year old guy and have yet to find anywhere in the world with a better cost of living/quality of life ratio than Thailand and I've been to over 50 countries.

How long have you spent in these countries? Don't see how you can judge without spending at least 6 months there so the I've been to 50 countries is meaningless. Plus as others have said things change when you have children. Education value for money here is appalling.

Actually I have no idea at all what you are considering good value for money here and good quality of life. It would also vary considerably based on where in the country you live, just as it would depending on what city/town/village you lived in the 50 countries you have been to.

Many things in Thailand are cheap compared to first world cities but Thailand is a middle income country so that is to be expected. Compare prices here to countries with similar incomes and things are not so cheap.

Hmmm. I've lived in 7 countries for over a year and visited 6 more, but Thailand would be the cheapest that you can enjoy yourself in.

Definitely a good value, it you are retired and your children are grown/self supporting.

Only three serious problems that I have here in thailand are:

1. you are forbidden to own land,

2. absence of legal protection.

3. no immigration card for foreigners

So I just rent and do the annual extensions. The above three would be critical necessities for those would would like to buy a home. Without them...well, ask the OP.

This is not to say that thailand has alot of other things to offer. Renting gives peace of mind..and is an alternative. We do hope that things improve..for those who want to own. I am happy with most other things and enjoy thailand.

Why would a retired guy want to buy a home? Wouldn't it be better to rent and put cash in a mutual fund for your kids and/or family?

[slipperylobster]

Lost more money in my last marriage break up through Australian courts than I can possibly lose here.

Caveat Mentor

Had to remove the word ..dumbos...replaced it with people. Not fair on my part. Intelligent people buy here (or try to)...it is easy to do.

Join the club.

I lost 200,000 in the USA... a land where Law is supposed to work. Here it absolutely does not. So why buy? If it does not work back home, it sure as heck won't work here.

The people that go out and buy, are just reinforcing a lawless system of corruption. I bet my hat that if everyone would just stop buying for one year...that Thailand would have to come up with better "rights of ownership".. Not to mention that all these properties end up being mismanaged by uneducated (have to say this....hookers). Bankers and moneylenders don't even bait their hooks......they just haul in the dough.

[MaeJoMTB]

Why would a retired guy want to buy a home? Wouldn't it be better to rent and put cash in a mutual fund for your kids and/or family?

Wouldn't it be better to spend all the money on yourself.

And let you kids work for their own money.

Instead of becoming spoiled brats ....................

[EyesWideOpen]

I spent 15 years living in Thailand. On my first day there I met a Welshman in a bar in Samui.

He had been in Thailand about 6 years. He leaned over, and told me to never ever believe a

single word a Thai woman said, and if I did that I would have a great time there. He was exactly

right. The level of deceit in Thailand, and the low price people will sell their soul for is amazing.

There are countless stories like this guy. Very sad, but at least this guy should be grateful his

wife did not have him killed, the fate of many other farangs in the land of smiles....

[lostoday]

Why would a retired guy want to buy a home? Wouldn't it be better to rent and put cash in a mutual fund for your kids and/or family?

Wouldn't it be better to spend all the money on yourself.

And let you kids work for their own money.

Instead of becoming spoiled brats ....................

Depends on the child. One may do good with the money and save the world another may do harm and hurt humanity. I know a Thai lady who has helped thousands of indigent women become self sufficient and productive members of society and others who have hurt people.

Mechai Viravaidya is a man with Scottish and Thai parents who has done a tremendous amount of good. Depends on the kids.

[slipperylobster]

the story does not add up

something is missing

the wife did not benefit

why did she do it for no monetary return?

so she went to jail for nothing?

Perhaps she received nothing because it was already "pawned away" for quite some time. Paper was "held" for a debt that was not payed?

[MaeJoMTB]

the story does not add up

something is missing

the wife did not benefit

why did she do it for no monetary return?

so she went to jail for nothing?

Perhaps she received nothing because it was already "pawned away" for quite some time. Paper was "held" for a debt that was not payed?

or maybe, she has 75% of the stolen money hidden away somewhere ....... ready to finance her future when she gets out.

[balo]

"Don't come here," he says, but now he's married a new girl half his age and still living in Thailand.

I think he meant Phuket..... He lives in Bangkok if I'm not mistaken.

[slipperx]

"Don't come here," he says, but now he's married a new girl half his age and still living in Thailand.

Read above - one of the conspirators sued me back and the court has my passport likely for many years as his case against me cannot proceed until my case against him finishes through the appeals court. I have no choice except stay in Thailand

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[villagefarang]

One more point. Though often the case she was not gambling. My youngest boy was just a few months old when this started and she was looking after him pretty much all the time. She was not out at night and was home with the kids of with me nearly all the time - such is normal with a young family.

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How did you not know what was going on? That is really hard for me to understand.

At this point, I don’t see any way for you to win in this situation. You make it sound like these guys are well connected and good at what they do so they probably are not worried about you at all but if it ever looked like you were getting the upper hand legally there is no doubt in my mind they would find an alternative lethal solution to the problem.

[slipperx]

One more point. Though often the case she was not gambling. My youngest boy was just a few months old when this started and she was looking after him pretty much all the time. She was not out at night and was home with the kids of with me nearly all the time - such is normal with a young family.

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How did you not know what was going on? That is really hard for me to understand.

At this point, I don’t see any way for you to win in this situation. You make it sound like these guys are well connected and good at what they do so they probably are not worried about you at all but if it ever looked like you were getting the upper hand legally there is no doubt in my mind they would find an alternative lethal solution to the problem.

Maybe but one has to live with oneself and to just give up and run away is not something I would like to wake up with knowing every morning for the rest of my life.

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[Sam Jones]

Just another example of never buying property in Thailand and never Invest any Money in anything here ...

Tell that to Bill Heinecke who made his US$ 1.14 billion fortune in Thailand

Or my good friend Peter who built Cape Yamu in Phuket, or my good friend Alan Zeman and his Paradise Group that built Andara in Phuket....

I know a lot of guys who've done very well in Thailand.

Far more than the ones who've lost money.

You wouldnt happen to be a real estate agent would you ... ?

[Robert24]

the story does not add up

something is missing

the wife did not benefit

why did she do it for no monetary return?

so she went to jail for nothing?

Perhaps she received nothing because it was already "pawned away" for quite some time. Paper was "held" for a debt that was not payed?

My guess is that she took out a loan with the property as security, she didn't pay back the loan and the property went to the lender. And as mentioned in the documentation, she faked his signature to get control of the company in order to get the loan. Now it seems like he has proven in court that she faked the signature and as a result she is now serving time in jail for fraud. If it is true that the property was taken over by the lender for a defaulted loan, I can understand why they wouldn't give the property back.

The story doesn't add up because there was no reason given why she would do it. She had a lot of money, had a great family, children everything, she lost everything - why on earth would she do this. There has to be more to this story.

[thaibeachlovers]

One more point. Though often the case she was not gambling. My youngest boy was just a few months old when this started and she was looking after him pretty much all the time. She was not out at night and was home with the kids of with me nearly all the time - such is normal with a young family.

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How did you not know what was going on? That is really hard for me to understand.

At this point, I don’t see any way for you to win in this situation. You make it sound like these guys are well connected and good at what they do so they probably are not worried about you at all but if it ever looked like you were getting the upper hand legally there is no doubt in my mind they would find an alternative lethal solution to the problem.

Maybe but one has to live with oneself and to just give up and run away is not something I would like to wake up with knowing every morning for the rest of my life.

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Sorry, but accepting that Thailand is not like back home, and stopping throwing good money after bad is not running away, it is being realistic.

While some on here are a bit OTT, not many support you, and most have probably been here a long time.

[rubl]

Would you trust Thailand and its people with your retirement savings i sure wouldnt.

Such trust could easily lead to becoming shirtless

[Linzz]

I do not know how high the actual number is, from people who were really defrauded of house and home.

But I'm sure that a lot more foreigners here are financially broken by booze and prostitutes.

just bang and drink as much piss as possible ....

Steven how many more times are you going to keep saying this inane stuff? How old are you? 17? Sometimes you can say something worth reading but not often. Please try harder

[Nomyai]

My basic rules for here work for me,

Dont buy property, houses are anyway cheaper to rent than condo,s

Dont get married, infact dont even get too serious with them

Dont get financially involved with thais, male or female

Myself i dont even rent women, most only target your finances either on the short or long term plan, it takes a while for them to realise there will be no flow of money and then they are gone after finding the next project.

Sounds a bit dull: a bit of 'help yourself' in a rented room...

Not at all dull, i rent a nice house for 5k per month with garden gated driveway and security cameras, i could,nt stay in a condo or room as i work at home and often have visitors,

Girls change often, most start telling lies either from the get go or after a few months, actually its not the lies which bother me so much..just the fact they think i believe them.

Edited to say, i,m bored with being asked to help opening a coffee shop, must have had 15 such requests, this happening to others also?

Can you be more specifice in what they ask for.......

[VIPinthailand]

how can you prove that your signature has been forged? when fake witness and lawyers lie.

when everybody is involved in a scam here , no one will talk about as long it profits to the Thai system and Thai people. .

they will probably say that it was a good lesson for you, and you can pack and leave. it s just too easy to scam people here in Thailand and nobody cares if you have lost money as most people are poor. not a good place to invest for your retirement. best is too keep all in your own country where you get more protection as a citizen and transfer just what you need and keep a very low profile(or stay under radar) if you don't want to attract mafia and suckers who will make your life worse than in your home country.

just my point of view.

[Nomyai]

Many say they have thai friends in high places. Maybe this is what hapens when your friends were only a figment of ones mind.

So a guy knows a liuetenant in a police station-what does that mean. The lietenant is poor -it just makes one stand out more as a target.

[MaeJoMTB]

The story doesn't add up because there was no reason given why she would do it. She had a lot of money, had a great family, children everything, she lost everything - why on earth would she do this

Maybe she got fed up sleeping with "Mr. Big".

My wife (my age) got fed up with me in the UK, and threw her life away, and her children's life away ..... I look a lot better than him.

As a pal said to me, when a woman wants rid ...... you're gone ....... no matter what.

[Linzz]

criminal energy is not only in Thailand, happened around the world

And around the world criminals are pursued by the criminal justice system. In Thailand the law does not work quite the same way! Not only are the systems used to transfer valuable assets very easy to circumvent but the justice system bends over backwards not to find them guilty especially where a foreigner is the victim.

Yes national pride face saving is more important than justice, not much foresight at all.

[Lunchbob]

The bad guys are working so hard! You know they're desperate when they break out these cliches. Yawn.

[taxin]

You have got to be kidding, I know many personally who have lost their lot and many more stories that I have heard many times over from others on casual meetings. It goes on and on all the time and it never ceases to amaze me that some very otherwise intelligent and successful businessmen seem to leave their collective wit at the airport locker room and do everything different here in Thailand. You really have NO RIGHTS here, get use to it, be prepared to lose the lot if you want invest put your money into Thailand. Up to you how you play your game, I will play mine my way, that way I stay in control all the time, they can't get my house/condo/lease/shares if I don't have any.

No im not kidding, I have never met or know anyone who has met a farang who had a Thai wife forge his signature to sell any property. Farangs buying property and "gifting" it to a Thai GF who then dumps the farang yes, but this is not illegal and does not require the Thai GF to seek the help of crooked lawyers to forge any signatures.

One interesting link with regards to the Colin Vard and Ian Vance stories, despite both of them being married with children the "family" properties were kept well away from the wife and held by a company 100% controlled by the farang (or at least they thought so). It makes you ask the question, would we be hearing about these stories if the farang simply put the house in the wifes name ?

Look at the resulting scenario we have by the farang choosing not to do this. The relationship already starts off badly with the wife losing face by being told she cant be trusted and that the property will be kept out of her reach. The wife who is not getting any younger is then asked to give up her life by raising 3 of the farangs children, the mother having zero financial security knowing that the properties will never be hers, she has to live with the fact that one day he could dump her and the 3 kids for a younger model, leaving her with nothing. In other words what they are basically proposing to the wife is "you can marry me, live in my house and spend the next XX years of your life raising my children and doing my laundry, but dont expect anything for it !".

Could Colin and Ian's decision not to give the mothers any long term security be a contributing factor in what they did ?

I'm by no means making excuses for these ladies, but it could be seen as a motive.

What a lot of drivel. Apart from the fact I had already bought land for her in her home town why would any foreigner start a business all in the wife's name.

Easy answer to this, the foreigner would put the business in the wifes name so in the future the wife could choose a more secure and less risky way of borrowing money if ever needed. If you did put the assets and business in your wife's name she would have built up a credit rating (providing of course she doesn't bump any credit/store cards along the way), I recall you saying that you also had a restaurant business which I presume had some sort of turnover ? With your wife having all this and you being out of the picture she would be able to go to the bank and borrow money, she would never so much as consider seeking help from criminal money lenders, she would never have been a vulnerable target for the crooks.

Nearly every successful foreigner I have met has put their success down to this very way. One personal friend of mine came here and bought a guest house 10 years ago for 5 million baht, he put the guesthouse and the business in the wife's name and made sure his name was nowhere to be seen, a few years later he doubled his money and sold it for 10 million, as his wife was the owner of a profitable company that had a good credit history she was now able to obtain a loan of 50 million from the bank to build a small hotel, which they sold for 80 million 3 years later. I know of many more foreigners with similar stories.

What my friend did was he married an uneducated poorper and turned her into an educated business women, what you did was you married a poorper and made sure she stayed a poorper, by staying that poorper with nothing to look forward to (apart from a piece of land in the jungle) you merely reiterated the medieval belief that Thai people who are born poor must stay poor.

Again, absolutely no excuse for what she did, I feel for you and hope you see justice, although what I say might be seem otherwise I really do sympathize with you. Your story is not about "farang meets Thai lady, farang loses everything", your story is about highlighting the corruption that is allowed to go on, how easy you can lose everything with just one false signature on one false document.

It truly sickens me when I see these pathetic comments like "a fool and his money are soon parted", these people will never in their sad lives come close to having the money you have lost !

[Linzz]

he looks a decent chap , I feel quite sorry for him , it must have been quite a shock for him to discover his wife for nine years had taken him to the cleaners with the aid of other people, nasty unfortunately he is just another statistic .

Yes and quite a shock for some TVF members to find he has a voice on here too. A lot of back peddling suddenly with his appearance by people who love to snigger crass stuff to obtain status by shock appeal. For them just entertainment value at someone else's misfortune other than their own.

[steven100]

I do not know how high the actual number is, from people who were really defrauded of house and home.

But I'm sure that a lot more foreigners here are financially broken by booze and prostitutes.

just bang and drink as much piss as possible ....

Steven how many more times are you going to keep saying this inane stuff? How old are you? 17? Sometimes you can say something worth reading but not often. Please try harder

ok Linzz, but I gotta have a beer sometimes ...

I thought you were going to hound me on the refugees again ....

[Praematura]

I now a guy who is building his wife a house in Isan. He lives like a pauper in a shit studio in Bangkok so he can give her more money. He hasn't been up there to see it but I suspect she's pocketing the money. Her "brother" came to stay with them for a week and she is always out. He took her back to the USA and she cheated on him. He still gave her money and the paid to bring her kid to the USA. The guy has since had 4 bypasses from heart attacks. Yet he continues to play the fool.

I've been married for 7 years and my Thai wife is great. She is from a dirt poor family in Isan but doesn't milk. She is great.

[MaeJoMTB]

he looks a decent chap , I feel quite sorry for him , it must have been quite a shock for him to discover his wife for nine years had taken him to the cleaners with the aid of other people, nasty unfortunately he is just another statistic .

Yes and quite a shock for some TVF members to find he has a voice on here too. A lot of back peddling suddenly with his appearance by people who love to snigger crass stuff to obtain status by shock appeal. For them just entertainment value at someone else's misfortune other than their own.

No back pedaling from me,

You can see from the wedding photo what was going to happen.

No slim 20 year old marries a fat 42 year old for love ............................

(a slim 20 year old + an attractive and slim 40 year old is stretching the old credibility a bit)

And that's not even considering the cultural differences, the language barrier ........

100% guaranteed to end in death or financial disaster.

[Linzz]

One more point. Though often the case she was not gambling. My youngest boy was just a few months old when this started and she was looking after him pretty much all the time. She was not out at night and was home with the kids of with me nearly all the time - such is normal with a young family.

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How did you not know what was going on? That is really hard for me to understand.

At this point, I don’t see any way for you to win in this situation. You make it sound like these guys are well connected and good at what they do so they probably are not worried about you at all but if it ever looked like you were getting the upper hand legally there is no doubt in my mind they would find an alternative lethal solution to the problem.

Maybe but one has to live with oneself and to just give up and run away is not something I would like to wake up with knowing every morning for the rest of my life.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry, but accepting that Thailand is not like back home, and stopping throwing good money after bad is not running away, it is being realistic.

While some on here are a bit OTT, not many support you, and most have probably been here a long time.

Not staying to fight is giving up and giving in. As I said before Thailand needs people of his stamina if any changes are ever going to take place, I must be one of the few that support him then.

[Linzz]

The story doesn't add up because there was no reason given why she would do it. She had a lot of money, had a great family, children everything, she lost everything - why on earth would she do this

Maybe she got fed up sleeping with "Mr. Big".

My wife (my age) got fed up with me in the UK, and threw her life away, and her children's life away ..... I look a lot better than him.

As a pal said to me, when a woman wants rid ...... you're gone ....... no matter what.

Adonis the Greek god speaks again. C'mon get'em off! I hope you could post a real photo of yourself on TVF instead of Troy Tempest from Stingray

[thaibeachlovers]

How did you not know what was going on? That is really hard for me to understand.

At this point, I don’t see any way for you to win in this situation. You make it sound like these guys are well connected and good at what they do so they probably are not worried about you at all but if it ever looked like you were getting the upper hand legally there is no doubt in my mind they would find an alternative lethal solution to the problem.

Maybe but one has to live with oneself and to just give up and run away is not something I would like to wake up with knowing every morning for the rest of my life.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry, but accepting that Thailand is not like back home, and stopping throwing good money after bad is not running away, it is being realistic.

While some on here are a bit OTT, not many support you, and most have probably been here a long time.

Not staying to fight is giving up and giving in. As I said before Thailand needs people of his stamina if any changes are ever going to take place, I must be one of the few that support him then.

Do you actually think he can change anything by continuing to throw money away. The Thai authorities make it quite plain that they don't consider us to be important in Thailand by their immigration regulations, and I doubt any of them lose sleep because a farang is getting screwed over by his Thai wife and a bunch of criminals. Just ask any Burmese fishing boat slave if he thinks the authorities cared about his plight for the last how many years. Do you think farangs are more important than him because we have white skin?