Thorn Tree travel forum

Bangkok Jewellery Scam- BE AWARE!

For the attention of everyone travelling to Bangkok,

Shops in Bangkok has a very sophisticated strategy to get you in their shop and
rip you off with jewellery or other things.

Lots of the tuk tuk drivers offer you a "deal",that you only have to pay 20baht
a day,cos they get fuel vouchers from goverment because its happen to be the
kings birthday,big buddha day ,or things like that... This is all crap!!!
What happens is they take you to few temples nearby , to a tailor,
jewellery shop,and probabaly to other places i never had the patience to stay that long in their fake tour.
It`s all about them getting their commission from shops , and not about
showing you the real tourist attractions in Bangkok.

The real trick comes when they leave you waiting somewhere by the tut tuk and the driver has to go to the toilet,
or you happen to be in the yard of the temple and your told you have to wait to get in.
As I was waiting ,other "tourists" from different countries tried to initiate a conversation with me.We started
talking about diving and where to go in Thailand,it is always good to meet people from different places.
But as the conversations went ,they tried to change subject to Jewellery and telling me what a great deal they
had by buying jewellery and selling them home for double or more.I met "Steve" from Liverpool,and an other guy from France,
but there other nationalities i heard of like US.They try to persuade me to buy jewellery in Thailand,
and sell them home to make profit,as they did. "you have your holliday free this way",they say.

They show you their receipt, and they come up with a story which is very well worked out:
They say its only one week a year in Thailand when you can buy cheap jewellery there as you pay no tax during this week
They called it "Grand Sale " or something like that.The King only reveals which week is it only days before.
The shop they tell you about is not open to public only during this week,so
you must hurry,this is the last day.(So why they had tourist information in the shop?big mistake)
You can buy jewellery up to$5000 and only 3 items.The receipts they show you are about this amount each of them,
in various currencies.
They also make up stories where they sell them in their countries.(ie.:Bondstreet in London,and also mentioned the shop)
"Steve" has even given his email address to me,which was later found out to be fake.

This all sound a very obvious scam,but beleive me they are doing it so well.These guys are not in your face too much
when you start talking to them.The british guy only started talking about jewellery after i had talked to him for a while.
The french guy was giving me the impression that he is absolutely not keen on talking to me.
Probably they have beendoing this for a while.

Even a few days after i could not be hundred percent sure if it was a con.But I`m now since i met other tourists,all
telling me meeting these con men, and being told about"only this weeks sale" months before it happened to me, and since i checked
the email address i was given.I kept thinking with so many foreigners like americans,europeans standing on the streets
persuading strangers in a third world country,would be a fortune to pay them .Its just all done to organising as we later on
tried to put the puzzle together with other people who went through all of this.We came to the conclusion that these
"salesmans" most probably paid by comission as well as tuk tuk drivers.And they probably find wich tourists to go to when they are
waiting alone by knowing the number of their tuk tuk.

This is one of the most disgusting strategy to sell i`ve ever heard of.

BE AWARE, AND IGNORE EVERYONE TELLING YOU ABOUT HOW GOOD DEAL HE/SHE HAD!

I MUST SAY THAT THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MAJORITY OF THAI PEOPLE
WHO ARE AMONGST THE NICEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.

I can be contacted on:
daniel_sun@europe.com
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