My ultra reliable maid of 6 years, now stealing cash.

[mikiea]

wow .....way to many confused people here .........a thief by any other name is still a thief ...................

[rogeroc]

31 minutes ago, fatyank said:

wow amazing how many are blaming the victim here

 

he caught her twice.......that is the tip of the iceberg.......she probably got away with it many times over the years.

 

 

 

The 'so called' Victim went out of his way on two separate occasions to try and become a 'Victim'. Why do i suspect that this 'Victim' would have known about it if she had done it before?

Edited August 27, 2016 by rogeroc

[JHolmesJr]

OP seems like a reasonable guy…..and the maid doesn't sound like an evil sort either.

 

I would have tried telling her please don't pick up money that is lying around….ask me if you need some and I'll see if I can help you.

 

These folks may not have been taught these simple things….she might have thought the money is for her….my hotel maids know that when there is 20bht lying out on the dresser, it is for them.

[rogeroc]

12 minutes ago, mikiea said:

wow .....way to many confused people here .........a thief by any other name is still a thief ...................

 

I don't see a single Post saying that she is not a thief! I don't see confusion either just different opinions (which is fine) about whether the temptation was unreasonable or not. What i have said is that in the UK she would not be charged or prosecuted for theft in these circumstances.

Edited August 27, 2016 by rogeroc

[aquario33]

17 hours ago, theguyfromanotherforum said:

 

Why are you playing with her?  Like others have said you wouldn't leave 50 bucks on the table in your own country, so why do it here? It's like poor people entrapment. 

as he mentioned to pay 1000 THB for two hours, one would expect not to steal from others ....

[GOLDBUGGY]

42 minutes ago, fatyank said:

wow amazing how many are blaming the victim here

 

he caught her twice.......that is the tip of the iceberg.......she probably got away with it many times over the years.

 

 

Well, I don't think I read here where anyone said it was okay for this maid to take this money. I think that goes without saying. 

 

But what I think most people are claiming is that this whole incident could have been avoided if the Op just used some common sense. It wasn't by accident he left some money lying around. He did this on purpose to set a trap. 

 

That is like you spending a night in a hotel and on purpose leave a $100 Bill lying on your desk.  When you come back you check and sure enough this money is missing. So you zoom down to the Front Desk to report this. They tell you later they can't return the money to you as they are not sure whole stole it. Anyone with a room key could have entered. But they tell you the maid who cleaned your room got fired.

 

Should that make you feel better? That perhaps you rid the world of one less thief?

 

Well, you shouldn't feel better about it all.  In my view anyway. 

 

 

[GOLDBUGGY]

50 minutes ago, lust said:

My Filipino friend that I was staying with for a while when I first moved to Bangkkk had a maid who worked in the building, but dropped in to clean the condo while he was at work. I would go out for most of the days but some days I would just stay in and relax. She let herself in to the condo and cleaned while I just relaxed. Later, she came back into the condo and saw that I was still there and she left. This happened on a few different occasions. I told my friend that this is not normal, but he just brushed it off. Then my iPhone 3GS went missing. It had a shattered screen and it was with my stuff. I told my friend that his maid stole it. Later, he noticed he was missing a bunch of shirts. He fired her, but she still worked in the building. 

The Moral of the story being: "Don't Trust a Maid with your valuable!" "Lock them up instead, or be their when they are cleaning." 

 

I thought everyone knows that???

[tropo]

14 hours ago, Deepinthailand said:

Simple answer do your own washing and cleaning. If it's only 2 hrs a week sure you could do it yourself

Yep, never had a maid here, never will. I've heard quite a few stories about people having trouble with maids, especially when they are too generous. They start to take everything for granted and think that you don't care about money because it grows on trees.

 

However my main reason for not having a maid is I don't like to be disturbed by other people in the house at inconvenient times.

 

1000 baht for 2 hours work? That's way over generous.

 

Before anyone decides to be especially generous they should consider this: "No good deed goes unpunished". I've been at the receiving end of this punishment a number of times in the past, and not for a few hundred baht. Generosity can be perceived as a weakness (or stupidity) in this part of the world.

 

It's a very old expression, but I didn't understand it until I came to SE Asia.

Edited August 27, 2016 by tropo

[smudger1951]

If this is her only job then she living on 4000 bht a month and at 50 she wont be sitting on a fortune anymore. What are her family commitments ?

Life aint easy for anyone here and not women that age.

[Mansell]

52 minutes ago, rogeroc said:

 

Well i have read the Post again and it reads to me as if there was only one previous occasion before the test. It also sounds a little to me that the 1st occasion (the 400 baht) was probably a test is well. I don't know about in Thailand but if the UK Police were involved in a similar instant, even with a confession, i suspect there would be no action taken as the test/s would have been considered  'Agent Provocateur (unreasonable temptation).  I am not defending the actions of the maid but i think the situation was handled incorrectly.

What a load of rubbish you are talking about UK police. We had theft in a hotel in Jersey and informed the police. They planted money in rooms that would turn the thiefs hands  purple, and of course they caught them. Agent Provocateur.....what a crock! They left the money in plain view and it caught the thief which was the purpose of the exercise. 

As for the pathetic people on here blaming the house owner......what world do you myopic people live in????  He paid her over six years roughly 312,000 baht, or 9,176 dollars, way more than the going rate. She was the stupid person here killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. It is academic what her reasons are for stealing.....she is a thief plain and simple, and not a very bright one either. Most Thais could live pretty well on 52,000 baht a year, and that is assuming she wasn't making any money else where. Was she starving....it doesn't sound like it. Was she a drug addict or gambling addict.....maybe, but not the posters problem to resolve. He built trust with her over the years and treated her well and generously......and what did she do? Stole little amounts of money that we know of.....betraying the trust and losing her well paying job. End of story. And the doofus who claimed that we would all steal if our child was ill or fill in any scenario you want.......No, I would not steal, I would find a way to get the money from friends or work or etc. Your comments say more about you than the rest of us you don't even know. I swear some of you people switch off your brains when you turn on the computer.

[GOLDBUGGY]

1 hour ago, seajae said:

 

mate, you appear to have a problem with reality, first off a hotel is not your own home so naturally you lock away your valuables although I have often left small change on the counter tops when I have emptied my pockets. Not as a "test" to check their honesty but because I simply didnt worry about it, mind you it was always there when I came back to my room too, in fact when my stay finished I still left it their for the maid as a thankyou only it was added to each day. In your own home to have a maid steal from you is a pretty low act especially when they have been with you for many years, maybe you dont trust anyone else apart from yourself but I like to think there are honest people in the world. Leaving valuables lying around in your home isnt a test, its called having a life.

Also 2 hours a week is 8 hours a month which is one days work or do you think you should pay someone for a full days work just because they are there for part of it, again your sense of reality is very strange. Appears you are trying to say that he is ripping her off, mate you really need to pull your head out of the sand and wake up to the real world or at least sit down and think before talking garbage

I am not claiming he ripped her off. I am just claiming you don't now how many hours a week she worked and neither does he, or I. You don't even know for sure he paid her 1,000 Baht a week when it could have been a month. In fact you don't no anymore than I do. 

 

What I do know for sure is that we are not talking about some small pocket change you left in a hotel room that is still their when you get back. We are talking about 400 Baht purposely left on the Island Counter Top and another 170 Baht purposely left on his desk, both as a test to see if she would take it.  

 

You are saying that a person should be able to trust his maid completely when she is in his house. Why? What makes this person any more special then someone else working for low wages. Did he do a Criminal Records Check before he hired her? Or a Background Check with past employers? Chances are he didn't, which would really prove anything anyway. 

 

It is however just Plain Common Sense that when you have someone in your house you don't know very well, and valuables lying around, you need to be more careful. If you can't see that my friend then it is you who lost touch with reality. That you should be careful and that you shouldn't try to tempt them. That is all people are saying.

 

If you are going to have a maid in your place to clean, you are going to have to be there when she is cleaning, or lock your valuable up. Just like you would anywhere else. If you refuse to do that and go on human trust alone, then don't complain when you get nipped. Realize you were the foolish one and move on. 

[teacherpaul]

18 hours ago, worgeordie said:

If you leave  money laying around,it's just putting temptation in peoples

way,and you should never do that,she probably was short of money,

but did not steal any of your many expensive items,so count yourself

lucky,and I think you will have a job finding an honest reliable replacement,

maybe you should have talked to her and ask what problems she had.

regards Worgeordie

You make it sound like it's his fault. She is in the wrong, not him. Maybe you should change your name to Worsoftlad.

[gemguy]

Well...she could have completely lied and denied.

 

What else to do but fire her as he shot herself in the foot and created her own demise.

 

Cheers

[teacherpaul]

4 hours ago, joeyg said:

Finally a voice of reason.  I have serious concerns about the mental health of some of the respondents here. 

I couldn't agree more. The usual brand of Thai apologists making excuses for the so-called downtrodden locals. 

 

This woman was paid more than a lot of native English teachers earn and she stole from her generous employer.

 

However, just to appease the "if you don't like it, leave" brigade, it's never wise to leave money lying around, especially in countries where you are regarded as a walking ATM machine. Lock it or lose it.

[GOLDBUGGY]

1 hour ago, seajae said:

 

mate, you appear to have a problem with reality, first off a hotel is not your own home so naturally you lock away your valuables although I have often left small change on the counter tops when I have emptied my pockets. Not as a "test" to check their honesty but because I simply didnt worry about it, mind you it was always there when I came back to my room too, in fact when my stay finished I still left it their for the maid as a thankyou only it was added to each day. In your own home to have a maid steal from you is a pretty low act especially when they have been with you for many years, maybe you dont trust anyone else apart from yourself but I like to think there are honest people in the world. Leaving valuables lying around in your home isnt a test, its called having a life.

Also 2 hours a week is 8 hours a month which is one days work or do you think you should pay someone for a full days work just because they are there for part of it, again your sense of reality is very strange. Appears you are trying to say that he is ripping her off, mate you really need to pull your head out of the sand and wake up to the real world or at least sit down and think before talking garbage

How can you say that you like to think there are honest people, but in the same breath say you naturally lock your things away while staying in a hotel? Then say I lost touch with reality?

 

Mate! When it comes to valuables, you have to be careful with them at all times and in all places. That includes a Gold Chain on your neck walking home through a dark alley after a night of drinking. It is not that I don't trust people! It is just I don't tempt them either.

 

I don't flash big money in a bar or in public places, and especially when I have been drinking. I don't wear Gold Watches, Necklaces or Rings then either. I don't sleep on the beach with a pocket full of money.  And I don't leave 400 Baht on my table while I am gone and the maid is in their cleaning my room. 

 

So far I have never been robbed of anything or had to get some maid fired.  

[bamukloy]

The way i see it the whole saga could have been avoided several ways and they all involve the actions of the OP.

not leaving money around is the most obvious.

when he suspected it the first time, he could have reasoned shes not the sharpest pencil in the pouch (to steal when it obvious she was the only possible culprit).

I would have felt sorry for her to be that desperate.

By playing silly games as laying bait around makes the OP just as silly as she is.

[tropo]

35 minutes ago, smudger1951 said:

If this is her only job then she living on 4000 bht a month and at 50 she wont be sitting on a fortune anymore. What are her family commitments ?

Life aint easy for anyone here and not women that age.

Boohoo! I'll save my sympathies for a person who isn't making 3x the daily minimum wage in 2 hours and stealing money. (I have family members in the Philippines who make 140 baht working all day in the hot sun, so excuse me if I'm not sympathetic about her problems).

 

The problem here is the OP has been so generous that the maid feels that 400/170 baht is peanuts to him and he won't even miss it. She doesn't understand the concept of honesty and trust and if she took only 5 baht (which she probably did many times) it wouldn't make any difference.

 

 

[tropo]

13 minutes ago, bamukloy said:

The way i see it the whole saga could have been avoided several ways and they all involve the actions of the OP.

not leaving money around is the most obvious.

when he suspected it the first time, he could have reasoned shes not the sharpest pencil in the pouch (to steal when it obvious she was the only possible culprit).

I would have felt sorry for her to be that desperate.

By playing silly games as laying bait around makes the OP just as silly as she is.

Best off leaving some money around the house when you first employ them, to test them... and then retest them at least once a month. Take a photo of the money being left. If they take the money, show them the photo, deduct it from their salary and kiss them goodbye.

 

I suspect you'll be going through a lot of maids to find an honest one.

 

Don't become too personal with them ever. Make sure they always feel they are employees and not friends.

Edited August 27, 2016 by tropo

[GOLDBUGGY]

1 hour ago, mikiea said:

wow .....way to many confused people here .........a thief by any other name is still a thief ...................

Yes! Sort of like Jean Valjean, who got 5 years in prison of hard labor for steeling a loaf of bread to feed his sisters children during the depression. But since he was the only one supporting them he tried to escape 4 times and each time was added an extra 3 years. So he ended up spending a total of 19 years in a very hard and tough prison for steeling one loaf of bread. 

 

But like you say: "A Thief is still a Thief!". 

 

Jean Valjean is better known as 'Les Miserables".

 

Although this story by Victor Hugo was Fictional, it was based on a real person and also the sign of the times in France. Where steeling a loaf of bread then could in fact get you 5 years in prison. 

[rogeroc]

47 minutes ago, Mansell said:

What a load of rubbish you are talking about UK police. We had theft in a hotel in Jersey and informed the police. They planted money in rooms that would turn the thiefs hands  purple, and of course they caught them. Agent Provocateur.....what a crock! They left the money in plain view and it caught the thief which was the purpose of the exercise. 

 

 

 

Jersey is not in the UK !  They have their own Police force. 

 

Surely you should be better informed before telling people they are talking rubbish. 

[GOLDBUGGY]

13 minutes ago, tropo said:

Boohoo! I'll save my sympathies for a person who isn't making 3x the daily minimum wage in 2 hours and stealing money. (I have family members in the Philippines who make 140 baht working all day in the hot sun, so excuse me if I'm not sympathetic about her problems).

 

The problem here is the OP has been so generous that the maid feels that 400/170 baht is peanuts to him and he won't even miss it. She doesn't understand the concept of honesty and trust and if she took only 5 baht (which she probably did many times) it wouldn't make any difference.

 

 

Do you lock your valuable up when you stay in a hotel? Why?

[ChoakMyDee]

19 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

Don't have a problem with my maids my butler takes care of everything and l don't carry money to leave around anyway. 

 

MaidS?

 

Butler?

 

Wow, someone's doing well. Will you be my friend?

[GOLDBUGGY]

1 hour ago, aquario33 said:

as he mentioned to pay 1000 THB for two hours, one would expect not to steal from others ....

Can you prove that?

 

All I read is that she cleans his place once a week which he claims takes 2 hours then he pays her 1,000 Baht. That could be by month and how most people get paid. 

 

To get 1,000 Baht at a time I would have said he pays her 4,000 Baht a month, since she would have been their at least 4 times by then. But at any rate, it is not clear what he actually pays her. 

[jadee]

I'm curious, is the OP paying 1,000baht for two hours work or 1,000 per month for two hours per week? If it's the first option, the maid was getting 4,000 per month for 8 hours work! That's astonishingly generous in my opinion and the maid was dumb to put such as easy job at risk. Most maids don't earn much more than that for full time work. The OP did the right thing, at least now he can get a maid at the proper rate and stop being ripped off. 

[Kwasaki]

3 minutes ago, ChoakMyDee said:

 

MaidS?

 

Butler?

 

Wow, someone's doing well. Will you be my friend?

Depends whether your trust worthy,  my PA will check you out if OK my friend Trans will pick you up in his helicopter.   

[GOLDBUGGY]

1 hour ago, transam said:

Nooooo, you sack the "trusted" thief..........

 

1 hour ago, transam said:

Nooooo, you sack the "trusted" thief..........

And then what? Hire another, set another trap, then fire them to? Then repeat this over and over again? 

 

Damn! If I had to do this all the time I would sooner clean my own place. Especially when it is a place like his and only takes 2 hours a week to keep and tidy all week. 

[GOLDBUGGY]

1 hour ago, Mansell said:

What a load of rubbish you are talking about UK police. We had theft in a hotel in Jersey and informed the police. They planted money in rooms that would turn the thiefs hands  purple, and of course they caught them. Agent Provocateur.....what a crock! They left the money in plain view and it caught the thief which was the purpose of the exercise. 

As for the pathetic people on here blaming the house owner......what world do you myopic people live in????  He paid her over six years roughly 312,000 baht, or 9,176 dollars, way more than the going rate. She was the stupid person here killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. It is academic what her reasons are for stealing.....she is a thief plain and simple, and not a very bright one either. Most Thais could live pretty well on 52,000 baht a year, and that is assuming she wasn't making any money else where. Was she starving....it doesn't sound like it. Was she a drug addict or gambling addict.....maybe, but not the posters problem to resolve. He built trust with her over the years and treated her well and generously......and what did she do? Stole little amounts of money that we know of.....betraying the trust and losing her well paying job. End of story. And the doofus who claimed that we would all steal if our child was ill or fill in any scenario you want.......No, I would not steal, I would find a way to get the money from friends or work or etc. Your comments say more about you than the rest of us you don't even know. I swear some of you people switch off your brains when you turn on the computer.

You don't know if she was starving or not! You don't know how much money she made as this 1,000 Baht could be for a month. or if she even worked every week. In fact you don't no anything for sure about her or this situation. You obviously don't know what it is like to have a sick kid and you not having the money to take them to a doctor. Not like in the West is it?

 

All I know is that if I had an ultra reliable maid for 6 years, and I felt some money was missing I would at least talk to her and find out why. I certainly wouldn't try and set some trap for her or leave my valuables lying around. 

[Flinstone]

Reading some of the responses I guess people lock up their TV's and all their expensive kitchen appliances when the maid comes to clean. A TV isn't hard to steal if no-one is home.

IMO I'd contact the lady (if she is as good as the OP first stated) and have a chat with her to see what the root cause of the issue is. If she is just an out and out (malicious) thief then be done with her, although I suspect this may not be the case. If not, there may be a reasonable solution acceptable to both parties. After reading other posts where people talk about the difficulty in finding or keeping maids it could be a worthwhile exercise.

[csabo]

19 hours ago, theguyfromanotherforum said:

 

Why are you playing with her?  Like others have said you wouldn't leave 50 bucks on the table in your own country, so why do it here? It's like poor people entrapment. 

 

Its not entrapment. Being a maid requires the highest expectation of trust. It's the maids responsibility to protect her own reputation. You should not have to chain everything down. If I lose 1 baht or 1 gold bar under the sofa I expect it to be placed conspicuously on the counter when I return. Period. 

[Toscano]

Frankly , you are lucky to have had a maid , where I live they either have no idea how to clean a house , or though poor , have no intention of working .

Finding a maid who is honest is not easy either .  However if you empty your pockets and leave money lying about you will lose it .

I think you were mistaken to sack your reliable maid , far better you take care of small sums of money , or not mind if she takes them .