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The Scam, Bangkok style November 3, 2013

Posted by hslu in Travel.
Tags: Bangkok, Bangkok scam, Big Buddha, Grand Palace, Royal cemetery bangkok, Royal Lapidary Bangkok, Thailand, 曼谷, 曼谷 辉煌珠宝, 泰国
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“You have to watch out because there are many pickpockets here.”

That’s how the conversation got started. It was also the beginning of the scam, Bangkok style.

Here is my advice to you: Read this post before you visit the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

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We just got off from a water taxi and were on our way to the Grand Palace in Bangkok. We actually didn’t know where the entrance of the Palace was but someone had pointed to the right hand side at the end of the open market and that was where we were headed to.

The sky was very cloudy; a light shower was coming down but it wasn’t too bad. We heard that the Grand Palace is the most beautiful palace in Bangkok. We were excited.

I turned my head to the voice and saw a middle-aged guy walking a couple of steps behind me. I didn’t notice where he came from but I subconsciously touched my wallet in my pants’ back pocket.

Yeah, it was still there.

This guy was nice, I thought, to remind me. Maybe I should put my wallet in my pants’ front pocket because the Grand Palace was a very busy tourist spot in Bangkok.

The guy looked like a business man: well dressed in a tan-colored uniform of some sort. He was well groomed compared to many other Thai people. His skin color wasn’t very dark and I knew he was part Chinese and part Thai.

I turned to my wife and wanted to walk away from him. He took out a small decal and said he worked for the police department: He was a tourist police. He then showed me a badge in his wallet which looked like a police badge.

I kind of let my guard down somewhat because he didn’t look like a crook.

He then said: “Are you going to the Grand Palace?”

I said: “Yes. But we don’t know exactly where the entrance is.”

Of course, we were actually heading in the wrong direction but we didn’t know that. 

He then said that the Grand Palace was closed now and it won’t open until 2:30 this afternoon. He explained that some dignitaries were visiting the Palace so that it would not open to the public now.

It was a lie but we believed him. That was our second mistake.

The first mistake was that we thought he worked for the police department and he was trying to help us.

Hmmm.., what should we do?

It was about 12:30 PM and we’d have about two hours to kill. Maybe we could get something to eat first, I thought.

He then suggested that we could get a taxi for 50 Baht to see the Big Buddha that’s covered in gold. He said the taxi driver could then take us to the Royal Cemetery. Although the cemetery was only for the royal family, it was open to the public today: only one day every year and today was the day. He said that we were lucky.

Well, since the Grand Palace was closed now and there were two hours to kill, we could take his advice, see the Big Buddha, tour the Royal Cemetery and come back later to visit the Palace. 50 Baht was just $1.50 US. $1.50 US to see two more places sounded like a good deal.

We agreed to his offer and he got us a tricycle taxi. He then reminded us that only gave him 50 Baht after we arrived at the cemetery. He’d wait for us at the Big Buddha.

That was our third mistake.

Off we went to the Big Buddha which was about 10 minutes away.

Light rain continued but it didn’t bother us too much. We had an umbrella if the rain got heavier.

I  actually didn’t know how tall or how big the Buddha was but I decided that: let’s go and take a look. The worst of the deal was it was a small and unimpressive Buddha. 既来之则安之。大不了，菩萨不大可总是个菩萨吧！看看无妨！

Sure enough, the Buddha was a big one and it was covered in gold. Impressive but the Buddha wasn’t a nice looking one; I said to myself.

Well, we finished our tour in less than 10 minutes and our taxi driver was waiting for us.

The Royal Cemetery was another 10 minutes away. When we got there, we asked the driver to wait for us so he could take us back to the Grand Palace. He said he couldn’t park his taxi here. He had to leave.

We gave him 50 Baht and walked into the Cemetery.

It was a quiet and secluded place. It housed the tombs of past kings and other royal family members.

A few people were there sweeping the ground to clean the falling leaves.

We walked around and saw a sign which explained to us what we were seeing here.

A person walked toward us and said that this place was usually closed to the public. Very few tourists knew this place. How did we got here?

I told him about the tourist police, the temporary closing of the Grand Palace and our taxi ride to see the Big Buddha. I said that this was our second stop.

He then said that a prince was actually visiting the Grand Palace this morning and the Palace would re-open at 2:30 this afternoon.

He then said that he was responsible for the upkeep of the Cemetery. He said that he worked for the Royal family and has been at this position for ten years.

He said that he had 10 workers working for him and all the guys we saw here worked for him. They swept the ground once every hour, maintained all the buildings in the cemetery and there were enough work to keep them busy for ten years. He said that the main temple was closed right now because several monks were still chanting inside but they should finish in 10 to 15 minutes.

Initially I didn’t feel comfortable with talking to him but after he talked about his believe in Chinese culture and how he grew up being part Chinese and part Thai in Thailand; his Mom is Chinese and his Dad is Thai, I slowly let my guard down because he seemed sincere and personal.

That was our fourth mistake.

He gave us a personal tour of the cemetery and the main temple and showed us the tomb for King Mongkut, the king profiled in the movie “The King and I.” Our conversation later went back to growing up being a Chinese in Thailand. He said that many Chinese people in Thailand worked very hard all their lives and saved as much as they could. His Mom also saved a lot of money and used that money to buy jewelries such as ruby and emerald because these precious stones appreciated in value over time. He showed us his huge ruby ring which was given to him by his grandfather.

As he showed us around, he continued to emphasize that his ruby ring has gone up in value many times and his wife wanted to do the same but he won’t let her buy jewelries from Chinatown because he could buy it from a wholesale dealer at 30% less.

In fact, she went to this wholesale jewelry store this morning and got a ruby ring and a matching earrings because this place, usually closed to the public, was open today. His wife was happy and he was happy because she got them at a wonderful price.

He suggested that we shouldn’t miss this once in a life time opportunity. The place would not open to the tourists tomorrow. 

My wife was excited and wanted to check the place out and the guy got us a taxi and we were on our way to the wholesale jewelry store. 

That was our fifth mistake.

When we arrived at the store, Royal Lapidary on Sawankhalok Road, the place was open and was busy with many tourists. A Chinese-speaking lady walked up to us and greeted us warmly. She said that she could take us to see what they have in the store.

As we walked around she said the merchandise on the first floor were cheaper compared to what they have on the second floor. My wife saw a few ruby rings and she decided to go to the second floor.

That was our sixth mistake.

She compared several rings and decided on one which had a large ruby stone with bright and shinning diamonds around it. I asked for a magnifying glass but couldn’t tell whether it was worth the price she quoted to my wife: 127,000 Baht. The original list price was 137,500 Baht; a 7% discount.

The ruby diamond ring looked very beautiful and my wife loved it. Our sales lady said that the company is a reputable company and the ring comes with certificate and guarantee.

We paid for the ring with our credit card and walked out of the jewelry store. The sales lady also offered us a ride on company van to the place we wanted to go. Since it was too late to go back to the Grand Palace, we decided to go to Central World.

Shortly after we walked out of the store, my wife felt unease because everything came together so smoothly: Grand Palace closed for 2 hours, the guy at the Royal Cemetery, the rise of ruby’s value, the usually closed jewelry store, the Chinese speaking sales lady and the 127,000 Baht purchase.

I kept saying to my wife that there was no way they were all in it to scam us. I might not believe the tourist police but I trusted the guy at the cemetery. He was so much into the Chinese culture that he won’t cheat us. We went to Central World, had dinner and went back to the hotel.

Once we got back to our room, my wife googled Lapidary Bangkok. Sure enough, someone wrote a story that sounded just like what we just went through. The person in the story ended us losing some money because she already came back to the US after the purchase.

For the entire evening, my wife couldn’t sleep and regretted her impulse purchase. Early next morning we had our breakfast at the hotel and went to the front desk for help.

The guy at the front desk said that we had three options: 1) negotiate a new price, 2) return the merchandise and pay a penalty, usually around 20%, or 3) exchange for something different. My wife didn’t like any of the options and said that she wanted a full refund. The guy explained our situation to the hotel manager and the manager agreed to help us. The hotel manager called the company and asked to talk to the owner of Royal Lapidary. The owner promised to give our money back and offered to send company’s van to pick us up.

At that point, I decided to hold off my phone call to Visa and see what we could get from the jewel store. We got all our documents ready and went to the store. Our Chinese speaking lady was waiting for us. She apologized for the hassle we had to go through and took us to a conference room upstairs and credited the full amount of the purchase back to our credit card.

She gave us another set of documents which spelled out that Royal Lapidary has agreed to return the full amount back to us. There was even a signed letter and a credit card refund receipt.

She repeatedly apologized to us and said that the owner of the company kept reminding those people not to lure customers to their stores.

She then offered to take us to where we wanted to go using the company van. We decided to go to a subway station because we wanted to visit the Grand Palace.

Once we got off the water taxi, we traced the same route we took yesterday because I wanted to see if I could catch that tourist police in action again.

Lo and behold, I saw that guy again. He recognized me immediately and started walking away from me. I did get a glimpse of him.

We then found the entrance to the Grand Palace and the first thing we saw was the sign that says” OPEN EVERYDAY.”

Wow, what an experience in Bangkok. Fortunately for us, we got all our money back. Although we were disguised by the scam, we liked the way Lapidary handled the entire situation.

Here is the moral of the story: Don’t talk to strangers in Bangkok unless you initiate the conversation.