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My story, almost the same as what happened to Japanese tourist 2 years ago, is as follows. Last week, exactly January 4 Friday, I was walking along the street near 'Grand Palace'. One man approached to me and kindly recommended some places to visit in Bangkok. He marked several places on the map. One was 'Royal Temple', and he said there's big ceremony just for one day in the entire year. Another one was 'Thai Mikimoto Export', and he also said there's some special promotion just for a week in the entire year. He told me to make hurry because Royal Temple is closed at 7 pm and Thai Mikimoto Export is also at 7 pm. Since I didn't have enough time, I just wanted to visit Royal Temple and some seafood retaurant. Then he kindly picked a tuk-tuk for me at 30 baht to the Royal Temple. After arriving Royal Temple, I was a bit surprised to see there's few people considering it's big ceremony, what the man said to me. One man kindly welcomed me and guided me to get inside of the temple. There's white budda statue and one another man was sitting in front of it. He also kindly welcomed me and began to explain about goverment promotion program for 'Thai Mikimoto Export'. He told me that I can get tax-free jewllery and I can get 100% profit by reselling it in my country. He said export promotion has been extended to tourists--to encourage them to come back and spend more money in Thailand. He said he knew it very well because he's goverment employee working in airport customs. When I showed some interest and he stood up and said to tuk-tuk drive to take me to 'Thai Mikimoto Export'. (I think all these people including tuk-tuk driver were well organized to deceive tourist.) It took just 5 minute from the temple to the shop. I was surprised again there's no sign or banner about the promotion or exhibition. At the shop, one lady came out and took me small room surrounded by jewellery display stands. She said their quality, grade and carat are the best in the world. I asked her why the company held this promotion. She answered this promotion is held to help Thailand student to earn their tuition and expense for foreign study and to invite more tourist to Thailand. It was still unconvincing but she showed goverment license and customers list who bought the jewellery in the past times. Again she showed me reseller list in Korea where I can sell the jewellery again. I said I didn't have enough money, but she said they accept cash, gold, and credit cards. The prospect of being able to return to Thailand by selling jewellery sounded too good to be true and I decided to risk it. Because I didn't have enough cash, they took me to the ATM machine and gold shop, far from the Mikimoto shop. I bought some gold there and paid the rest amount. They were very systematic in this kind of behavior. After coming back to the jewellery shop, they made several documents and asked me to send the jewel set by myself or by EMS (maybe kind of delivery service..) I received some guarantee document and receipt and chose EMS service for the jewel set. In that evening, I took flight in Bangkok international airport. Next day, in my office I was really frustrated by founding many similar scam cases on internet. Surely, the jewel set has not arrived until now. Now I doubt if I can get back money USD 4,100$, just wishing this kind of scams should not happen more in Bangkok. If there's a way I can get refund, please tell me what can I do for it. The purchase details are as belows; Date : Jan. 4, 2002 (19:00 ~ 20:30 pm) Thai Mikimoto scam account
I (December 18, 2001) |
