Phuket Foreigners Losing Homes To Con Men

[rmacdon61 18]

I read through this "story" and find it runs very similar to the scam emails one gets. Even to the extent of the bad English used in the "story".

I just find that the whole story sucks and is at all not true. You have the 'rich Chinese man" the Manager, the driver, and the gambling expert.. Purely fiction from a D class novel!

What dam_n rubbish!

I agree, story just doesn't add up. She used gold and cash?

Where did she sign away the house?

[timewilltell 2,401]

The person who has lost out here is the foreigner and his kids, not the wife. Maybe they had a family together and the the kids have also lost out them because there will be less or no money for their education and food / clothing etc. If anyone reading this finds themselves in a situation where you have essentially lost your life, your wife, all your money and possibly your children where one moment earlier you were living a happy life with kids in school, and an easy lifestyle I think that would be utterly devastating. Not only are you looking at financial disaster but if you are a family man as well you will be utterly distraught as to how you are going to look after and bring up your children never mind yourself. Your dreams are shattered and your partner gone. Your life is devastated and then you have to deal on your own with the money lenders threatening you, lawyers and courts who want substantial sums to start EACH case plus security deposits lodged to court to cover possible damages if you lose, while the money lender has the property you bought for 20% of what you paid for it by being in on the scam. Note that he does not have to lodge any deposits into court, his court fee is tiny and he will have lawyers in tow."Its a good business" one lawyer said to me! Yes it sure is - you cheat or scam some not so clever girl into signing over one piece of property probably for a smallish amount with a lot of lies and promises it will all work out. Then once trapped, persuade her to commit fraud under threat when she can't pay, so as to get the rest of the property until there is none left, safe in the knowledge you as the money lender have committed no fraud, won't go to jail, and can fight a case against the person from whom you have taken all his immovable assets because he will likely have insufficient funds to bring the cases against you. Even if he can it will take years and probably you can just bribe the court to find in your favour. I truly believe that there are several gangs working in Phuket who target wives of foreigners and use many diiferent ways to con them into putting the property which under Thai law has to be in their name, on the line to a lender - the lender is of course into the scam too and loads all his interest up front knowing full well the property will come to them becasue the rates of interest are simply astronomical. The transfer fees to the land department also add to the cost of the loan. These ^&**&^%$%^ scum basically get a house for about 20% of its value and get the transfer fees paid for them as part of the deal.

It is big business believe me and it needs to be tackled. Instead of a feeling of som num na for some relatively uneducated getting tricked, possibly getting drugged, maybe it would be worth a moment to think of the ingenuity of the people doing the persuasion against which many people have no defence or experience. It would be worth several moments to consider the enormity of the damage done to the foreigner and his kids. Several lives may be destroyed through this. Irreparable damage to the family unit and probably the life savings of the foreigner targetted, leaving him devoid of hope and broken. Remember the Thai woman has probably lost very little as most do not come into a relationship with many assets - it is the foreigners assets being targetted here. The gangs target the foreigners because they have expensive assets and no support when the shit hits the fan - most probably cannot afford to go to court and so the criminal can succeed all too often.

It may be som num na for the wife (if she was drugged then not so and Ii am inclined to believe the people running this sort of scam would more likely than not try that to ensure success). It is not som num na for the guy who has lost everything. The mechanism is 'Sale with right of Redemption". Loan value typically 20% of value of property - add agents fee - add 6 months interest in advance - add transfer fees at the land department - add bribes to the land department if property not in sole name (or subject to lease) as they will have to break the law accepting forged documents to transfer the property. Interest 3% or 4% per month.

Eg. 10 million house - 2 million cash, 50k agents fee, 50k land official, 300k transfer fee = 2.4 million add 6 months at 4% interest 6 x 96,000 = 576,000. So Registered sale of house for 2,976,000 and if in six months you cannot repay the loan = 2,976,000 plus 300,000 transfer fee back = 3,276,000 then the house STAYS WITH the money lender - it's already in his name. If you are the foreigner how will you know this has happened. It's simple - no one will tell you anything, in fact they will be working together to actively hide it, your wife will be scared out of her wits when the realisation finally hits.

Then after 6 months the money lender being a kindly Thai will offer to extend the loan based on money from the next property she has in her name (if more than one), back down the land office, more bribes to agents, land officials and taxes paid to the government. Rinse & repeat until there is no money left. The foreigner will know nothing until it is too late because he will hear nothing and see no-one. Safes don;t help - they can crack them.

Don't be so quick in your judgements people!

There is a new website at thiascare dot com which is collating names of all the people involved in these scams. If you have been 'had' contact the people there - they are well connected and their list of names is gathering momentum. It is totally anonymous by the way. I gave my details already! Get on over there.

[unanimosity 715]

How frickin stupid can some people be!!

You refer of course to the farang husband.

[DLock 7,476]

How frickin stupid can some people be!!

As stupid as you or I on GBH.

GBH is colourless and tasteless and was clearly in the glass of water.

It gives the victim total trust.

It is often used in date rape.

A friend of mine went shopping in Panthip plaza

and emerged with his new ipod and laptop and other goodies

in a large shopping bag.

He was targeted by a tuk tuk driver who took him to his house.

There he was also given a glass of water and did not remember much more

except that he gambled and lost everything.

He was not a gambling man.

When you say "GBH is colourless and tasteless and was clearly in the glass of water", do you mean:

A. It was a clear substance in A glass of water

B. That is was clearly in THE glass of water the woman drank.

And when you say "He was targeted by a tuk tuk driver who took him to his house", did you mean:

A. The Tuk Tuk Driver took your friend to your friends house

B. The Tuk Tuk Driver took your friend to the Tuk Tuk Drivers house

I look forward to your response.

[chiangmaicharlies 10]

And the icing on the cake for me is that the "wealthy guy" scams his con men "friends" out of the lot - and they go running to the police!! HAHAHAHAH - you couldn't make this stuff up!!!

But surely this is made up - it's too unbelievable to be anything but .............. even in Thailand!

[unanimosity 715]

The funny thing is, the foreign husband probably believes the story.

Amen. How could anybody be so bloody naive and patently uninformed as to pay for a house or anything else that is in another person's name? Especially in LOS. It's not even co-signing which is universally understood to be as foolish a risk as exists, it is worse!! "But me wife is different." Yeah right. How would you know? Men who walk down this path typically demonstrate inexperience and naiveté, like socially challenged omega males being led to the grandiose delusion that they are now alphas.

[sulasno 16]

I believe this tactic is known as the "fan tan" but I am not really sure;

I was once put into the same position but I was not fleeced becos I was not greedy lol

Yes you were smart and not greedy.

Of course these people are easy to take, they a greedy and stupid. No wonder few go to the police with such a story of how utterly stupid they were.

there was another foreigner whose girlfriend gave the title deed to a property to a loan shark in return for a loan to help someone

story sound fishy but I didn't bother to ask more

chinese saying; never feed a woman even when she's old

[thailandcalling 16]

This is not a new scam, 25 years ago I had a similar experience here in Thailand but as tourist.

I just walked away.

[mrdome 401]

I just picked up my jaw from the floor... This story was not what I expected at all.

[WarpSpeed 1,032]

"they taught me some basic ways of cheating".

Sums it up for me.

Som nom nah

Maybe she was drugged.

Yep, greed is a drug..

[SGD 420]

The storey is symptomatic of the childish tales Thai people tell western people as their best effort and lie to explain why they have done something stupid or simply cheated the westerner.

They think we are as stupid as they are and judging by the responses here, they are right !

[snarky66 508]

Amazing. In the Land of Scams a Thai got scammed by some foreigners.

The gullible don't want to come forward to tell how they lost 12 million baht...... Nice surprise for the husband when he gets home.

AWESOME.

[paulian 2]

I find it difficult to feel sorry for the girl after reading the entire "story"

Yep, I agree 100%. "Stupid is what stupid does". Maybe it's true, however, I find the whole story hard to believe. Their saying this has been repeated a number of times ? Wives are putting the entire welfare and security of their families on the line to strangers. What's missing in this picture ?

Edited October 8, 2011 by paulian

[Tywais 12,116]

A nearly exact attempt was done on me in Chiang Mai over 20 years ago, but in this case the 'wealthy' guy was a Prince from Brunei and liked to gamble but was bad at it. When he walked in the door looking like a geek with slicked down hair, glasses and sloppy suit I was out of there in a flash. And yes, I could feel something was coming down but was 'befriended' and was invited to the conman's house before he put the scenario before me. BTW, the conman said he was a dealer working in Genting Highlands and knew how things worked.

[scorpio 50]

SOM NOM NA ..... " .we were going to give all our winnings to the temple "...............yeah right