Wednesday 7 January 2009

Bangkok Scams

Coming to visit Thailand this year? You'll want to check out the Bangkok Scams blog then.

A great site unmasking the unscrupulous characters, charades and scams which can befall unsuspecting tourists.

The majority of Thais are welcoming and helpful but, as with any country, a minority is out there to take advantage of naive foreigners with loadsa' money (there are plenty of them, both naive and with cash).

I haven't had any scams pulled on me, unless you count my futsol team trying to put me in goal for a whole session (I'm good out-fueld, it's different to football you know, I'm still transitional, I will improve..honest). Those of us with Thai other-halves/close friends are generally safe from scams, especially with a bargain-hunting, go-getting Missus like mine!

The bottom line is the usual adage that tourists should be sensible and if something looks to good to be true/convenient, it may well be.

Check the site out and happy holidays in the Land of Smiles.

Update: you can also report a scam to alert others how you got played. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seems the website has been closed down by the Thai government.

Jon said...

that is such a shame as scamming is a big issue here and the blog did a great job of educating. i guess it was inevitable that it would end this way.

in the meantime anecdotes are aplenty but not so easy to find.