34 worst SCAMS in THAILAND!

Watch this video before you visit Thailand to prepare yourself and avoid the scams! It will help you save you time, money and hassles during your stay in Thailand!

✅ SUBSCRIBE & JOIN TO BE A MEMBER: https://www.youtube.com/@thebangkokguide/

SUPPORT 💵
🟢 Join Patreon for exclusive access and support: https://www.patreon.com/thebangkokguide/
🟢 Buy me a cup of coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ajarncal

🌍 Moving to Thailand Consultation: ajarncal@gmail.com

FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA
🌐 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajarncal/
🌐 Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ajarn.cal

Why I moved to Thailand?

My cost of living in Bangkok

29 Thailand Tips

Thailand Condo Rental Guide

Attributions
Music from #InAudio: https://inaudio.org/
Track Name. Fashion Deep House Guitar by Infraction [No Copyright Music] / Forgive

Welcome to Bangkok Thailand this is the land of smiles Thailand is one of the most visited countries in the world and Bangkok is consistently the most visited city in the world and with so many tourists you’ll also find plenty of scams and hustles I’m Cal and I’ve lived in Thailand for 8 years

And I hope this video helps you avoid any scams or hustles that you might encounter I’ll cover transportation scams sightseeing scams plain old walking around scams shopping scams banking and credit card scams restaurant scams tour scams accommodation scams nightlife scams and phone and internet scams that’s a lot of scams

But after watching this video you’ll be able to confidently anticipate all of the scams that you might encounter here in Thailand and let me know in the comments have you experienced any scams in Thailand did I miss any important scams? let’s get started with transportation scams

As these are extremely common and almost impossible to avoid and the first scam that you might encounter occurs when you walk out of the main airport at Suvarnabhumi from the airport you’ll have two options for taking a taxi into the city you can walk directly outside at the second level

And here you’ll have plenty of taxis sitting and waiting and a tote will come and ask you where you’re going I recently returned from a trip and I went to check what the price would be to get back to the Rama 9 area here in Bangkok

And the tote quoted me at 1,000 Baht to get to Rama 9 I immediately turned around and went down one floor to Level 1 on Level 1 you’ll find the regulated airport taxis these taxis use a metered rate plus a 50 Baht airport surcharge

And the ride back to Rama 9 cost 150 Baht plus the 50 Baht airport surcharge if you plan to take a taxi from the airport always take a taxi from the regulated airport stand just keep in mind that if you’re driving into the city

Normally you will have to pay a toll to take the highway the driver will ask you to pay it and you’ll be given a receipt and of course you can also take the airport rail link into the city

The airport taxi scam that I just described is one example of a very common scam here in Bangkok this is the “no-meter” taxi scam in Bangkok taxis are legally required to use the meter and the meter is very inexpensive but this law is often ignored

And you’ll encounter many taxis that refuse to use the meter and demand a set price for a trip and that price is often much higher than the metered rate first you should always avoid taking a taxi that’s waiting by the curb in a popular tourist area

These taxis will almost always demand a set price you should wave down a taxi that’s driving by on the street and when you get in they should turn on the meter if the driver doesn’t turn on the meter, say “meter krub” this a polite way of asking them to use the meter

And if they refuse to turn on the meter, simply get out of the taxi and wave down another taxi it’s quite common to wave down multiple taxis in popular tourist areas before a driver will agree to use the meter

And once you’ve successfully waved down a taxi and they’ve agreed to use the meter you might encounter our next taxi scam this one happened to me a few years ago at the time, I got in the taxi and the driver simply turned on the meter

A journey of 5 kilometers with light traffic will normally cost you about 55 Baht and a 10 kilometer journey will normally cost you about 80 Baht the meter goes up slowly and steadily but on this particular journey the meter started racing at about 5 times the normal rate

This is the fast meter scam and it’s a meter that’s rigged to speed up when the driver hits a switch just keep an eye on the meter and if the meter suddenly starts jumping by 2 Baht every few seconds you have a taxi with a fast meter

But this scam can also occur with a meter that suddenly stops working and when the meter stops working the driver will use it as an excuse to demand a much higher set fare if this occurs it’s best to offer the amount that was on the meter get out and get a new taxi

But even if the meter is on and running correctly you might encounter the scenic route scam in this situation the driver takes a much longer route in order to increase the fare and this one can be pretty annoying because it will also add significant time to your journey

And the best way to avoid this scam is to open Google Maps when you get into the taxi and track the route that the driver is taking when the driver begins to take the wrong direction normally I will tell them to go the right direction

And if they refuse I’ll tell them to let me out of the car and during your taxi ride your driver might also recommend that you check out some different places while you’re in Bangkok and in this situation it doesn’t really matter what they recommend you should never go

There are a lot of scams that start this way you have overpriced seafood restaurants overpriced gem shops overpriced tailors overpriced tours you get the idea overpriced taxi drivers are a little bit like affiliate marketers they have you in their backseat and they hit you with a 20 minute sales pitch

And they’ll get a commission for bringing you to any one of these overpriced shops but there are also situations where the driver will deliberately bring you to the wrong location and a very common example of this is when you take a taxi to very popular floating markets

Unscrupulous taxi drivers have been known to bring unsuspecting tourists to the wrong pier and if they bring you to that wrong pier you’ll be asked to pay 2,000 Baht to enter the floating market with a boat ride you should always keep your Google Maps open

And make sure that the driver is taking you to the correct destination so you managed to wave down a taxi they turned on the meter which was running normally and they drove you straight to the correct destination you notice that you only have a 1000 Baht note

And you ask the driver if he has change for 1000 Baht he says yes you hand over the 1000 Baht note and you can probably guess what happens next this is the wrong change scam never enter a taxi without carrying smaller bills

And the wrong change scam can play out in a number of different ways some taxi drivers get very creative with this a friend of mine told me about a taxi ride he had about a year ago the driver was very friendly and talkative and this can sometimes hint at a potential upcoming scam

And the driver eventually asked my friend if he could trade him ten 100 Baht notes for a 1000 Baht note he took out the 100 Baht bills counted out all ten of them and handed them back to my friend to count as well my friend counted the bills and everything looked normal

And he said okay he gave the taxi driver the 1000 Baht note and about 30 seconds later the taxi driver held up a 100 Baht note and said “you gave me the wrong bill” he’d swapped the 1000 Baht note for a 100 Baht note and was now trying to get another 1000 Baht

And an argument ensued ultimately my friend gave the driver an extra 50 Baht to simply end the argument and there are a couple of lessons that you can take from this encounter first, you need to ignore any requests that a taxi driver makes

It’s usually a scam or a hustle and you simply shouldn’t take the risk this particular scam was a wrong change scam but it easily could have been a counterfeit money scam it was a weird request

And any weird request from a taxi driver is almost always a scam or a setup for a scam and second, if you do find yourself in a scam the scammer will often accept a deal rather than escalate into an open conflict we’ve covered a lot here on transportation scams

And you might notice I didn’t even mention tuktuks or motorbike taxis yet these forms of transportation don’t use meters so none of the meter scams will apply instead you’ll always need to negotiate a price and these drivers are known for significantly overcharging tourists

And there’s one simple rule that you need to follow for any non-metered ride you always need to make sure to agree upon a price before you start the trip if you don’t agree upon a price the driver will demand as much money as possible when you arrive

And this applies for tuktuks, motorbike drivers and taxis if you agree not to use the meter and if you’re in a rush or you’re in a very busy area it can be much easier to negotiate a fare the reality is that taxis fares are extremely cheap here in Bangkok

And many drivers will accept a reasonable price if you negotiate but if you’re new to Bangkok it can be difficult to know if the price that the driver offers is reasonable fortunately you can find out very easily before you come to Bangkok download the ride hailing apps Grab and Bolt

These are the Ubers of Thailand you simply put in your location and destination and the app will give you a set price and this is obviously quite useful for ordering a ride but it can also be very good for checking prices if you negotiate a set fare but not so fast

The ride hailing apps are great but the pricing on the Grab app in particular can be very questionable for example just last week I was booking a ride from the Asok area around Terminal 21 to Central World it’s a distance of about 3 kilometers

And when you open the Grab app you’ll be given multiple different options you can order a car, a motorbike, a luxury car, a van and the lowest set fare price given by Grab was the JustGrab option at 193 Baht but you can also select the Grab Taxi option

And with the Grab Taxi option you’ll pay a normal metered fare plus a 20 Baht booking fee to Grab and rather than a set fare the app gives you an estimated price and for my 3km trip the estimate was 170 to 250 Baht plus the 20 Baht booking fee

This is very high for a trip that I’ve taken many times that never cost more than 80 Baht if you’re booking a car on the Grab app you should always ignore the metered taxi fare estimate and of course if you’re planning to negotiate with a taxi for a set fare

You should never use the prices that are quoted on the Grab app use Bolt Bolt prices are significantly lower and very accurate for the exact same trip between Terminal 21 and Central World the Bolt app gave me a very accurate estimate of 60 to 90 Baht

And it also gave me the option to book a Bolt car with a set price of 70 Baht which was exactly the same as the metered fare that I paid but even if you can’t get a car from Bolt

You can use the price on the app to wave down a taxi and negotiate a reasonable fair given that the prices on Bolt are almost exactly the same as the metered rates keep in mind that the prices on these apps can change so I recommend that you download both apps

And you just check the prices on both of the applications before you order a car but even if you get a reasonably priced ride you still need to be careful with ride hailing apps they’ve become very popular and with popularity you get scams

I experienced a new one a couple of months ago if I’m traveling between cities I often book a car using Bolt for example to travel between Bangkok and Pattaya it only costs about 1200 to 1400 Baht and on a recent trip I was traveling with a couple of friends

And we booked a car to pick us up at the Terminal 21 in Pattaya and drop us off in Bangkok the driver picked us up and drove us to Beach Road in Pattaya he then asked us to change cars because he had a problem with his car

When we arrived in Bangkok the driver asked for more money I took out the app and I showed him the price on the app eventually he gave in and he accepted the Bolt price so we escaped any scam but there was obviously an attempt to get a little bit of extra money

So my recommendation is to avoid any situation where the car changes this means that you’re no longer taking the car that’s registered on the app but you might also encounter drivers that send you messages requesting more money to come pick you up

Or once you arrive and get in the car they will ask for more money this is much more common in cities like Phuket and Pattaya but it can occur in Bangkok as well and in cities like Phuket where there is a very tightly controlled taxi market

There’s likely collusion between the taxi driver cartels and the drivers on the apps they want to make the apps unusable and this means that they will randomly cancel at the last minute they’ll send messages requesting that you cancel they don’t move for 10 or 20 minutes

And you’ll probably play a game of cat and mouse for a while before you get a legitimate driver and there’s a second hustle that I encountered about a year ago on Grab this time I ordered the Grab Taxi this is the metered fare with a 20 Baht booking surcharge

And when I got in the taxi the meter was already at 50 Baht he had turned on the meter when he accepted the ride and he was trying to charge me for driving to the location to pick me up this is not how the Grab Taxi option works

I told this to the driver and he reset the meter the Grab driver should only turn on the meter when you get into the car let’s move on to a scam that you might encounter when you’re traveling between cities by train or bus when you walk up to a train or bus station

You might encounter a tote that asks you where you’re going and when you tell them, they’ll tell you that there are no more seats on the bus or train but they’ll offer you transportation with a bus or a van and sometimes claim to work for the Tourism Authority of Thailand

These are all lies it’s very easy to walkup to a train or bus station at nearly any time and buy a ticket on the spot and the Tourism Authority of Thailand is a government agency they don’t run tours and they definitely don’t employ totes that hover around train and bus stations

Asking people to get in their van this is just an attempt to divert business to private bus and van services these will normally be overpriced and you can often wait a very long time if you do happen to take one of these vans

As you’ll need to wait for them to fill the van to capacity before they leave perhaps you’re looking for your own transportation and you’d rather rent a motorbike and in this scam I’m going to cover both motorbikes and jetskis the parameters of the scam are almost exactly the same

In this scam the rental shop will try to blame you for preexisting damages to a motorbike or a jetski I’m going to go over 3 steps that you can take to protect yourself from this scam first you can rent a motorbike or a jetski directly from your hotel many hotels have rental agencies

And they’re very unlikely to operate any scams it would be very damaging to their hotel as a brand this brings us to the second step you can take check Google Reviews

Bigger shops that have been in existence for a very long period of time with lots of reviews are very unlikely to operate scams and third when you rent a bike or a jetski make sure to take lots of pictures and videos and document any damages that you notice

However the worst scammers can use temporary paint to cover up damages that they can later wipe off in order to try to blame you and for that reason step 1 and 2 can actually be more important and for jetskis in particular you can take one additional step

Just hangout at the beach near the shop you can observe how the shop interacts with customers especially when they return the jetski if everything appears to operate smoothly for the other customers chances are it will be fine for you too and finally if you rent a motorbike or a jetski

Never leave your passport as a deposit if it’s lost you’ll have a significant problem and if the shop is running any scams, they can hold your passport hostage to demand a much larger sum of money let’s talk a little bit about the scams that you’ll encounter simply walking around here in Bangkok

And these normally occur in very touristy areas like Khaosan Road the old city around the Grand Palace and between Asok and Nana in Sukhumvit let’s get started with one that I actually experienced twice just this week I was walking out of the MRT at MRT Sukhumvit an Indian guy approached me

And he started asking me about the color of Thai money what color is Thai money? and then he took out his wallet and opened it there were a few bills in the wallet but it wasn’t Thai Baht after showing me his money, he asked me to show him the color of Thai money

I told him that I didn’t have any Thai money then he asked me where I’m from I said that I’m from Canada he talked about how much he loves Canada and how he plans to visit soon and you can what happened next he asked me to show him Canadian money

Clearly this guy really wanted to see my money at this point I had enough and I simply said no and walked away he protested he wanted me to stay this is something scammers are very good at they try to build a connection and build rapport

And they try to make you feel guilty for walking away when you notice that they’re trying to scam you they’ll ask you where you’re from they’ll ask you about your country these guys study and learn a few things about each country in order to appear authentic

And then they try to create a perception that this was an authentic personal connection during your trip another common scam that you’ll encounter along Sukhumvit is the pseudo fortune-tellers these guys are normally Indian or Nepalese and they’ll initiate a conversation with you by saying “you’re very lucky! do you want to know why?”

But they’re only lucky because they keep on walking if they stop these guys will do some half-baked fortune-telling and then they’ll ask you for money for the privilege of the fortune-telling experience both of these are examples of a very common friendly stranger scam a friendly stranger approaches you in a tourist area

He tries to build an authentic and genuine connection with you and then he’ll use that connection to try to scam you there are many variations to this scam the number of variations grows every single year

As entrepreneurial scammers come up with new methods to try to get money through this friendly stranger approach but I’ll run through a few of the most popular variations of this scam first we have the popular tourist attraction is closed scam

This is also known as the Grand Palace scam because it occurs very frequently around the Grand Palace but it can occur around any major tourist attraction the scammer will approach you before you get to the entrance of the tourist attraction and he’ll tell you that it’s closed

He might say that it’s a special holiday or that it’s the King’s birthday and he’ll offer to bring you on your own personal tour this is a lie the tourist attraction is almost never closed if you follow him on his personal tour you’ll get led into a variety of other scams

Often he’ll bring you to a totally different free attraction where one of his colleagues will be waiting and they’ll charge you a ticket price to enter another common scam is when people are standing around in tourist areas and offer you things that seem to be free

The most common variations of this scam are the bird seed scam you’ll have an older man giving birds some birdseed he’ll offer you some birdseed so that you can join him or you’ll have somebody try to put a bracelet on your wrist in both these cases you’ll be asked for money afterwards

You have to remember that nothing is free in very touristy areas if you walk around any tourist area you will notice lots of Nepalese and Indian guys trying to sell you suits and watches the watches are totally fake and the prices are very high the suit guys are a little bit different

There are actually some excellent tailors in Bangkok where you can buy great high quality inexpensive suits but the totes are much more likely to bring you into an overpriced shop and some of them will run outright scams

The most common scam is when a suit tailor uses cheaper material to manufacture the suit after you’ve already paid for it you can avoid this scam by researching tailors using Google Reviews and avoid places that employ a lot of totes and try to get tourists to come in off the street

Another scam that you might encounter is when a tote offers you a discount for a service or product this is common if you’re walking around checking out places like massage shops if you’re standing outside and checking the prices a tote may approach you and offer to bring you to their shop

Where they’ll give you a discounter price they’ll walk you to the shop and ask for payment the tote normally doesn’t work there he just wanders around on the street pretending to work for shops and pocketing the money you can follow one simple rule you should never follow a tote anywhere

Whatever deal they’re offering is normally a hustle or a scam most shopkeepers and vendors are good honest people but you can occasionally encounter a scam always ask for the price or to see a menu before you order especially in the tourist areas

If you don’t ask for a menu, it’s a little bit similar to getting into a tuktuk without first negotiating the price you can encounter an unscrupulous vendor who will ask you for a lot of money simply because they know you didn’t see the menu

As you walk around in tourist areas, you also need to be careful about pickpocketing you can take a few steps to protect yourself here first, never leave your phone sitting on a table in a popular tourist area it’s also better to wear shorts or pants with deep pockets or even zippers

And make sure to keep your belongings in front of you pickpocketing gangs have also been associated with credit card fraud and theft if you lose your wallet you should immediately cancel all your credit cards if you’re in the Sukhumvit neighborhood you might notice that there are a lot of beggars

Many are women with young children or people with physical deformities recently you had stories about Chinese beggar gangs moving into Bangkok but you might also encounter the infamous white begpackers of Asia these guys take advantage of visa free travel in order to go beg in significantly poorer countries

These guys could easily work as an English teacher and earn higher than the national average income if you’re going to donate to somebody in need is a backpacker who is using that money to finance their travels really the most worthy person of that donation

It’s also very common to encounter other westerners who will ask you for money for all kinds of different things these guys might approach you directly or they might try to befriend you before they ask for money if they approach you directly

They’ll often say that they need money for a ticket to return home or that they’re wallet was lost or stolen I actually had one guy ask me for money because he didn’t have money to pay for a tattoo and there is one very famous old German guy who hangs around Terminal 21

He’s approached me a few times over the years to ask me for money to return home it’s safe to say that he isn’t using that money to get home and there was another German guy with a leg deformity he used to boast online about how much money he made begging in Bangkok

Which he used to finance his partying lifestyle in Pattaya He was eventually banned from Thailand and among the expat population in Thailand you have plenty of investment scams and hustles you should avoid trusting people too easily and if someone pitches you a new investment or asks you for money very soon after meeting

It’s probably better to find some new friends next up we’ve got accommodation scams I recall when I first arrived in Bangkok I booked a hotel on Booking.com and on the website it looked quite nice clean, spacious and new but when I arrived it looked dirty, small and old

The reality is that the hotel was using older pictures that they had shot using a wide-angle camera lens you’re probably aware that reading reviews is important before booking a hotel but Thailand has strict defamation laws

And over the years I’ve noticed a big difference between the reviews on hotel booking websites like Agoda and Booking.com and Google the reviews on Google are consistently more accurate and balanced and I always check the Google Reviews before I book a hotel many travelers opt to book with Airbnb instead

And I encountered a scam using Airbnb a few months ago I booked a large condo on the app and when I arrived it simply wasn’t available instead the host had left keys for two much smaller units

In the end I canceled through Airbnb and I needed to book a much more expensive last minute condo this is a bait and switch scam some hosts advertise multiple units if one is unavailable they’ll simply offer you another one if you’re in Thailand you might be interested in an organized tour

But you need to be a little bit cautious there are some unscrupulous companies that don’t include all of the costs of a tour these companies will bring you to the destination it might be an island excursion or a safari

When you arrive you’ll be told that you need to pay an additional fee to enter the island or safari or you’ll be stuck waiting around for the van to bring you back to your hotel when you book a tour always ask exactly what’s included in the price

And check the tour company using Google Reviews some of these tours aren’t exactly scams but they can be massively overpriced some of the cheaper tours might use crowded hostels that feel more like a prison cell

As well as bus or train tickets that would have only cost about 15 to 100 Baht per trip after all local travel in Thailand is very inexpensive and of course Thailand is very famous for its nightlife

And with that fame you’ve got plenty of scams that you’re going to need to watch out for I experienced a common scam quite recently I was at a restaurant in the Sukhumvit neighborhood I ordered a dinner I was out with friends and when my bill arrived

There was a beer added to my bill when my friends checked their bills everybody had a beer added to their bill I called the waitress over to protest the bills and as soon as I mentioned the beers she took the bills and brought back new bills with all of the beers removed

This is the padded bill scam and it’s very common in nightlife areas here and while this scam occurs at restaurants it happens a lot more in the nightlife areas like Soi Cowboy and Nana in these bars the waitress will bring you a bill in a cup

And each time that you order a drink the waitress will take the bill and bring a new bill with your updated drink total and normally if you have a few drinks the waitress might try to sneak an extra drink onto the bill

The easiest way to avoid this scam is to simply pay for every drink as it comes and when you pay for drinks you also should remember the wrong change scam this is also very common in nightlife areas and it’s much better to carry small bills with you

While some bars try to scam you by adding a sneaky extra drink onto your bill there are other bars that are entirely scams and if you’re not careful and you go into the wrong bar you could find yourself with an absolutely enormous bill this is often called the pingpong show scam

If you walk around the busy tourist nightlife districts you’ll have many people come up to you saying “pingpong show pingpong show” they’ll normally lead to you to an upstairs nondescript area with the promise of seeing a free pingpong show and as I mentioned earlier nothing in the tourist areas is free

You’ll be given a drinks menu and asked to order and when you decide to leave your bill will arrive and it can be absolutely huge there are stories of 5,000 Baht bills 20,000 Baht bills at this point large security guards will block the exit and you’ll be told to pay the bill

Never follow a tote and never follow the recommendations from tuktuk and taxi drivers especially when it comes to nightlife and if you do want to check out a gogo bar I highly recommend that you check those Google Reviews first the reality is that you have plenty of great nightlife options in Bangkok

But you might encounter another common scam and this is fake alcohol if you’ve ever seen the popular buckets at Khaosan Road these are very inexpensive they taste horrible and you’ll often get a brutal hangover afterwards and these areas are somewhat notorious for having fake alcohol this is normally brought in from Malaysia

And lastly, when you’re in Thailand you’re going to want a phone a data package a SIM card and when you register your SIM card you may get a phone call or a text message telling you that you have a delivery and you need to pay a fee to release the delivery

Or that there is an investigation into some type of fraud all of these are likely scams there are a lot of text message and phone scams here in Thailand if you receive a text message or a phone call don’t make any payments and don’t provide any personal information

You should automatically assume that it’s a scam in this video I went over pretty much every scam that you might encounter here in Thailand and it’s important to remember that if you find yourself in a scam always avoid escalating the conflict

In most situations it’s better to take it as a learning lesson and move on and avoid these scams in the future and that’s one of the reasons why I made this video an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

If you’re involved in a significant scam or you really want to pursue justice your best course of action is to contact the tourist police dial 1155 inform the police about the scam they have English speaking staff and they work with foreign volunteers

Who will be very familiar with all of the scams that you might be involved in have a great day, I’ll see you next time