Lost Horizons

OTOP gemstone scam

I was in Bangkok today, and was nearly had by the gemstone scam.
Although it's widely known about, there maybe people around who haven't heard about it; so that's why I am repeating it here.
I had gone site seeing, taking the river boat from Saphan Taksin to Tha Tien. I spent a nice couple of hours wandering around Wat Po and the area around it.
I was walking past the Grand Palace (with no intention of going inside, I don't like the two tier pricing system: free for Thais, Farang pay 200 baht), when I was approached by an older Thai gent, who spoke very good English, who introduced himself as someone who worked in place security, going home at the end of his shift (alarm bell #1: this guy's English was just a little bit too good for a lower rank civil servant, I thought, but gave him the benefit of the doubt). He even showed me his ID card. (Alarm bell #2: The ID card was very poor. It looked like a photo copy of something that had been laminated and badly trimmed with a pair of scissors. he didn't give me any time to examine it; not that it would have meant anything as it seemed to be totally written in Thai). We started chatting and he asked me if I had been to see the Grand Palace (Alarm bell #3: why did he want to strike up a conversation with a sweaty farang, at the end of his shift? I would want to go home. I also thought that Thais do not normally strike up conversations with strangers). I told him that I didn't want to visit it as it was too crowded with Farangs. He laughed and agreed with me. He then suggested that I visit Wat Suthat, and that i was very lucky, as it was normally closed to the public, but was only open for a couple of days. (Alarm bell #4: What a coincidence that this wonderful temple is only open the day I arrive in Bangkok. Wat Suthat is open to the public [B]every[/B] day. OK I had to check on the internet for that one.)
He then drew me a map and said I should go to Wat Suthat, then go to the OTOP Centre to buy some gifts for my family, and then it was only a short distance to Victory Monument, where I could get the skytrain back to my hotel. All this sounded like a very good plan. The guy was very polite and seemed genuine.
I told him that I was heading back to the river to get a boat back to Saphan Thaksin, and he told me that it would be very busy, and I might have to wait 2-3 hours for a boat. (alarm bell #5: this sounded very improbable. As it happened I had to wait twenty minutes).
He told me about the OTOP store saying it was a royal factory and I could buy gemstones for my family. JACKPOT! Now I knew why he was being so polite, it was the old gemstones scam. He said i would be much better getting a tuktuk to the OTOP centre. He even offered to tell the tuk-tuk driver where to take me. I politely declined his kind offer and said i was going to sit in the shade and think of what to do next, he left and I avoided being part of a gemstone scam.
If you don't know what would have happened next you can find out here and here.
OK I was lucky enough to know about the scam and avoid it, but I feel sorry for tourists who might fall for it. Maybe its there last day in Thailand, and they get told the palace is closed for the day, and they miss out. Why do TAT, the Police and the palace allow these scammers to operate so blatantly?

posted by Luke @ 4:34 PM