Chiang Mai Mail files complaint with police against spoof news story designed to con Thailand expats

[rooster59]

Chiang Mai Mail files complaint with police against spoof news story designed to con Thailand expats


PIC: Chiang Mai Mail Editor Nopniwat Krailerg files a complaint with the Royal Thai Police against a website that spoofed the Chiang Mai Mail website and created fake content.

CHIANG MAI:-- Chiang Mai Mail’s Editor Nopniwat Krailerg filed a police complaint against a website that spoofed the entire contents of Chiang Mai Mail online news on Friday, March 25, 2016.

The spoofed website first came to light in a report from Thaivisa News that posted the link to the spoof website from a news aggregator.

Management from the Chiang Mai Mail contacted the host and name server to have the site taken offline and Editor Nopniwat Krailerg filed a formal complaint with the Royal Thai Police to have the site removed

The Chiang Mai Mail is not affiliated with this spoofed site in any way and has no knowledge of the person or persons who perpetrated this violation of copyright and trademark codes. The Chiang Mai Mail strongly recommends that anyone who has been in contact with the spoofed website to contact the Royal Thai Police with their complaint.

The spoof site included a callous and fictitious news story which claimed a French female expat had been a victim of rape and had been charged with defamation for posting about the case on Facebook. The fake story also claimed that because the woman had been locked in jail, she was now on overstay and was due to be charged and blacklisted by Thai Immigration.

However, the story was completely fake and nothing more than a scam designed to get expats in Thailand to donate money to supposedly help with the woman's legal battle.

At the top of the story there were details of how people could donate funds to the friends of the 'victim' who were campaigning on her behalf.

The story was reported by various sites in Thailand, as well as large US based news site.

Update 29 March: The Chiang Mai Mail has been in contact with the previous owner of the domain chiangmaimail.com - he let his ownership of the domain lapse but didn't inform the Chiang Mai Mail in time.

Another person bought up the domain name and perpetuated the fraud. The owners of the Chiang Mai Mail will be continuing their legal case against the person or persons who cloned their website and then spoofed the fake news in order to defraud people.

This criminal act should not go unpunished.

Source: Chiang Mai Mail


-- 2016-03-26

[whiterussian]

Bastards... thank goodness they didn't put a paypal address up to donate.

https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=www.chiangmaimail.com

Important Dates

Updated Date: 2016-03-23

Created Date: 2016-03-23

Registration Expiration Date: 2017-03-23

Name Servers

ns1.asmallorange.com

ns2.asmallorange.com

Raw WHOIS Record

Domain Name: CHIANGMAIMAIL.COM Registry Domain ID: 2014906774_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.name.com Registrar URL: http://www.name.com Updated Date: 2016-03-23T16:43:24Z Creation Date: 2016-03-23T16:43:23Z 

Edited March 26, 2016 by whiterussian

[Nicolas32]

Think its the Nigerian scammer at it again .. i would not be surprised ?

[robblok]

And everyone wanted to believe this story, because farang good.. Thai bad.. and now they were probably scammed by an other farang as the Nigerians are not that advanced yet. That was why bitcoins were asked for donation (hard to trace)

[CNXBKKMAN]

There is plenty of genuine bad things that happen in Thailand but there seems in the last year to be plenty of bogus bad news that gets reported and spread around the world as the truth. All the tourist insurance scams in Phuket and Pattaya. Invent a crime to get a police report. People being "held against their will" and have gone "missing". Global social media campaigns kick off to find them.

Every other backpacker seems to decide they had dengue fever and tell the world on social media.

[Roomuck]

I read somewhere else that $10.000 had already been "raised" but they needed another $20,000.

Abhorrent, but quite clever.

[ozyjon]

Charity starts at home,,, my home,,, me.

Charity left a very sour taste in my mouth the first time i went

to Vientiane, i would get around riding my pushbike only to be

overtaken by huge SUV's driving around and living it up on

donations given by good samaritans but never reaching

their intended destination because the funds were being used

for administration,, expose them all, close them all down.

[Zzon]

Wow , you guys are pretty amazing in regards to how much information you can discover so quick! Maybe if The Police were able to duplicate such skills in investigations they wouldn't take Years to solve or prevent further corruption. Oh yeah, that's right they won't get paid anymore!.. Lolo

[Nicolas32]

Wow , you guys are pretty amazing in regards to how much information you can discover so quick! Maybe if The Police were able to duplicate such skills in investigations they wouldn't take Years to solve or prevent further corruption. Oh yeah, that's right they won't get paid anymore!.. Lolo

Wasn't hard to be fair ? google is a powerful tool these days ..

[dictater]

The reason the scam worked is that the story is plausible.

[wabothai]

Just get the mofo !!

[tomross46]

There is plenty of genuine bad things that happen in Thailand but there seems in the last year to be plenty of bogus bad news that gets reported and spread around the world as the truth. All the tourist insurance scams in Phuket and Pattaya. Invent a crime to get a police report. People being "held against their will" and have gone "missing". Global social media campaigns kick off to find them.

Every other backpacker seems to decide they had dengue fever and tell the world on social media.

I came to Thailand 50 years ago and have never had I problem. I follow the law and regulations, if I do not like the law, I still abide by that law, because there is nothing I can do about it. I am a permanent Resident of Thailand, I when applying I provided all the requirements, I passed the required Thai history and communications test. I applied for a PR as a professional, not as being married, even though I was married and had children.

If you get stopped by the police. be polite, smile and proved the required documents or copies of the documents. DO NOT at any time show anger, if you do, you will have a problem.

[ThaiWest]

Hay! Not to worry'1 The Thai gov has everything in control,,, nothing in the Kingdom on the internet happens without being under their thumb, right? right....

Edited March 26, 2016 by metisdead
Unnecessary usage of bold font removed.

[Nicolas32]

The reason the scam worked is that the story is plausible.

corruption starts at the top

[HerbalEd]

And everyone wanted to believe this story, because farang good.. Thai bad.. and now they were probably scammed by an other farang as the Nigerians are not that advanced yet. That was why bitcoins were asked for donation (hard to trace)

The Nigerians are not that advanced?? Are you kidding? They are masters at internet scams.

[Bangkok Barry]

I came to Thailand 50 years ago and have never had I problem. I follow the law and regulations, if I do not like the law, I still abide by that law, because there is nothing I can do about it. I am a permanent Resident of Thailand, I when applying I provided all the requirements, I passed the required Thai history and communications test. I applied for a PR as a professional, not as being married, even though I was married and had children.

If you get stopped by the police. be polite, smile and proved the required documents or copies of the documents. DO NOT at any time show anger, if you do, you will have a problem.

Thank you for your advice, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of a website scam artist.

[Kabula]

Be careful what you post regarding the investigation and negative comments. You might find yourself defending a libel, civil action with punitive damages and a criminal complaint. Negative comments about the Police are not recommended as well. If you don't think your content is not monitored you are mistaken. And foreigners wonder why their visa is denied? Furthermore, public records should not be published on the Internet! Very poor judgement. For this reason more and more public records are no longer public. What were you thinking? Or were you?

[bazza40]

If you get stopped by the police. be polite, smile and proved the required documents or copies of the documents. DO NOT at any time show anger, if you do, you will have a problem.

Good advice

[PS2]

I saw Andrew Drummond run it as a real story, with links to phishing site.

[Nicolas32]

Be careful what you post regarding the investigation and negative comments. You might find yourself defending a libel, civil action with punitive damages and a criminal complaint. Negative comments about the Police are not recommended as well. If you don't think your content is not monitored you are mistaken. And foreigners wonder why their visa is denied? Furthermore, public records should not be published on the Internet! Very poor judgement. For this reason more and more public records are no longer public. What were you thinking? Or were you?

And for that reason i always use a proxy and Tor Project: Anonymity Online https://www.torproject.org/

[Transporter]

I may be wrong but the address of the website owner looks similar to that of the website owner of the UFUN token scam.

[cgphuket]

There is plenty of genuine bad things that happen in Thailand but there seems in the last year to be plenty of bogus bad news that gets reported and spread around the world as the truth. All the tourist insurance scams in Phuket and Pattaya. Invent a crime to get a police report. People being "held against their will" and have gone "missing". Global social media campaigns kick off to find them.

Every other backpacker seems to decide they had dengue fever and tell the world on social media.

I came to Thailand 50 years ago and have never had I problem. I follow the law and regulations, if I do not like the law, I still abide by that law, because there is nothing I can do about it. I am a permanent Resident of Thailand, I when applying I provided all the requirements, I passed the required Thai history and communications test. I applied for a PR as a professional, not as being married, even though I was married and had children.

If you get stopped by the police. be polite, smile and proved the required documents or copies of the documents. DO NOT at any time show anger, if you do, you will have a problem.

Thanks for reminding us what one can achieve with enough of their daddy's money.

[mickyboy]

so much scamming in thailand now and theft and its becoming a dangerous place to be by the looks of the publicity it gets if all true but few years ago i thought about moving there but to many head bangers criminals nutters most from europe and russia let alone the thais pattaya why do people go there ok sex but why else its like suicide mission walking street and your the target

[NancyL]

I saw Andrew Drummond run it as a real story, with links to phishing site.

Good example of Andrew Drummond's "investigative journalism" skills.

[Nicolas32]

I saw Andrew Drummond run it as a real story, with links to phishing site.

Good example of Andrew Drummond's "investigative journalism" skills.

[lemonjelly]

I knew something was wrong as soon as I realised the link to Chiang Mai Mail in the thread posted on TVF led to a website that had the French rape story, plus links to a bank account where you could donate.... I kid you not.....whereas going to the Chiang Mai Mail website not using the link but using Google as normal gave a website without the rape story, plus the fact that the original perpetrator of the fake story gave conflicting versions, first it was a woman called Marjorie, then a guy called Michael, I ended up rowing with other posters and mods about it, it was quite bizarre, really.

Edited March 26, 2016 by lemonjelly

[chickenslegs]

I knew something was wrong as soon as I realised the link to Chiang Mai Mail in the thread posted on TVF led to a website that had the French rape story, plus links to a bank account where you could donate.... I kid you not.....whereas going to the Chiang Mai Mail website not using the link but using Google as normal gave a website without the rape story, plus the fact that the original perpetrator of the fake story gave conflicting versions, first it was a woman called Marjorie, then a guy called Michael, I ended up rowing with other posters and mods about it, it was quite bizarre, really.

Well spotted and thanks for the warning.

It was all quite confusing until you suggested Googling the Chiang Mai Mail rather than using the link.

[arrowsdawdle]

Not that farfetched of a fundamental premise. In May of 2014 a passport awaiting a visa in the Vietnam embassy on Wireless Road could not be retrieved due Thai police closing the street. Even a driver who went on foot could not access the embassy because it had closed on advisement of Thai govt. Ten days later the passport was retrieved and swampy immigration charged for 7 days overstay despite a letter and receipt from the VN embassy documenting what had happened. Swampy immigration laughed a lot and talked down their noses with disdain demanding their tea money.

[overherebc]

Charity starts at home,,, my home,,, me.

Charity left a very sour taste in my mouth the first time i went

to Vientiane, i would get around riding my pushbike only to be

overtaken by huge SUV's driving around and living it up on

donations given by good samaritans but never reaching

their intended destination because the funds were being used

for administration,, expose them all, close them all down.

One of the reasons I will put my hand in my pocket for only the Sally Army.

I think it works out at 98 pence from each pound is actually used. Most others it's about 5 pence out of every pound that is used and the rest goes on salaries and expenses.

[Jools]

Only in Thailand....a crackdown on satire.