Bangkok Scam Artist, 1:20am

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Early this morning (Friday morning), I was doing my usual post-bar-hopping grocery shopping in the main Villa Market branch between Sukhumvit Sois 33 and 33/1 when a scam artist tried to strike. I’ll re-create it as best I can. I checked my watch afterward, and it was 1:20am.

I was back by the crackers, isolated, when this Middle East-looking guy and girl came sauntering along. She looked rather mousy, but he was wearing jewelry, expensive-looking clothes, fancy hairstyle. The guy pointed to a price tag that was hanging down from the shelf that said Bt59 and asked me: “Hey, how much is that in dollars?”
I said: “I guess just under a couple.”
“Yeah? How much is $1? What’s the rate for that? Where are you from?”
“I’m from the US.”
“Yeah? That’s great! I’m from Dubai.”
Shakes my hand.
To the girl (who remains quiet and seems sheepish the whole time): “See? that’s only $2 here. What did I tell you?”
Back to me: “So what’s the exchange rate now for baht, in your money?”
“32-1/2 to the dollar right now.”
"Yeah? Hey, where can I change money tonight? Is there someplace I can change right now?
“I don’t know of anyplace.”
“What, you live here and you don’t know where to change money?”
“I know where to change money, but there isn’t anyplace this time of the night that’ll do it.”
“Hey, do they take Malaysian dollars here?” (The Malaysian currency is ringgit, but he said dollars.)
“No, they’re not going to accept any Malaysian money in this place.”

Then he pulls out his wallet and “casually” opens it. It’s positively STUFFED with money, with US bills. Looks like a small phone book is crammed in there. A $100 bill is on top. I think I saw some other currencies in there too, but mostly it was a huge wad of American money with a $100 on top. I’m obviously supposed to see this. He whips out the $100 (there’s another $100 on top after he removes the first one, but if I know how these things work, the rest are probably all singles, if not outright counterfeit), and says: “Hey, how does the size of Thai money compare with American money? Lemme see a bill.”
“What?”
“The size. What’s it look like compared with this? I wanna see.”
“Um, I’m going to go finish shopping now.”
“Hey, what? What’s the matter? I just wanna see. Hey!”
And I walked away.

I have no doubt it was going to end up that I changed money for him. Or maybe he was going to confuse me and pull some sort of quick sleight of hand where I couldn’t be sure how much I got back. He was certainly slick enough for that. You had to hear him to understand truly just how smooth he was. The narrative above does not do him justice. While the girl hung back and even looked a bit embarrassed, he was Mr. Slick. Who knows how much money he thought I was carrying around with me that time of night, but I did have an ATM card, so no doubt that would have become involved at some point.

I did notice the guy earlier as I was wandering through the aisles. He and the girl were talking to a third person, another guy. I couldn’t help but notice him, because he was so outgoing, speaking in loud, friendly terms, so I thought they must all be together. But I didn’t really notice the other guy, because I wasn’t paying that much attention, so I just assumed it was a Middle East friend; you couldn’t help but notice the scammer, he was so outgoing. Now I think that was another potential victim he was hitting up. This was all back in the aisles, away from the prying eyes of staff, who are used to seeing all sorts of weirdness that time of the morning anyway.

I’ve heard about scammers hanging around Villa before but not operating at this time of the night. Usually it’s Filipinos striking in the daytime, the old “My cousin is going to college in your hometown, and you should meet her” scam after striking up a conversation. Again, this guy was really slick but a bit TOO obvious, and when it became clear he wanted me to pull out my wallet, I was out of there. Now I wish I had simply told him I didn’t have any cash and was going to use my credit card, then see what came next, but it’s probably best not to string these people along.

2

That’s pretty creepy, I bet if you took your wallet out, he’d grab it and run.

Even just reading it my “danger! danger!” meter is going crazy.

3

Yeah, he’d either have grabbed it or confused you with money changing hands back and forth and gotten away with more than he came with. If you’ve seen the Penn & Teller’s: BULLSHIT! episode dealing with numbers, there’s a guy who does that with some cashiers and it’s pretty slick.

4

I doubt he’d have grabbed the wallet and ran. That’s not the feeling I had. I suspect he was out for bigger game than the paltry couple of thousand baht that was in my wallet, plus we were deep inside the store, not out on the sidewalk. Nah, I’m somewhat familiar with these guys, and I feel certain me withdrawing some money from a nearby ATM machine would eventually have figured into this if I had played along.

I tell ya, it is never EVER boring in Bangkok.

5

The guy who did that was magician Michael Close.

6

No, your story did him justice, I’m sure I was picturing him in my mind’s eye correctly, he looked (in my mind’s eye) like a cross between Leisure Suit Larry and the cheesiest used car salesman stereotype you could come up with.

The “Middle Eastern” description also doesn’t surprise me. They all seem to have an overly friendly attitude towards people only matched by a few drunk panhandlers I’ve encountered. Now, don’t get me wrong, by no means am I calling all Middle Easterners scammers, or drunks, but they all seem to have the outgoing friendly attitude that scammers have as well that Westerners just aren’t that familiar with due to differences in culture.

7

That’s him! So you’ve met him, too. :eek:

8

Hey now, let’s not be racist. :wink:

9

I’m guest and rarely post, Sam, but I I’ve learned a lot of fascinating stuff from you. Thanks.

10

My pleasure. :wink:

And as for the old “My cousin is going to college in your hometown, and you should meet her” scam I mentioned in the OP, a man – almost always a Filipino, at least here in Bangkok – will strike up a conversation with you, find out where you’re from, then say he has a relative about to go to school there or close by. He’ll call up his niece, cousin etc – almost always a girl, I guess to help sweeten the pot – and she’ll talk to you on the phone, asking questions about your hometown, because she’s so excited about going to live there. Then you’ll get invited home for dinner. There just may happen to be another relative or two hanging about. Then a card game gets started. You can guess the rest.

I know one guy – this was also at Villa Market, he was approached by a Filipino just outside while checking out the message board – who when put on the phone with the girl made up the name of a nonexistent school, and she said: “Yes! That’s the one. I was just accepted and will start next semester.”

11

Two members of an international counterfeit ring were recently arrested, one in the Bangkok area. Police recovered 1040 high-quality fake US$100 bills. These are so-called “super notes,” apparently the highest-quality counterfeit there is. It’s been suggested to me that possibly the scammer who tried to hit me last week is involved in this. Maybe. But so far, the only two arrests have been the Thai men.

Story here.

12

Same conversation in New York:

“Hey, how much is that in dol…”

“go fuck yourself”

13

I was going to say they wanted to stick you with a counterfeit $100. Now I see this is an older thread and now you mention counterfeit $100’s.

14

Stickman, a local Kiwi who runs an interesting website, stuck my tale in his Reader’s Submission section as a warning to others. I received this e-mail, verbatim:

“I fell for this but in the departure area of Singapore airport. The scam is the same. Middle Eastern prick who claimed to have no small change. But the problem is he will hypnotised you once there’s contact (show him your currency). I try to change the US$100 bill to the local Singapore dollar and that’s when we came into ‘contact’. Next minute, I lost all my money in my wallet. I don’t remember falling asleep or anything.”

Not sure what he means by “contact.” MY scammer DID shake my hand.

15

The whole thing screams creepy and RUN! to me. :eek: