Here's a Letter about Jewelry scams that happened in bangkok quite often have a read before you buy any jewelry.
also new information on the Authority that you can contact if you are not sure about raputation of the jewellry shops that you considering buying from;
Jewel Fest Club, Thai Gem and Jewelry traders Association
942/152 Charn Issara Tower, 15th Floor Rama 4 rd.
Bangrak, Bangkok 10500
email; tgjta@mozart.inet.co.th
tel: 267-5233-6
Hi Anil,
I will write down my story once again for you to put it on the internet so that
as many people as possible hopefully will be warned. It all started in front of
the Grand Palace but probably that is not the only place where these
professionally organized Mafia "actors" operate. I was about to walk
to the direction of the Grand Palace when a guy introduced himself as a student
and said that on Saturday afternoons the Palace was always closed due to a
public blah blah blah (which is not true). Then Number 1 recommended me some
other temples to go to and I jumped on a Tuk Tuk to get there. I met Number 2
meditating inside the small temple to which the Tuk Tuk driver took me. He
looked like a truthful and honest Thai businessman in casual clothes and we
started to have a chat. After asking me some questions about where I come from
and so on he said that there was a special government
promotion for jewellry -- this week only -- with Saturday being the last day.
His country's economy wasn't going well and that's why they had this promotion
week where you don't have to pay tax and therefore later on could make quite
some money when selling the gems back in your home country. I
started to get interested and I started to ask questions. You have to know that
all those people are very aware of all the doubts you can possibly have and they
are extremely well trained to be looking and acting honestly and they will never
put any kind of pressure on you. Basically, this guy just told
me what HE was about to do with no proposals for what I should do. We had a
vivid discussion and in the end I asked him for the address of a reliable place
at which to buy things like that, which he gladly gave me. I passed that over to
my driver (who was probably one of them, too, because otherwise he would have
warned me). Inside the shop there were about 5 people: The vendors as well as
Actor No. 3 who was a European male claiming to be Swedish (which is probably
true) and about to buy some sets of gems which he would later, as he did every
year during the governmental promotion period, sell back in Sweden to finance
his holidays in Thailand. I bought a set of gems for a LOT of money but I know
now that there are a even more people who have spent
MUCH more money than I did on this. I spent around $2000 US which I don't even
have on my credit card. You will get receipts for everything but they won't help
you in the end because it is technically a legitimate business deal; the gems
are just worth much less than they claim them to be worth and you will take a
large loss when you try to sell them. After we had made the deal they got for me
as their "new customer" a driver with a nice 4WD - a young Thai guy of
my age who I just want to call "Number 4" now, who drove me
around for all the rest of the day and took me to any place I wanted to go. He
invited me for dinner in the evening where we met Number 5 who claimed to just
have arrived from the other end of Thailand (Chiung Mai) and, of course,
confirmed everything about the jewels once more. We had a beautiful day and
night together, they paid everything for me and in the end Number 4 even gave me
his favorite music cassette as a present. I started to have doubts the next day
when I heard a very similar story from Mark, who had stayed at Suk11 as well.
The awakening came when I went to the Tourist Police where they have special
"Jewellry Complaint Forms". I met
about 6 other people there who had very similar stories to tell and I know now
that there is a web of about 30 jewellry shops and god knows how many Number 1's
4's and 8's. I don't want to say anything about the tourist police that later I
will regret so I'll just say this: Don't believe they will ever help you. In the
end, with some help from suk11 I managed to get back 75% of my money. I had to
postpone my flight to sort everything out here but by far most of the tourists
are not that lucky. Once you have left the country, there's nothing you can
do.These people are organized Mafia in my eyes but, as it always is with the
Mafia: They will find a way to break the law without breaking it.
This is the story I have to tell and I hope for you that you will read it b e f
o r e you take your first step into the money trap.
But, of course: You are much smarter than me and this only happens to stupid
people.... yes, maybe... and maybe not.
Marcus
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