Thailand Scam Stories
I followed her one day instead of believing her story about the family visits. She didn't go to the bus station — she walked into a hotel with another man.
Retired in Pattaya since 2017, a 55-year-old Polish man falls for Apple, a 32-year-old bar girl with three kids to support. For months he believes he's the only man helping her out financially. One day he decides to follow her instead of believing the usual excuse, and discovers he was just one of several sponsors supporting her at the same time.
She helped me find my hotel on day one in Bangkok. Twelve days later I found out her name, her age, and almost everything she'd told me was a lie.
A 31-year-old Australian meets Noi when she offers to help him find his hotel in Asok, Bangkok. Twelve days of perfect attention later, on their last day together, she tells him she loves him just as her ID card reveals a name and age completely different from what she'd given him from the start.
I had over a hundred matches on a dating app my first night in Asia. One crossed a border to meet me, and turned out to be married, with three kids.
A 26-year-old Australian engineer, freshly arrived in Asia for a hydro power job, downloads a dating app his first night in Vientiane and racks up a hundred matches in hours. A Thai woman crosses the border from Nong Khai to meet him. Days later, a Facebook search reveals she's married to a wealthy European man and has three kids.
She was the perfect wife for eleven years. Then she used the visa, the custody courts, and social services to walk away with everything.
A British engineer married Knock, a woman from a respectable Bangkok family, and for eleven years she was the perfect wife. Once they moved to the UK on a spouse visa that cost two years and a fortune, everything changed: total control of the money, a women's shelter, a custody battle, and an ending he never saw coming.
I checked her passport, her certificates, years of photos. It all lined up. It cost me $30,000 to learn that wasn't enough.
At 57, living in the quiet peace of a marriage that survived my wife's third affair, I met Pre at a bar in Nana Plaza, Bangkok. She was 37, looked 25, and had a perfectly verifiable story: passport, divorce papers, years of social media photos. Over six months I sent her 30,000 dollars for her family, her studies, and a Denmark visa that never came through.
12,500 baht for two bottles of wine. As I got out of the taxi, I watched the manager get in with her.
An Austrian met a woman from Thai Friendly in Bangkok: an expensive dinner, a shady venue, another bottle of wine, and a 12,500 baht bill topped off with a guilt trip about losing face. The final scene outside his hotel made everything clear.
I opened a joint account with the million-baht dowry. She started quietly withdrawing money without telling me.
A 62-year-old retired American recounts how he met Dada at a Pattaya massage shop, married her in a Buddhist ceremony in Isan, and everything fell apart when she started quietly withdrawing money from the joint account he'd opened for the dowry.
Ryan wanted to build a life in Pattaya. He ended up sleeping rough and died of a heart attack back in England.
A fellow expat remembers Ryan, an Englishman in his late 40s who opened two bars in Pattaya, lost his savings in both attempts, ended up sleeping rough, and died of a heart attack shortly after returning to England with nothing to show for it.
I asked to see her passport and every excuse in the book came out. That's when everything turned.
A 35-year-old Brit, freshly out of a devastating breakup, recounts his first trip to Thailand with two mates both called Paul, a Jenga record, a near-fatal chili challenge, and a relationship with a girl called A that ended in the worst possible way.
She raised her palm flat and said "don't speak." Then walked back to the other man without looking back.
A German from Frankfurt recounts how, on his fourth trip to Pattaya, he spent 27 days with Siri, a 28-year-old bar worker, until he saw her holding hands with another man and she gestured for him not to speak. A final goodbye message changed little.