Strange encounter at the bread counter ... what sort of scam is this?

[Jingthing]

This has GOT to be some kind of scam, yeah?

 

Checkin' out some loaves at the bread counter at Friendship Supermarket and bump into a very well dressed Indian gentleman with a poorly dressed misbehaving young girl, presumably his daughter.

 

So anyway ... the gentleman is also perusing the loaves and approaches me about the price. Why is one 100 baht and one 50 baht? Um, different kinds of bread (duh). 100? Is that dollars? No, it's Thai baht (duh). So how much is that in dollars? I tell him. He then says just arrived that night. From where I asked. India. Then he opens his wallet and it's packed with 100 dollar bills. Okie dokie. He asks again if he can pay with dollars? No (duh). He then wants to learn about Thai baht, which are coins, which are bills. I'm not worried about him being a mugger, he's well dressed, and it's such a public place. So I show him and tell him about the Thai money system, opening my wallet. (He ASKED to see the Thai money.) He then looks concerned. How can he buy the bread? His unruly girl looks very agitated. I direct him to an EXCHANGE booth down the road.

 

A similar thing happened to me years ago with an Indian tourist getting very familiar around my wallet during a purchase. 

 

Is this some kind of scam? You know when you get a gut feeling that something is up but you don't know exactly what?

I mentioned the girl before. The man appeared really slick, but the girl seemed quite rough and another class ... something didn't add up on the daughter assumption. 

 

Anyway ... I have two theories about what kind of scam it could be.

 

Perhaps getting near wallets to scan chip credit cards? (I wasn't carrying any, ha ha.)

 

OR seems more likely

 

A setup for a CON JOB. Flashing all that cash (that isn't normal) and feigning massive ignorance about exchange rates. With a good MARK, the con man could exploit the greed of the mark and have the mark OFFER to exchange baht for dollars at whatever silly rate the mark said, which would be irrelevant anyway if they were FAKE 100 dollar bills. 

 

Keep in mind, if it was that kind of scam he did all the setup work and by aggressively insisting on seeing what's in my wallet confirming I had at least some money to play the exchange game con on me. 

 

In this case, I was HONEST about the exchange rate and helpfully advised him on the location of the closest EXCHANGE booth, so could have been taken for a not a good mark.  Or perhaps he didn't see enough THAI BAHT in my wallet to make it worth following through. The best CONS are when the MARK is greedy. 

 

When you're conned and your greed is part of the reason you got conned in the first place, you're much less likely to report to the police!

 

Yeah, I know what many of you are thinking. Maybe just a stupid tourist. 100 dollars for a loaf of bread. Yeah, right!

I would understand the feedback on why did you open your wallet to a suspicious stranger? I answered that. I'm a friendly honest person and even though it seemed fishy, he just didn't seem a threat in the setting. But on second thought, the girl with him might have been ... 

Edited December 15, 2016 by Jingthing

[ukrules]

Certainly sounds like a scam to me. I'd keep my wallet in my pocket and tell him to 'move on' and hassle someone else.

 

 

[pgrahmm]

Exchange for counterfeit is what it sounds like....

A friendly offer to help out = good currency for bogus bills....

[Gringogazzer]

Or could have been a police sting. 

Wasn't this bloke again was it? Thailand version of "the fake Sheikh"

[Jingthing]

5 hours ago, pgrahmm said:

Exchange for counterfeit is what it sounds like....

A friendly offer to help out = good currency for bogus bills....

Yes, I agree most likely.

It felt really fishy but I didn't suspect that specific scam at the time. Thought about it later.

If it was that flavor of scam, the MARK would need to be A LOT friendlier to random strangers than I usually am!

Or he eyed my wallet and saw I probably didn't even have 3,000 baht on me, so why bother. 

The unruly child could be part of the scam theater attracting friendly, helpful people. Poor kid is acting up, probably HUNGRY and needs bread NOW ... help her out by exchanging money with Daddy.

The flashing of the wallet packed dollar 100's seemed odd only that he was showing it to me, not so much that it didn't fit his back story. Many people from India, Russia, etc. fly in with bags of  U.S. dollars.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Jingthing

[partington]

Jingthing, this is a very common scam, often carried out by middle easterners. There have actually been many threads detailing this approach (don't know what the money looks like, can you show me what a 1000B looks like, and so on)-good luck finding them with the search function being so crappy on this site now.

 

Usual consensus is that they will palm the cash/distract you, to steal some notes.

 

However someone who tries to convince you they don't know what a dollar is worth is pushing credulity to its limits!

Edited December 16, 2016 by partington

[Jingthing]

Yeah, the absurdity of a well dressed seemingly intelligent man acting like he thought the bread marked 100 in Thailand might actually be  costing 100 DOLLARS was definitely over the top. 

 

I'm not surprised that it's a very common scam but I hadn't personally encountered it before. I had the incident years ago that didn't go that far. Then they just wanted to get near my wallet for some weird reason. In a very public place that I didn't suspect was a simple theft attempt. Didn't go into elaborate stories about money exchange rates.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Jingthing

[partington]

Found a thread: you'll be interested in this:

 

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/944341-so-how-was-this-attempted-scam-supposed-to-end/#comment-11173182

 

[chiang mai]

+1 with PTT above, it's a common scam to switch bills.

Edited December 16, 2016 by chiang mai

[roo860]

Big dough.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Thaivisa Connect mobile app

[Rob13]

Maybe working on you to buy his groceries and pay you back after he can change some USD to baht. He'd disappear as soon as he had the bag of groceries in hand and  you'd never see any payback for the good deed.

[Jingthing]

8 minutes ago, Rob13 said:

Maybe working on you to buy his groceries and pay you back after he can change some USD to baht. He'd disappear as soon as he had the bag of groceries in hand and  you'd never see any payback for the good deed.

That definitely wouldn't have worked. Buy groceries for a well dressed stranger with a load of cash on him? Sure thing. I can see sympathy for the child but the child was a total brat.

But I can see the point that there might have been NUMEROUS scam tactics he was making a play for, and correctly judged that as a mark, I wasn't easy enough for any of them. 

 

BTW, I don't want to flatter myself as being someone that can't possibly be scammed by con men. It happened to me twice when I was in my 20's and notice from the story I'm not one to instantly tell strangers to bugger off. I played along enough to see what he was up to. Perhaps most people wouldn't have even been as friendly as I was. 

 

Of course most people that are scammed don't ever admit it. It's embarrassing and like I said before the best scams appeal to the GREED of the mark ... so those scammed that way are even less likely to report the crime to the police. 

Edited December 16, 2016 by Jingthing

[Mrjlh]

Watch out for a hidden credit card scanner. Some you need to slide.  Newer ones only need to be in proximity. I'll try to find the link.  They hold your wallet near it while appearing to look at your money in the wallet.

 

 

Here it is.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_card

Edited December 16, 2016 by Mrjlh

[Jingthing]

4 minutes ago, Mrjlh said:

Watch out for a hidden credit card scanner. Some you need to slide.  Newer ones only need to be in proximity. I'll try to find the link.

Yeah, I'm aware of that and only carry my cards when I know I will need to use them. That was my best guess about what the other incident might have been about. 

[CaptHaddock]

My simple rule is never to interact with a stranger who approaches me.

[Jingthing]

2 minutes ago, CaptHaddock said:

My simple rule is never to interact with a stranger who approaches me.

But then you'll never have a good experience from mingling with strangers... and they can be good experiences. 

[Rob13]

8 minutes ago, CaptHaddock said:

My simple rule is never to interact with a stranger who approaches me.

 

Sounds boring. 

[pgrahmm]

22 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Yeah, I'm aware of that and only carry my cards when I know I will need to use them. That was my best guess about what the other incident might have been about. 

I cut an aluminum foil piece that fits into the CC slots in my wallet as was advised in the article I'd read.....

[CaptHaddock]

48 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

But then you'll never have a good experience from mingling with strangers... and they can be good experiences. 

 

Not at all.  There are the strangers whom I decide to approach as well as those with a legitimate role such as Uber drivers, waitresses, guides, doctors, etc.  It's only those who approach me out of the blue without a bona fide need whom I regard as too suspicious to bother with.

[balo]

This has been going on for years.  Normally they will stop you outside in the streets or in bars and every time they ask to see how a Thai baht note looks like and ask you about the value , they make sure to operate far away from any exchange boots.  

You probably looked like an easy victim , if you were dressed like a tourist . 

 

Edited December 16, 2016 by balo

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, balo said:

This has been going on for years.  Normally they will stop you outside in the streets or in bars and every time they ask to see how a Thai baht note looks like and ask you about the value , they make sure to operate far away from any exchange boots.  

You probably looked like an easy victim , if you were dressed like a tourist . 

 

I dress how I dress. Hardly a tourist. 

You say it's been going on for years.

I'm not surprised.

But new to me ... so others that it's new to, they've been warned. 

[pgrahmm]

Loafing around - trolling for dough at the bread counter...With a half baked scheme and other Naan sequiturs.....

 

Stopping now - embarrassing myself.............

 

[Berkshire]

11 hours ago, Jingthing said:

I dress how I dress. Hardly a tourist. 

You say it's been going on for years.

I'm not surprised.

But new to me ... so others that it's new to, they've been warned. 

 

Good to know JT.  I've never encountered, but have to keep reminding myself to always be suspicious of overly friendly strangers. 

[Jingthing]

OK, here's a fun question. 

What if I run into this scam artist again, now that the consensus seems to be he definitely was up to no good?

What would you do?

 

[Morakot]

50 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

OK, here's a fun question. 

What if I run into this scam artist again, now that the consensus seems to be he definitely was up to no good?

What would you do?

 

 

In hindsight you should have said in a loud and pronounced voice:

 

"I'm terribly sorry, I'd like to exchange my Baht notes for your fine dollars, but I'm afraid the notes in my wallet are counterfeits, Sir.The last thing Sir wants to have when in Thailand is fake money."

Edited December 17, 2016 by Morakot

[1FinickyOne]

When was the last time did you or anyone you know ever ask to look into someone else's wallet?

 

For me, that is the end of the conversation - of course it is some kind of scam but I would not hang out to find out what...

 

If he did not understand about money, how did he get to Pattaya from the airport? 

 

And as to running into him again, why would you want to have anything to do with such a fellow - you can't win, he does not sound fun or interesting... he is playing a game called "You lose" - - 

[Jingthing]

Yeah if I was in my home country I'd probably call the police if I saw him trying the same scam. But here too bad it's just too much agita to get involved as a foreigner.

[kkerry]

My response... blank them and walk away. It's a scam, so you're not going to be offending anyone.

 

Otherwise, if you want to make a pretense of being polite, something like...sorry can't talk now, I must finish my shopping, wife is waiting outside in the car with the children, but if you go to the next corner and turn left, the exchange booth there will help you... and walk away. End of engagement.

[Morakot]

27 minutes ago, kenk24 said:

When was the last time did you or anyone you know ever ask to look into someone else's wallet?

 

For me, that is the end of the conversation

 

 

Last time was probably in the 1970s, when social scientists in California --- during covert research --- asked random strangers do things that were against common expectations and outside established norms of interacting with people in public.

 

Mr Jingthing is probably far too much a Flâneur to let the opportunity pass and to inspect the conduct of the deranged, debilitated, or shady of Pattaya. Fair play to the OP! I probably would have felt quite unnerved in such an encounter.

[1FinickyOne]

So, you are suggesting that Jingthing looks like this? Always nice to learn something new here... ok. not sure if the flaneur file attached or not... but thanks for the new word...