This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2010) |
The gem scam is a confidence trick performed usually against tourists. The most known version occurs in Bangkok, Thailand as well as other cities in the country. It is one of the most pervasive scams in Thailand. Most of the shops are gold or jewelry shops. The marks tend to be tourists from outside Thailand. It has been alleged that this scam has been operating for the past 20 years, sometimes in the same premises. It has been suggested that individuals in the Royal Thai Police and even politicians protect this scam. The scam was demonstrated on an episode of the BBC series The Real Hustle and in a Scam City episode in Bangkok. [1] Also in other countries such as Turkey and Sri Lanka, the trick is performed in various versions. [2]
A network of touts and con men present the mark with an opportunity to profit from buying discount gems from a jewelry shop. [3] The mark is convinced that he can buy gems at duty-free price and bring them overseas for a threefold or more profit. Through a network of helpers, each of whom tells the mark bits of information, the mark is guided to the jewelry shop. [4]
Other scams include fake Thai Mikimoto certificates. Once in a store, a variety of selling tactics are employed, including bait and switch, and "educating" gemstone novices about "fake gems" which are in fact real, and selling them "real gems" which are in fact fake.
Gem and jewel scams take place in other countries as well. In the Turkish tourist town Antalya, the tourists are ensnared by an organised trip to a tourist attraction such as a waterfall, after which the tourists are transported to a state-licensed jewelry store. Here the jewelry sold is of regular quality, but overpriced due to large commissions charged on them. In Sri Lanka the jewelry scam takes place more or less in a similar way like in Thailand. Also, a similar scam takes place with old Dutch VOC-coins, supposedly from ship wrecks, which are sold to tourists. The sellers mix low-value real coins with high-value fake coins and sell them for high prices. [6]
A pawnbroker is an individual or business that offers secured loans to people, with items of personal property used as collateral. The items having been pawned to the broker are themselves called pledges or pawns, or simply the collateral. While many items can be pawned, pawnshops typically accept jewelry, musical instruments, home audio equipment, computers, video game systems, coins, gold, silver, televisions, cameras, power tools, firearms, and other relatively valuable items as collateral.
Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies 1,568.7 square kilometres (605.7 sq mi) in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated population of 10.539 million as of 2020, 15.3 per cent of the country's population. Over 14 million people lived within the surrounding Bangkok Metropolitan Region at the 2010 census, making Bangkok an extreme primate city, dwarfing Thailand's other urban centres in both size and importance to the national economy.
Chiang Mai, sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in Thailand. It is 700 km (435 mi) north of Bangkok in a mountainous region called the Thai highlands and has a population of 1.2 million people as of 2022, which is more than 66 percent of the total population of Chiang Mai province.
An auto rickshaw is a motorized version of the pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. Most have three wheels and do not tilt. They are known by many terms in various countries including auto, auto rickshaw, baby taxi, mototaxi, pigeon, jonnybee, bajaj, chand gari, lapa, tuk-tuk, tum-tum, Keke-napep, Maruwa, Adaidaita Sahu, 3wheel, pragya, bao-bao, easy bike, CNG and tukxi.
Khaosan Road or Khao San Road is a short street in central Bangkok, Thailand constructed in 1892 during the reign of Rama V. It is in the Bang Lamphu area of Phra Nakhon District about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) north of the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew.
In business, the term boiler room refers to an outbound call center selling questionable investments by telephone. It usually refers to a room where salespeople work using unfair, dishonest sales tactics, sometimes selling penny stocks or private placements or committing outright stock fraud. A common boiler room tactic is the use of falsified and bolstered information in combination with verified company-released information. The term is pejorative: it is often used to imply high-pressure sales tactics and, sometimes, poor working conditions.
Wat Benchamabophit Dusitvanaram is a Buddhist temple (wat) in the Dusit District of Bangkok, Thailand. Also known as the Marble Temple, it is one of Bangkok's best-known temples and a major tourist attraction. It typifies Bangkok's ornate style of high gables, stepped-out roofs and elaborate finials.
Sim Lim Square, commonly referred to as SLS, is a large retail complex in Singapore that offers a wide variety of electronic goods and services including cameras, phones, video cameras, and computer parts and servicing.
Siem Reap is the second-largest city of Cambodia, as well as the capital and largest city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia.
Coin-rolling related scams are a collection of scams involving coin wrappers. The scammer will roll coins of lesser value or slugs of no value, or less than the correct number of coins in a roll, then exchange them at a bank or retail outlet for cash.
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is one of the world's top tourist destination cities. Each year, approximately 22.7 million international visitors arrive in Bangkok. MasterCard ranked Bangkok as the world's top destination city, with 15.98 million projected visitors in 2013. It topped the MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index as the most visited city in the world in 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2018. The city is ranked fourth in cross-border spending, with 14.3 billion dollars projected for 2013, after New York, London and Paris. Euromonitor International ranked Bangkok sixth in its Top City Destinations Ranking for 2011. Bangkok has also been named "World's Best City" by Travel + Leisure magazine's survey of its readers for four consecutive years since 2010.
The Thai zig zag scam is a confidence trick where one is falsely accused of shoplifting, and then held by police, or those claiming to be police, until "bail" is paid for the alleged theft. At times those fleeced are shown faked closed-circuit television footage as corroboration. In several cases in Thailand, this confidence trick has occurred at the airport, and thus is sometimes called the "Thai airport scam". Most reports of this scam are dated.
"Cash for Gold" is the second episode of the sixteenth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 225th episode of the series overall. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 21, 2012. The episode centers on fourth grader Stan Marsh's irritation with J&G Shopping Network and television home shopping networks in general, as he discovers that they prey upon the elderly and fleece them of their money, as well as Eric Cartman's new entrepreneurship inspired by that same idea.
Crime in Thailand has been a defining issue in the country for decades, inspiring years of policy and international criticism. Drug use and corruption make up the majority of the crime in Thailand and due to this, many Thai administrations attempted to curtail the drug trade, most notably Thaksin Shinawatra with the 2003 War on Drugs. Since 2003 crime has been decreasing with the crime rate decreasing from 9.97 to 2.58. Despite this, juvenile delinquency has been increasing in recent years.
On 17 August 2015, a bombing took place inside the Erawan Shrine at the Ratchaprasong intersection in Pathum Wan District, Bangkok, Thailand, killing 20 people and injuring 125. Thai police were reported to have arrested two suspects, the second of whom confessed to having been the bomber. He later retracted his confession.
Run Daddy Run is a 2010 Chinese television drama series, starring Xu Zheng as a struggling mid-aged father who must win a reality competition to not lose his son to a divorcing wife. Without money or transportation and hard-pressed by time, the protagonist is seen long-distance running in virtually every episode.
Amphawa Floating Market is a floating market and a tourist attraction in the Amphawa District of Samut Songkhram Province, located in one of the branches of the Mae Klong river. Amphawa district is about 50 km away from Bangkok, making Amphawa floating market a popular tourist attraction in Thailand. The market is near “Wat Amphawa Chetiyaram” temple.
Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip, also known as Khun Anne or Anne Jakrajutatip, sometimes informally stylized as Anne JKN, is a Thai businesswoman, television host and Chief Executive Officer of JKN Global Group.
Central Ayutthaya is a department store and shopping plaza in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province, about 76 km (47.2 mi) north of Bangkok, Thailand. It can be considered as another big shopping mall of Ayutthaya, and is the 36th branch of the Central Pattana network.