Scammed in Bangkok!

UGH!!!! At least it wasn’t so bad. Could have been a lot worse! You could have ended up in the middle of nowhere with no ride back to the city! But still … shame this happens. Glad you wrote about it though, hopefully it can help others NOT get scammed. 🙂

We did the same thing. We wanted to go on the boat tour anyway, which was a great time. I take solace in the fact that my water bill in Chiang Mai was $2 and Electricity was only about $16 for the month 😀

Oh, wow!! 🙁 Like Diaan said, it could have been a lot worse. Nobody wants to be scammed or taken for a fool, but lesson learned, and without too much damage! Good post to let others beware! 😉

Hi guy’s, normal shit world wide you try to enjoy yourselves and some dumb asshole messes it up. I have been scammed around the world by unscrupeless thieves never mind. What they Stole they can’t take with them when they pop there clogs. Keep up the good posts. Always good to read. Kind regards Ian

I got caught up in this scam, in 2012, the first day on my first visit there. I think I was even at the same peir hahaah! Aw well! They even over charged me for beer and put on an extra charge for the fish food he was throwing in the water so the cat fish would come to the surface. I argued over the price, he took th boat to the middle of the river, turned it off and demanded his money. I payed him and was so embarrassed that I fell for it. But now it makes a great story 🙂

I always try to think the best of people, but things like this make you realise there are some unscrupulous, nasty people out there. I’m sure the people that take part in these scams just think we are all rich westerners who deserve if and use that generalisation to clear their conscious and sleep at night.

I was scammed in Morocco, in the back streets there was a old street seller, selling lovely ‘silver’ jewellery. Solid silver, not plated, she promised me, and chatted to me for ages. What a lovely lady I thought, trying to make a living this way, and bought a silver bracelet. Within 2 weeks all the silver plating had rubbed off and I felt dreadful – in the grand scheme of things it’s not awful, but it does make you feel horrible to have been suckered in and trusted someone, so I really feel for you and glad you decided to share your experience.

[…] Scammed in Bangkok! […]

Ouch!!

It’s always upsetting when your faith in human nature gets abused, and I always feel angry with those people if it means that travellers might be more defensive and a bit less open to chatting to locals in the future. How dare they spoil things for everyone else, including honest people trying to make a living by charging a fair price?

When we were in Delhi some (rather intimidating!) men actually tried to physically block us from getting on the metro so we’d go on their stupid taxi tour because the red fort was “closed”. I actually had a guidebook on me at the time and showed them that they actually featured in the Lonely Planet. They had the nerve to act offended but, funnily enough, the fort wasn’t closed!

I think most people have been scammed to some extent when travelling. If they say they haven’t… they probably didn’t realise! 🙂

Glad you didn’t let it spoil the rest of your trip. Happy travels!

Katie

Bummer guys! So sorry this happened to you. 🙁

We fell for the Grand Palace scam. I had read about it but was thrown as the lady who picked us up from the airport told us it was a Thai holiday so we didn’t know what to believe!

Thanks for sharing! Don’t feel bad though. I think every traveler gets scammed at least once. This is great to know for future Bangkok trips.

Happened to us in Egypt. We were out $20. Lesson learned. Don’t fret. Anyone who says they have never been scammed is lying. And thank you for sharing – I wish more travelers shared what DOESN’T work abroad.

It’s once i visited Damnoen Saduak floating market by minivan from Bangkok. All the passengers are thai except me and a couple of backpacker(thai people called them farang). To the pier about 1km before arriving to the market, the driver drop this couple. Than two people come(i guess they are the scammers) and told them to ride a longtail boat to the market. Because it’s the only way to get to the market. No taxi, bus, or van to the market (it’s totally scam).
They refuse the offer and keep walking. And suddenly the driver called them back to get into the van and finally drop them to the market together with other passenger with the same destination.

Actually it can also happen to me, to everyone. But when the driver and the scammer don’t do that to me i think it’s because they think that i’m thai.

By the way, really enjoy your post. It makes me beware.

[…] be one of them. Everything in Phuket felt like a scam so you really have to do your research (like we should have done in Bangkok!) and keep your guard up, whether you are renting a motorbike or jet ski, etc. For example, we […]

Hey there Charlie and Britney. It happens to the best of us. You got a great blog here and you guys are Awesome. Let me know in advance if you’re coming to Bangkok again and we can hook up for a few cold ones. I’m originally from The Windy City but been living and drinking here in Thailand since 2-months after 9/11 2001.

At least the scammers were clever about it. For a small amount of money, when it is handled so smoothly and in a completely non-threatening way you can at least feel like you dealt with someone who is kind of impressive in a way.

Argh, drives you mad doesn’t it?! We got scammed in Indonesia, and ended up with about $100 worth of ‘authentic batik’ (look up the batik scam!) that is a little less than authentic. However, now we look at it, it is still pretty beautiful – authentic or not. So, although it was ridiculously over-priced, we are quite happy that we bought it!

We were a a bit more savvy about everything after that ! Oh, the number of people in Bangkok that told us that temples were closed – we enjoyed telling them how beautiful the temple was once we had been to see it and they took it in good spirits.

As someone above said, I think everyone falls for something like this at least once!

It happens to the best of us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Don’t sweat it.
Thanks for sharing!

You were lucky it was only 1,700 baht. Thai people, themselves, get scammed by their own kind like many nationalities in this world. Bad people are everywhere, as well as the good ones. You just have to be more caution of your surroundings. I got scammed in Paris around 500 euros, roughly 19,500 baht? more or less. I admitted I felt really stupid, but then I learned from my mistake. You should take it as a cheap lesson to be more careful the next time around, at least you did not lose 50K or 100k or more. Think it as a charity, 1,700 is a lot for someone like a boat taxi driver, his whole family could live off it for weeks. You have donated for good cause, think positive 😀

From the “Tourist Pier” near BTS station Sapan Taksin it is actually 14 Baht per person on a standard river boat you pay once you get onto the boat. Also there is another “tourist” boat that leaves from here for 150 baht (for the whole day multiple use pay at ticket office) it stops at the same Piers as the 14 baht one.
So how is this a scam if you didn’t ask the price and didn’t even know a comparative price, everyone should maximise there earning potential. Also you said you enjoyed it and took nice photos. It sounds like you have double standards and after being offered a great service complaining about the cost. Some people should stay at home because at no stage where you taken advantage of, you agreed and went willingly.

Hi,

thanks you for blogging. You kind of saved us some real money.

This took place in March 2018. I’ve been to the pier with family and friends (total 8 people) and we were asked 700 baht/person (“discount” from 1000 baht/person) for a ride on a private boat for one hour. The lady pointed us to a table where the prices were mentioned. “1 hour / 1000 baht ….” and the last part was taped over. I assume it said per boat but know the lady was telling us per person ^^

I was the only experienced traveler and felt that something is wrong. After another discount we agreed to pay 500 baht/person and the lady luckily guided some people from the group to a toilet before the ride. That was the time window for me to look it up on the internet and read this blog! 😉

When they returned I told them about the scam and that the boat probably costs roughly about 1000-1500 baht/hour. It was clear for everyone that the lady would never agree to those conditions. So I told that we should quit it completely. The lady got very angry, she spent 15-20 minutes guiding the people to the toilet.. On the other hand we really wanted to do the boat trip. Someone else from the group (not me) mentioned 2 thousand for the boat for one hour. The lady angrily agreed and we paid the money. The boat trip went well and was actually nice.

So we still got scammed but not for 700 or 500 * 8 = 5600 or 4000 baht for the boat but for 2000 baht for 8 people (250 baht/person). On the “legit” pier where the tour ended I asked for the real price and without bargaining a guy told me 200 baht/person. So we PROBABLY overpaid about 50 baht/person which is 400 baht in total compared to the “legit” pier. I think the boats can also be rented on hourly basis and that would be 1000-1500 baht/hour in 2018. I am maybe wrong here and it still costs 700 baht per boat per hour.

Thank your for saving us some money 😉

Regards
Alex

It happened to us today. A man came up to us saying that grand palace was closed till 1 pm due to thai people praying inside. So he told us to go for a boat trip for an hour and come back and they should be open again. He mentioned that it will only cost us 1200 baht local price rather than 2000 baht tourist. He called a tuktuk and they seem like they dont know each other. This tuktuk guy brought us to a pier. Having that excitement that itll be our first time riding through chao praya,we paid 100 dollars for the 3 of us . They brought us down to wat arun after an hour and we went back to grand palace. Afrer knowing that the grand palace were open this whole time ,we knew we got scam and we felt like complete fools 😔

The gem scam is infuriating. I booked an otherwise-pleasant half-day tour in Phuket that took us to some great temples, Big Buddha, some overlooks, an elephant sanctuary, and the night market. But they wasted at least hours of our time with “bonus” stops to the cashew factory, an enormous gem store, and some goofy honey company run by a Russian expat. Make sure when you book these tours to press them on whether or not there will be any extra stops. They’ll try to frame it as a “bonus” but really you’re arriving back at your hotel 3 hours later than expected. It still wasn’t the worst value in the world (far less than the $50 you got taken for), but it’s annoying.