Should I ???
It is long; Oh what the heck.

I wrote this almost 2 years ago:

Some folks thought I was making this up. (I wished it were true)

How I got screwed out of money at every turn.
I have since learned, that cheating Farang seems to be a national past time, but to cheat, screw and completely strip someone of almost 3 million Baht in less than 2 years' time must seem some kind of record.

It started soon after my coming here and began with the shipment of my belongings.
Prior to my arrival in March of 2004 I contracted with an American shipping company in Los Angeles to have a 1 cm container, weighing about 240 kg, containing assorted household goods and memorabilia to be shipped from the east coast of the US to Phuket. The price seemed fair, everything went as planned. 3 1/2 weeks later I received a telephone call from a Mr. Kittipong who introduced himself as the Thai agent of the US forwarder. "Hello, your container has arrived here in Bangkok and is ready for pickup by you." "You must be kidding", I said. "I am not going to drive 1000 km to retrieve this thing. Ship it to my home here in Khao Lak and if there are any additional charges let me know." (A fellow I know in Tap Lamu, a harbor town about 12 miles from here had a ship Diesel motor weighing 4 tons shipped there from Bangkok for 1,800 Baht, so how much could it cost) "No, you need to mail me your passport first" was his reply " No way José, I am not sending my passport to just anybody, but wait; My newly found Thai friend Suwan Ramkew, also known as Mr. T. and his brother will be driving to Chiang Mai for Sonkram next week, I will have them stop by and hand you the passport." 2 days later I get a call from T stating that this guy needs 8000 Baht for "expenses" but they didn't have that much cash on hand. I wired them the money, they handed the creep my passport as well as the 8000 Baht and his assurance that everything will be ready for pickup when they return. 3 days later I get an e-mail from this chap saying my container is now in Phuket because the truck could not negotiate the narrow roads in Khao Lak. What narrow roads ??? Route 4 ain't exactly a dirt path. I e-mailed the man back and told him: OK, forget it. I will have the container picked up in Phuket, just tell me where. Another few days passed. Then another e-mail: Your container is with the authorities at the pier in Bangkok ready for release to you. We will not release the container as well as your passport until the following charges have been paid.
Pier fee: 3,500 Baht
Handling: 4,800 Baht
Transportation: 26,000 Baht
Customs fees: 12,600 Baht
Miscellaneous: 5,200 Baht
Grad total: 52,100 Baht
At the pier in Bangkok ? Are we talking about the same container which was supposed to be in Phuket ??
I sent two guys with a rental truck on a 3 day trip to Bangkok. The container was sitting at the pier exactly where the ship had dropped it off. It hadn't been moved one foot. Expenses, fuel including overnight, meals etc another 14,000 Baht.
Welcome to Thailand.
In June of 2004 I was involved in an accident with a fellow on a motorbike in Phuket. (My fault, I wound up at the wrong side of the road after making a U-turn. After driving on the right side for 50 years, old habits die slow) The guy had an illegal side car attached to it, no insurance as well as no driver's license (nothing new in Thailand). Well the man had a badly injured knee as well as a broken arm. The hospital they had taken him to wanted to amputate his leg, therefore I had him transferred to the International Hospital in Phuket. Since the management there did not trust my insurer (I found out later why) I paid the daily charges, such as private room, ICU, surgery etc. All in all it came to around 260,000 Baht which the insurance company promised to reimburse me. I did visit the man at the hospital several times and remember when I first met his family right after the accident. Instead of a grieving wife and daughter I found smiling faces. "Hot dog, we are in fat city now. A Farang and looks like one with money !!!!!" Facit, it cost me over halve a Million Baht to settle the case out of court. Folks told me later, had I killed the guy it would have been a lot cheaper. The family gets 200,000 Baht, that's it. About 3 months later I received a check for 240,000 Baht from the insurance company to reimburse me for the hospital expenses. It promptly bounced due to insufficient funds. A trip to their office in Phuket revealed that they had closed their doors and disappeared. I also paid 22,000 Baht in advance for the repair of the motor bike, because it was taken to an "unauthorized" (per insurance) repair shop. At the same time I had to advance 33,000 Baht for parts to repair the damage to my vehicle, again because the body shop did not trust the insurance company.
I invested close to 1 million Baht in T's transportation company. I wanted to do something other than sit around and here seemed an opportunity to keep myself busy and perhaps make a few scheckels . T. is related to the 3 families (all somehow related) who own all the properties in town, speaks reasonable English and was invaluable to get me through the trauma of the dealing with the police and the court because of the accident. We operated 10 minibuses and had contracts with most of the resorts here and in Bangniang. Business was booming. Until that fateful day in December. The tsunami destroyed 8 out of the 10 vehicles, only 2 survived. Sadly we also lost one driver and 4 tourists. T also lost his almost new Toyota luxury sedan. The insurance company balked at paying, citing something like "act of nature" We did get 500,000 Baht for one brand new bus which had cost 1,6 Million. T promised to repay me as soon as he would get back on his feet but I assured him that the investment was a gamble on my part and not his fault the money was lost. I said: "Look, it's only money at least we are alive". Now he thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread, since most of his Thai investors were hounding him.
He called me on a Thursday from Phuket with the news that he had a settlement check for 180,000 Baht in his hot little hands. Joy to the world !!! That'll buy a few Beer Changs, since I had already written it off as a lost cause. He sent me an SMS saying he would be home around 9 PM and would see me then, but first he needed to pay the lawyer and would send his mother to pick up a "power of attorney" form for me to sign in order to withdraw money from my account, which I did (gullible and STUPID THAT I AM) :>(
……….That was the last time I, as well as his family had heard from him for close to 2 weeks.. During his 2 week absence I had a funny feeling, a foreboding that wouldn't go away. I decided to visit my bank to get a readout of the balance in my account. Sure enough:
Previous balance: 960,855.90 Baht. Current balance : 121.90 Baht. That SOB "emptied " my bank account, save for 121.90 Baht. He couldn't have left me at least a couple of thousand ???? Well, 121.90 would not even buy me a bottle of cheap Thai Rum.
OK stupid: 960,855.90
Plus: 180,000.00 no need to be Albert Einstein
Total: We have a new millionaire !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am able to live comfortably on whatever social security I receive. However, I worked for this money, paid my taxes for over 47 years, raised and educated my sons and hate to have some punk screw me out of it and laugh at me on top of it.

However, at the moment I don't even have this.
I must have received some correspondence from Social Security in December of 2004 which was probably lost when the local post office disappeared into the Andaman sea courtesy of the tsunami.

The US Government had me declared dead since I never returned the questionnaire and stopped my payments.
It took 5 months, numerous trans pacific phone calls, talking to morons and imbeciles at the S.S office in Baltimore until it was resolved. Luckily I was able to borrow some money from my sister in Canada to tidy me over.
Here I was, almost 70 years old in a foreign country and STONE BROKE.
There went my 800,000 non O retirement deposit relegating me back to a "visa runner" >
I wouldn’t wish this upon anybody, believe me.
Greetings the old Captain still hanging in.:>)

God bless you man I wish you the best

aviador Wrote:Should I ???
It is long; Oh what the heck.

I wrote this almost 2 years ago:

Some folks thought I was making this up. (I wished it were true)

How I got screwed out of money at every turn.
I have since learned, that cheating Farang seems to be a national past time, but to cheat, screw and completely strip someone of almost 3 million Baht in less than 2 years' time must seem some kind of record.

It started soon after my coming here and began with the shipment of my belongings.
Prior to my arrival in March of 2004 I contracted with an American shipping company in Los Angeles to have a 1 cm container, weighing about 240 kg, containing assorted household goods and memorabilia to be shipped from the east coast of the US to Phuket. The price seemed fair, everything went as planned. 3 1/2 weeks later I received a telephone call from a Mr. Kittipong who introduced himself as the Thai agent of the US forwarder. "Hello, your container has arrived here in Bangkok and is ready for pickup by you." "You must be kidding", I said. "I am not going to drive 1000 km to retrieve this thing. Ship it to my home here in Khao Lak and if there are any additional charges let me know." (A fellow I know in Tap Lamu, a harbor town about 12 miles from here had a ship Diesel motor weighing 4 tons shipped there from Bangkok for 1,800 Baht, so how much could it cost) "No, you need to mail me your passport first" was his reply " No way José, I am not sending my passport to just anybody, but wait; My newly found Thai friend Suwan Ramkew, also known as Mr. T. and his brother will be driving to Chiang Mai for Sonkram next week, I will have them stop by and hand you the passport." 2 days later I get a call from T stating that this guy needs 8000 Baht for "expenses" but they didn't have that much cash on hand. I wired them the money, they handed the creep my passport as well as the 8000 Baht and his assurance that everything will be ready for pickup when they return. 3 days later I get an e-mail from this chap saying my container is now in Phuket because the truck could not negotiate the narrow roads in Khao Lak. What narrow roads ??? Route 4 ain't exactly a dirt path. I e-mailed the man back and told him: OK, forget it. I will have the container picked up in Phuket, just tell me where. Another few days passed. Then another e-mail: Your container is with the authorities at the pier in Bangkok ready for release to you. We will not release the container as well as your passport until the following charges have been paid.
Pier fee: 3,500 Baht
Handling: 4,800 Baht
Transportation: 26,000 Baht
Customs fees: 12,600 Baht
Miscellaneous: 5,200 Baht
Grad total: 52,100 Baht
At the pier in Bangkok ? Are we talking about the same container which was supposed to be in Phuket ??
I sent two guys with a rental truck on a 3 day trip to Bangkok. The container was sitting at the pier exactly where the ship had dropped it off. It hadn't been moved one foot. Expenses, fuel including overnight, meals etc another 14,000 Baht.
Welcome to Thailand.
In June of 2004 I was involved in an accident with a fellow on a motorbike in Phuket. (My fault, I wound up at the wrong side of the road after making a U-turn. After driving on the right side for 50 years, old habits die slow) The guy had an illegal side car attached to it, no insurance as well as no driver's license (nothing new in Thailand). Well the man had a badly injured knee as well as a broken arm. The hospital they had taken him to wanted to amputate his leg, therefore I had him transferred to the International Hospital in Phuket. Since the management there did not trust my insurer (I found out later why) I paid the daily charges, such as private room, ICU, surgery etc. All in all it came to around 260,000 Baht which the insurance company promised to reimburse me. I did visit the man at the hospital several times and remember when I first met his family right after the accident. Instead of a grieving wife and daughter I found smiling faces. "Hot dog, we are in fat city now. A Farang and looks like one with money !!!!!" Facit, it cost me over halve a Million Baht to settle the case out of court. Folks told me later, had I killed the guy it would have been a lot cheaper. The family gets 200,000 Baht, that's it. About 3 months later I received a check for 240,000 Baht from the insurance company to reimburse me for the hospital expenses. It promptly bounced due to insufficient funds. A trip to their office in Phuket revealed that they had closed their doors and disappeared. I also paid 22,000 Baht in advance for the repair of the motor bike, because it was taken to an "unauthorized" (per insurance) repair shop. At the same time I had to advance 33,000 Baht for parts to repair the damage to my vehicle, again because the body shop did not trust the insurance company.
I invested close to 1 million Baht in T's transportation company. I wanted to do something other than sit around and here seemed an opportunity to keep myself busy and perhaps make a few scheckels . T. is related to the 3 families (all somehow related) who own all the properties in town, speaks reasonable English and was invaluable to get me through the trauma of the dealing with the police and the court because of the accident. We operated 10 minibuses and had contracts with most of the resorts here and in Bangniang. Business was booming. Until that fateful day in December. The tsunami destroyed 8 out of the 10 vehicles, only 2 survived. Sadly we also lost one driver and 4 tourists. T also lost his almost new Toyota luxury sedan. The insurance company balked at paying, citing something like "act of nature" We did get 500,000 Baht for one brand new bus which had cost 1,6 Million. T promised to repay me as soon as he would get back on his feet but I assured him that the investment was a gamble on my part and not his fault the money was lost. I said: "Look, it's only money at least we are alive". Now he thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread, since most of his Thai investors were hounding him.
He called me on a Thursday from Phuket with the news that he had a settlement check for 180,000 Baht in his hot little hands. Joy to the world !!! That'll buy a few Beer Changs, since I had already written it off as a lost cause. He sent me an SMS saying he would be home around 9 PM and would see me then, but first he needed to pay the lawyer and would send his mother to pick up a "power of attorney" form for me to sign in order to withdraw money from my account, which I did (gullible and STUPID THAT I AM) :>(
……….That was the last time I, as well as his family had heard from him for close to 2 weeks.. During his 2 week absence I had a funny feeling, a foreboding that wouldn't go away. I decided to visit my bank to get a readout of the balance in my account. Sure enough:
Previous balance: 960,855.90 Baht. Current balance : 121.90 Baht. That SOB "emptied " my bank account, save for 121.90 Baht. He couldn't have left me at least a couple of thousand ???? Well, 121.90 would not even buy me a bottle of cheap Thai Rum.
OK stupid: 960,855.90
Plus: 180,000.00 no need to be Albert Einstein
Total: We have a new millionaire !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am able to live comfortably on whatever social security I receive. However, I worked for this money, paid my taxes for over 47 years, raised and educated my sons and hate to have some punk screw me out of it and laugh at me on top of it.

However, at the moment I don't even have this.
I must have received some correspondence from Social Security in December of 2004 which was probably lost when the local post office disappeared into the Andaman sea courtesy of the tsunami.

The US Government had me declared dead since I never returned the questionnaire and stopped my payments.
It took 5 months, numerous trans pacific phone calls, talking to morons and imbeciles at the S.S office in Baltimore until it was resolved. Luckily I was able to borrow some money from my sister in Canada to tidy me over.
Here I was, almost 70 years old in a foreign country and STONE BROKE.
There went my 800,000 non O retirement deposit relegating me back to a "visa runner" >
I wouldn’t wish this upon anybody, believe me.
Greetings the old Captain still hanging in.:>)

It's a sad day when you can't Trust people. I cannot compete with your experience, but i was swindled out of £14,500 by a so called friend prior to leaving the UK. The crook's name is Noah Smith, somtimes known as Norman. He is living in Thailand now and frequents the bars alot. Don't trust him. He's in his fifties, over six foot in height and big with it. He has jet black hair, cut short. Being swindled affects how you view others. Having always been a trusting sort of man, I'm now very careful with who I make friends