- 11 common tourist scams in Bangkok, Thailand,
and how to avoid them.
I'm Chris this is Topher, this is Yellow Productions.
We do travel guides that are fun, informative,
entertaining, and in this video
we're gonna be telling you how to visit Bangkok
and not get scammed.
Bangkok, a city with 20 million tourists
who visit here every year, and you better be sure
that there'll be people out here to scam you
if you are traveling here,
so we're gonna tell you how to be safe.
We are not telling you to not visit Bangkok.
It is an amazing city to visit.
We're just telling you how to keep
your hard-earned money to yourself and not to the scammers.
So, here we go.
Bangkok tourist scam number one.
This is one that gets a lot of people coming to Bangkok
and that is people telling you the Royal Palace is closed.
People will stand in front of the Royal Place
and tell you it's closed today.
There's a special event, you can't come in.
And chances are, they've got a special temple
that they'll take you to
that's even better than the Royal Palace.
Well don't listen to people standing
in front of the Royal Palace that tell you it's closed.
Chances are it's not.
There might be a 1% chance it is,
but really just keep going about your plans
and go in.
I will also mention if you are planning
to come to the Royal Palace, out in front
there will be plenty of people that will tell you
you need to wear pants, how you need to dress.
Just try and go in and see what they say
because I think the guards have a little bit
of a different interpretation.
The second big tourist scam in Bangkok
is the fixed price taxi scam.
This is one that actually happened to us
on our way from the airport,
but it's essentially the taxis
don't want to use the meter,
and they want to quote you a fixed price.
Taxis by law in Bangkok have to use the meter
and so if they're telling you
that it's a certain price,
you should basically just ignore them
and say they need to start the meter.
When you get in the car, make sure you can see the meter.
Make sure they start the meter,
and if the meter's not started,
just get out right away.
What actually happened to us,
it was from the airport coming into town.
The taxi driver had his hat over the meter
so we couldn't see it.
When we got to our destination,
the taxi driver said the price is 550 baht.
I said, hey, what's the meter say.
The meter said it was 275 baht,
so he was charging twice the price
of what the fare actually was.
So make sure you don't get caught with the meter scam.
Also you'll see tuk-tuks a lot.
Just know tuk-tuks do charge a fixed price.
They'll be probably three to five times the price of a taxi.
Be aware of a scam where a tuk-tuk driver
will tell you it's cheaper
if he takes you to just a few destinations before
where you want to go, 'cause chances are
those will be places they'll get a kickback,
like a medicine shop or restaurant,
and you might not be able to leave until you buy something.
The third big tourist scam in Bangkok to avoid,
this is also about taxis.
There's a lot of taxi tourist scams
'cause everybody's taking taxis.
This one is taxis that'll take you to a place
that sounds the same as where you want to go,
but isn't the same.
Because there's so many things in Bangkok
that sound the same, but they might be taking you
one to not quite as famous, but also gives them
a little bit of a kickback.
In general I would say
it's important to know in Thai what the location looks like,
what it looks like, and if you have cell phone service
that has Google Maps or something like that,
follow where you're going
so you know that they're actually taking you to the place
you want to go to.
If you have it on a map and they think you know where it is,
chances are they'll take you to where you actually wanna go.
By the way, I think it's generally good advice
to also avoid taxis when it's somebody standing out
on the side of the street
just saying taxi, taxi, or saying where do you want to go.
And where you'll see that in particular is on your arrival
in Bangkok in the airport
there will be tons of people standing around
the arrivals hall asking you where you want to go
or if you want a taxi.
You don't, when you get here at the airport,
you also wanna take one of the official taxis
in that taxi stand, which is on kinda the ground level,
but that doesn't mean that they won't put a hat
over their meter.
Bangkok tourist scam number four.
This one's called the massage shop scam.
What this happens is in touristy areas
there will be a lot of people advertising for massage shops.
Some legit, some not.
These people that are in front of the massage shop,
they're probably okay,
but if you see a massage shop manager
who says hey, I got a great half the price
of what those people charging.
My shop, look it's just down the alley,
let me take you to where it is.
Bad sign already.
They take you where the shop is
and then say, well you just have to pay cash up front
before we go in,
you pay cash and this manager of the massage shop
proceeds to say, he's got someplace else to go.
He's gotta get more customers,
but just go inside, they'll take care of you.
You go inside, you get your massage,
they ask you for money.
Why? You say, well hey I already paid that guy out front,
I already paid the manager.
They're like, what are you talking about?
That guy doesn't work here.
Don't let yourself be scammed.
Only pay right inside or right after the service is done
but at the actual place the massage service
is being performed.
Kind of big rule of thumb in Bangkok
is never pay somebody on the street
for anything that's a service, other than a hard product
that you're actually getting.
We're back at the Royal Palace for this one.
This one often happens out in front of the Royal Palace.
It's not people telling you the Royal Palace is closed,
but it's people who are feeding birds.
They'll be feeding birds out in front of the Royal Palace.
You'll come up to them
and they'll come say hey,
do you wanna feed the birds, too?
They'll offer you some of their bird food.
You feed the birds and then they tell you
that bird food was 300 baht.
Don't fall for it if someone's feeding the birds,
just let them feed it.
You don't need to take their bird food.
Bangkok tourist scam number six,
this one's the wrong change scam.
Tourists who come to Bangkok usually don't know
what Thai money looks like.
This might often happen in convenience stores like
7 Eleven, Family Mart, things like that
where the change you get back isn't what you expected.
So count your money before you leave the counter.
There's also a version of this scam
that's the fake currency scam
where if you give them a high value bill,
they'll take it to the back
to make some change, but they'll come back
with a different bill and tell you that it's counterfeit,
so if you're giving them a high value bill,
one of the tips is look at the serial number
before you give it to them,
try to remember that and see if the bill
they brought you back is actually the right one,
particularly if they're taking your money away
and getting change with it.
This one happens if you use an ATM.
ATMs and foreign cards, it'll often come up and say
do you want to use the dynamic currency conversion
to withdraw money in your own currency?
Don't take that option.
That'll be about a 10% hit.
Take the money out in local baht.
Yes you'll pay a fee with your bank,
but it will be less than you pay
if you take that currency conversion with the ATM.
That doesn't happen on all ATMs
and it doesn't happen on all cards,
but a message will come up
and it'll be in English and it'll say
do you want to accept the currency converted rate,
and it'll use those phrase, dynamic currency conversion.
Say no, save some money, don't get scammed by the ATM.
I hate getting scammed by a robot.
The eighth common tourist scam in Bangkok is pickpockets,
and well there's pickpockets all around the world,
but in particular what happens
is people coming by on scooters, like right here.
Not that guy, he's not a scam artist,
but people coming by on scooters,
if you got your bag on the side of the road,
they'll actually come and snatch your bag
as you're going by. It's really hard for you to get it
and really hard to catch them.
So if you have a sling bag or an arm bag,
make sure you keep that on the side away from the road
so that it's not easily snatchable.
By the way, anyplace there are tourists,
this isn't a scam because it's theft
but people might pick your pocket,
and so I really like these Pacsafe bags.
They're like these antitheft bags.
Really hard to steel because the zippers
actually clip in and so people can't open it
without me seeing it.
The ninth common tourist scam in Bangkok, Thailand,
is when someone comes up to you,
you're at a bus, you're at a train,
you're trying to get on, you're trying to book tickets,
they tell you it's sold out.
You can't get there, there's no more seats available,
but they've got a great deal for you
because there's this new tour
run by the Tourism Authority of Thailand,
which is an official thing.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand,
it's the tourism authority of the country of Thailand.
They don't run tours, though.
Ever.
They're just using their name
to make themselves look legitimate,
get you off the train or bus
that probably has seats,
and get you on their probably rundown, ramshackle bus
that might have a couple wheels fall off
because you're trying to get where you're going.
The tenth common tourist scam in Bangkok, Thailand
to avoid is to beware of the friendly stranger.
Yes, I know that Thai people are famous
for being very friendly.
They are, they're friendly, they smile a lot,
but in normal settings like they'll be friendly
in your hotel, they'll be friendly in their restaurant.
The person who comes up to you
as you're walking down the street and is super friendly,
chatting you up, asking where you're from,
where you're going, how long you're in town,
they're probably trying to sell you into some tour,
something they get a kickback from,
so beware of people that are just
way too friendly on the street.
I mean, this applies to almost
anywhere you are in the world,
but I think what happens in all of Thailand
is that people go, the Thais are just so friendly,
they could not be out to scam me.
But if we go back to that taxi scam
that I talked about earlier,
that taxi driver who tried to charge us
twice the price of our fare,
the guy was super friendly,
one of the friendliest guys I've ever met,
yet really was kind of a crook.
So, beware.
And Bangkok tourist scam number 11
is the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market.
This market is number six on CNN's list
of the world's worst tourist traps.
If what you're looking for
is the authentic Thai tourist trap experience,
then visiting this market is a must.
It used to be a legitimate place for locals
to enjoy some boat noodles or shop
for produce and knickknacks,
but today thanks to every tour company
in the world pushing it on tourists,
it's over-crowded and an experience
that not many people enjoy.
So if you're looking for a floating market,
there's tons of other ones around Bangkok.
Visit those and not this one.
Well hey, now you know everything you need to know
to visit Bangkok, be safe, and not get scammed
out of your hard-earned money.
Well we hope you enjoyed this video.
If you did, you'll enjoy watching some other videos
from our Bangkok series.
You'll find links in the description below,
or you can click some of these videos over here
to watch them.
We won't say goodbye because we'll see you
in the next video.