Little scams make big money

[gemguy]

Hmmmm......then you will like this one:

On Thursday I call my air conditioner mechanic and ask him to come around and have a look at my air conditioner .

His 3 minions show up and I explain to them that sometimes when I turn on the air conditioner there is a slightly audible mechanical sound that has me thinking something may be brewing and going wrong so I want them to have a look at it before anything serious develops.

So, I turn on the air conditioner and they listen and I say: "Not so noisy this time but often enough I can hear something, so have a look and let me know"

So they pull out the panel filters and then unlatch the multiple access doors and expose the 2 electric motors and the drum style, roller blade fans on either side of the electric motors.

Then the one guys says the electric motor on the left side needs to be replaced and tells me it will cost no more than 2000 baht to replace the motor but they have to go buy a new electric motor and be back by 1 or 2 PM.

So off they go and now it is hot in the room so I figure I can turn on the air conditioner and run it as is with no problem until they come back.

I am there looking up at the air conditioner motors and the fan blades whirling around and they are all working fine and no problem ..so I look closer with a flash light and turn the unit off and on several times and conclude there is NOTHING wrong with the motor on the left hand side ...nothing at all and it works just fine.

I then phone the boss man and tell him his workers told me the eclectic motor needed to be replaced and they are out buying a new one but they are totally mistaken so call them and cancel...and no need to come back here ...thank you very much.

So...would you think that was or is an honest mistake or do you think they thought the foreigner is a dummy and would not know anything anyhow about an air conditioner so we can make some extra money here today at the expense of the thought to be naïve foreigner.

What do you think??

I know what I think...lol

Cheers

[Thian]

Hmmmm......then you will like this one:

On Thursday I call my air conditioner mechanic and ask him to come around and have a look at my air conditioner .

His 3 minions show up and I explain to them that sometimes when I turn on the air conditioner there is a slightly audible mechanical sound that has me thinking something may be brewing and going wrong so I want them to have a look at it before anything serious develops.

So, I turn on the air conditioner and they listen and I say: "Not so noisy this time but often enough I can hear something, so have a look and let me know"

So they pull out the panel filters and then unlatch the multiple access doors and expose the 2 electric motors and the drum style, roller blade fans on either side of the electric motors.

Then the one guys says the electric motor on the left side needs to be replaced and tells me it will cost no more than 2000 baht to replace the motor but they have to go buy a new electric motor and be back by 1 or 2 PM.

So off they go and now it is hot in the room so I figure I can turn on the air conditioner and run it as is with no problem until they come back.

I am there looking up at the air conditioner motors and the fan blades whirling around and they are all working fine and no problem ..so I look closer with a flash light and turn the unit off and on several times and conclude there is NOTHING wrong with the motor on the left hand side ...nothing at all and it works just fine.

I then phone the boss man and tell him his workers told me the eclectic motor needed to be replaced and they are out buying a new one but they are totally mistaken so call them and cancel...and no need to come back here ...thank you very much.

So...would you think that was or is an honest mistake or do you think they thought the foreigner is a dummy and would not know anything anyhow about an air conditioner so we can make some extra money here today at the expense of the thought to be naïve foreigner.

What do you think??

I know what I think...lol

Cheers

I think you should pay them at least for coming and opening up the aircon.

And that noise can be anything, maybe the gas which starts flowing in the system? Or airbubbles in it?

If a motor has to be replaced then i would change both or all of them.

[Suradit69]

But this little scam is getting on the nerves of my girlfriend, who hates it when people are so greedy.

Tell her about Volkswagen and how they thought they could scam all their customers and the governments of the countries in which their cars are sold because of their culture of greed and fraud.

That should put things into perspective.

As we all know, Volkswagen has apologized for selling hundreds of thousands of diesel cars in the U.S. with software specifically designed to evade government pollution tests.

An US$18-billion liability figure attached itself last Friday to Volkswagen’s diesel disaster.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/putting-a-price-on-volkswagens-emission-fraud-mess-its-going-to-cost-them-billions

More than $17 billion has been erased Monday from Volkswagen’s value in shareholders’ eyes as the company awaits more fallout from news that the company cheated through emissions tests.

Volkswagen’s stock dropped more than 20 percent Monday after the German automaker announced it would stop sales of its diesel cars on Sunday.

[LC 100]

Guys, I think you have too much time on your hands to be concerned about the OP losing a Baht....

[neeray]

Just suck it up ! We take all the advantages of living in their land. We are better off than they are. It may seem cheeky to us but this is their way of supplementing their meager income. As they say, "Welcome to Thailand". But like other members have commented, if it bothers you and your lady that much, go to the "exact change" method. There are a number of simple solutions to this problem.

[lostmebike]

I am from Belgium, and I know Dutch mentality!

One baht is a lot of money to them!

So I would advice him yo not go unarmed to that place again !

Haha

When I read the 'I would have tipped..' or something like that, I had to laugh.

[Bangkokhatter]

Hmmmm......then you will like this one:

On Thursday I call my air conditioner mechanic and ask him to come around and have a look at my air conditioner .

His 3 minions show up and I explain to them that sometimes when I turn on the air conditioner there is a slightly audible mechanical sound that has me thinking something may be brewing and going wrong so I want them to have a look at it before anything serious develops.

So, I turn on the air conditioner and they listen and I say: "Not so noisy this time but often enough I can hear something, so have a look and let me know"

So they pull out the panel filters and then unlatch the multiple access doors and expose the 2 electric motors and the drum style, roller blade fans on either side of the electric motors.

Then the one guys says the electric motor on the left side needs to be replaced and tells me it will cost no more than 2000 baht to replace the motor but they have to go buy a new electric motor and be back by 1 or 2 PM.

So off they go and now it is hot in the room so I figure I can turn on the air conditioner and run it as is with no problem until they come back.

I am there looking up at the air conditioner motors and the fan blades whirling around and they are all working fine and no problem ..so I look closer with a flash light and turn the unit off and on several times and conclude there is NOTHING wrong with the motor on the left hand side ...nothing at all and it works just fine.

I then phone the boss man and tell him his workers told me the eclectic motor needed to be replaced and they are out buying a new one but they are totally mistaken so call them and cancel...and no need to come back here ...thank you very much.

So...would you think that was or is an honest mistake or do you think they thought the foreigner is a dummy and would not know anything anyhow about an air conditioner so we can make some extra money here today at the expense of the thought to be naïve foreigner.

What do you think??

I know what I think...lol

Cheers

I think your a genius, you can tell an electric motor is faulty or not just by using a torch and the on/off switch.

Is your air con still noisy ?

[namatjira]

It's ok for you Thai visa posters to laugh, but get real this is a serious problem when you get shortchanged a baht,

That's quite a few satang you know and as he says it mounts up. A man has trouble sleeping at night thinking that somebody has plotted to take a baht, that's one less lick of an ice cream he will not get to take.....and all because of serious scamsters working at the pumps....so beware, it could happen to you.....be vigilant.......this is a serious concern for all of us.

[BudRight]

How many times have you gone to pay for something and found yourself one baht short?

[namatjira]

Actually that's a favorite technique of mine, do it a hundred times and it mounts up.......the best way is to buy something for 100 baht,

Get out 2 20 baht notes and a fifty....looking good and the vendor is happy, fish around and find a 5 baht coin,

Offer that over, dig deeper and start pulling out the single bahts one at a time, get 4 and act all excited.....

And then act all disappointed and make signs that there is no more satang.....99 times out of a 100 you win the prize.

It might be small change but it mounts up.............especially good for 1000 baht items, here you can easily skim 5 baht if you are smart.......Bloody brilliant

[lemonjelly]

It's not the amount, it's the fact that they so blatantly do it.... I wouldn't let them get away with it, neither would the average Thai.

[callaway]

Dutchmen are only the second tighest people in the world. Copper wire was first discovered due to the result of 2 Scotsmen fighting over a penny.

[balo]

I don' like being cheated myself but one baht ? Are you kidding me?

1 or 2 baht is actually nothing , not even for Thais. Let them keep it.

[seancbk]

A friend of mine visiting from Hong Kong just posted this on her Facebook Page

"Talk about customer service, purchased a few items in a shop 1 item was over charged by 4 baht.
Just wanted to let them know - Before those of you say something I was really nice and wasn't looking for anything.

Not only did I get the most sincere apology of my life but was refunded the full amount and got to keep the item.
Well done Central Food Hall!!"

Not everyone in Thailand is out to scam you.

[Thaijack2014]

Hello out there... it is really weird to see how some people think and not read. Or maybe it was me, who wasn't very clear about it.

I said it didn't matter to me about the money, it didn't hurt me. I know how to live in Thailand and I know that everytime I show my nose in a shop prices will raise automatically and we pay at entrances 10, 20, 30 times more than a Thai....

But: I was joking about the one coin they didn't give. The boy who was paying back said: here is two baht and he pushed a one baht coin in my hand. I laughed and said, no no this is only one baht. At that moment, my girlfriend and later some other customers got angry. She insisted the other coin to be given.

The service were very reluctant in doing so.

Hell yes, I'm aware, it is ONLY A BLOODY BAHT. But it is the way they behave and it is about attitude. I would have given the money, even a bigger tip, on my behalf!

Mind you, three years ago I was in a snackbar in Japan and wanted some chicken. I was short 1 Yen - that is 30 satang - 1/3 baht!!!!! I didn't get my chicken!!!! Talking about Dutch being tight???

The reason why I wrote the article??? On behalf of my girlfriend and the other Thai who also were pissed because of the behaviour of the staff. That's all..

Maybe we should counter attack these people by giving them a big tip from the beginning.... right?

[ozyjon]

one bart,,,two bart,,,three bart,,, whose counting

[gemguy]

Hmmmm......then you will like this one:

On Thursday I call my air conditioner mechanic and ask him to come around and have a look at my air conditioner .

His 3 minions show up and I explain to them that sometimes when I turn on the air conditioner there is a slightly audible mechanical sound that has me thinking something may be brewing and going wrong so I want them to have a look at it before anything serious develops.

So, I turn on the air conditioner and they listen and I say: "Not so noisy this time but often enough I can hear something, so have a look and let me know"

So they pull out the panel filters and then unlatch the multiple access doors and expose the 2 electric motors and the drum style, roller blade fans on either side of the electric motors.

Then the one guys says the electric motor on the left side needs to be replaced and tells me it will cost no more than 2000 baht to replace the motor but they have to go buy a new electric motor and be back by 1 or 2 PM.

So off they go and now it is hot in the room so I figure I can turn on the air conditioner and run it as is with no problem until they come back.

I am there looking up at the air conditioner motors and the fan blades whirling around and they are all working fine and no problem ..so I look closer with a flash light and turn the unit off and on several times and conclude there is NOTHING wrong with the motor on the left hand side ...nothing at all and it works just fine.

I then phone the boss man and tell him his workers told me the eclectic motor needed to be replaced and they are out buying a new one but they are totally mistaken so call them and cancel...and no need to come back here ...thank you very much.

So...would you think that was or is an honest mistake or do you think they thought the foreigner is a dummy and would not know anything anyhow about an air conditioner so we can make some extra money here today at the expense of the thought to be naïve foreigner.

What do you think??

I know what I think...lol

Cheers

I think your a genius, you can tell an electric motor is faulty or not just by using a torch and the on/off switch.

Is your air con still noisy ?

Well, actually I am some what of a mechanical genius....seriously...lol....I used to build racing engines and race car frames...small block and big block Chevrolets and tig welded chrome moly tubular frames with torsion bar suspension for Modified class oval track racing....but there was no money in it for me....but good times had by all.......40 years ago

But yes you can tell if a motor is burnt out and or not working by examining the whole affair with a flash light to see if there is any burn residue or smoke coming out while running ...or see that the whole affair is not running at speed as compared to the other side running perfectly.

There still remains a slight noise when starting the air con but I figure that is not a problem and I will keep an eye on it just in case.

Thanks for your concern about my air conditioner unit........I will pass on your condolences ..lol

Cheers

[gemguy]

Dutchmen are only the second tighest people in the world. Copper wire was first discovered due to the result of 2 Scotsmen fighting over a penny.

Ha ...like Austin Powers playing the Dutch guy in Goldmember....lol

[Shiver]

Reminds me of a time I wanted a wall power socket rotated 90 degrees so that I could hang one of those mosquito zappers from it. A local odd jobs man came to do the job, and I just sat at my comptuer while he was working away. After about an hour he declared it was impossible because the power cable wasn't long enough to accommodate that. He explained all that to my then GF, and she communicated it to me, even though I could understand the gist of what he was saying, as well as see it.

He still demanded 300 baht (long before that was minimum daily wage and he didn't do the job). When he left I had a bit of a rant. I don't have many electrical tools at my disposal, but I opened a nearby jumction box, pulled our an extra 2" or so of wire and finished the job in well under 5 minutes.

Does it play on my mind? It must do, because I'm writing about it here many years later. I don't like paying for non service, whatever the baht amount.

[fruitman]

But this little scam is getting on the nerves of my girlfriend, who hates it when people are so greedy.

Tell her about Volkswagen and how they thought they could scam all their customers and the governments of the countries in which their cars are sold because of their culture of greed and fraud.

That should put things into perspective.

As we all know, Volkswagen has apologized for selling hundreds of thousands of diesel cars in the U.S. with software specifically designed to evade government pollution tests.

An US$18-billion liability figure attached itself last Friday to Volkswagen’s diesel disaster.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/putting-a-price-on-volkswagens-emission-fraud-mess-its-going-to-cost-them-billions

More than $17 billion has been erased Monday from Volkswagen’s value in shareholders’ eyes as the company awaits more fallout from news that the company cheated through emissions tests.

Volkswagen’s stock dropped more than 20 percent Monday after the German automaker announced it would stop sales of its diesel cars on Sunday.

Yes or tell her about the USA who sold "bad loans" to all their friends. It became the biggest scam/worldcrisis ever and they never paid for all the damage done.

[louse1953]

Well,did you ask for the full change or not and why patronize a petrol station with petty thieves.

[napoleon3]

What is exact location from this maffia gas station ?

[louse1953]

Simple really, if you feel you are being "robbed", dont go there !

Mmmm............ interesting concept.

How to know if you're being robbed or feel being robbed if you don't go there?

Because the dill is on 1st name basis we these lads,knows about the scam 3 times already.Those kids rub their hands together and say "farang kwai ma ik,5555"

[kkerry]

The silver one baht coin, and the original (2005-2007) silver two baht coins (now a brass color) are only 1.75mm difference in diameter and are easily confused... so that sometimes when giving change the clerk says, here is your two baht change, to avoid you thinking you have been shortchanged...

[chrisinth]

On the other hand Thai also except 1 baht less if you have to pay.

Many times i have to pay like 20 or 30 baht and just grab my coins out of my pocket. Then when i 'm 1 baht short in coins they accept it.

I don't like to carry many coins so always try to pay with them first before reaching to my wallet.

Also i hope they stop with the satangs soon, get tired of those.

Gawd forbid that it gets to the stage when you have to separate them from your real change and keep them in a jar or something like the rest of the population.

Only if a charity box isn't close by that is......................

Spent 200 baht on my satang jar, recouping the investment is a daily concern.........................

[Stradavarius37]

Buy a good scale and weigh everything you buy from the market. You'll see that they cheat you EVERY time you buy something there.

This is Thailand, nobody cares for it.

Many they are cheating only you lmao

[fey]

quibbling over 1 baht is trivial for both thai and cambodian.

[Hugh Geen]

You try living on the 10,000 - 15,000 baht a month wages here!

[fey]

You try living on the 10,000 - 15,000 baht a month wages here!

that would be one beer a month, 30 baht, in case you were sleeping or missed something.

[NoshowJones]

On the other hand Thai also except 1 baht less if you have to pay.

Many times i have to pay like 20 or 30 baht and just grab my coins out of my pocket. Then when i 'm 1 baht short in coins they accept it.

I don't like to carry many coins so always try to pay with them first before reaching to my wallet.

Also i hope they stop with the satangs soon, get tired of those.

Yes, those satangs are a real nuisance, some places accept them and some don't.

I wonder in any other countries have a stupid system like this.