Oprettet af Bent d. 20-08-2009 16:32
#1
Det følgende er læserbreve til Bangkok Post om politiets afpresning af fremmede i Bangkoks lufthavn:
http://www.bangko...a8d107782e
by keith1867 on Mon Jul 20, 2009
I was shocked to read that this sort of thing was happening in the Airport and the King Power Company may have shot themselves in the foot. I for one will not be buying anything from the Duty Free owned by them next time or any other time I come to the wonderful country that is Thailand.
By being on the BBC news website this will be read by a lot of people and the only loser will be Thailand as it may put people off coming. I hope the management of King Power do something to discourage this practice or their profits will fall and if they find any employee is involved the full might of the law should be applied to them. But there is little hope with the police being involved in the scam. If you can't trust the police who can you trust.
It does seem crazy in these difficult times when tourists are needed more than ever that a group of greedy individuals could put one of the major industies of Thailand at risk for their own selfish ends. I hope they choke on the money they made from conning the tourists.
keith1867
by villager on Mon Jul 20, 2009
*superflous quotes removed by moderator ed notes: correct spelling is superfluous
Hi Keith , of course you are quite correct in your thinking , the 64,000 dollar question is , JUST WHAT is the government doing to do about it???, my opinion is sweet FA, MEANWHILE THE WORLD IS WATCHING.
villager
by keith1867 on Mon Jul 20, 2009
Hi Villager
You are also right in thinking nothing will be done by those in power but they should do something and make an example of these people by sending them to the Bangkok Hilton for a very long stay and make them pay the money back by seizing their assets such as land, cars and bikes for example. A few arrests and long prison sentences would hopefully deter these people and any non-thai people involved should as well as having their assets seized should be deported after serving time at the Hilton.
keith1867
by stilljustbrowsing on Mon Jul 20, 2009
Once at the airport and paid your honest taxi driver the fee. Don't touch anything you are not really interested in, buy what you really want at a local Thai market. (it is probably cheaper and more authentic Thai anyway. Irrespective of what some may think is 'authentic Thai'.)
And finally, run away if someone introduces themselves to you as Tony at the airport!
stilljustbrowsing
by johnth on Mon Jul 20, 2009
Considering the losses of income from tourists following the closure of Suvarnabhumi Airport in connection with the demonstrations earlier, and then this scam of false accusation of shoplifting and the police blackmail of innocent passengers - one would expect that the officials and the government would react quickly.
This is apparently not so - and seen in the light of the current drastic drop of visitors to Thailand – one wonders why no action is taken by responsible authorities.
My Thai wife and I have cancelled our next trip to Thailand in August. There are other nice vacation spots around the world with much less hassle.
johnth
by Michael Bukit on Mon Jul 20, 2009
I have another story tell share. A friend emailed to me some times ago but not sure how true is it.
My Dept secretary informed on this. Her cousin was detained in Bangkok for stealing a box of cigarettes in a duty-free shop in Bangkok International Airport. He had paid for chocolates and a carton of cigarettes. The cashier put a packet of smokes into his bag and he thought it was a free pack. He was arrested for shop-lifting and the Thai Police extortion price was RM30,000 for his release. He spent two nights in jail and paid RM50 for an air-cond cell, 200-300 baht for each visitor, and RM11,000 for his final release.
The Police shared the money in front of his eyes. On top of that, he was charged in court and fined RM2,000 by the magistrate and handcuffed and escorted to his plane. His passport was stamped "Thief".While there, his relatives requested help from the Malaysian Embassy and was told that they are helpless, as M'sians are victimised similarly daily and letters and phone-calls to the Thai Authorities are ignored. He shared a cell with a Singaporean the 1st night who paid RM60,000 for his release. The 2nd night was an Indian national who paid USD70,000. Mind you this is not in a shack in downtown Bangkok but in a duty free shop in Bangkok's Int'l Airport.
BE WARNED.
Michael Bukit
by Junglejim on Mon Jul 20, 2009
King Power duty free has to be one of the most expensive duty free shops in the world.
Take for example a cheaper bottle of Penfolds which is US$11 dollars without any tax or 374 baht at borders of Laos and Cambodia (It's US$9.0 flying out of Sydney). At the airport they charge 660 baht while in Foodland the same bottle and year costs 1,200 baht or about 300% more (should I assume that the tax is 300%?). So King Power pays no tax so they're marking up their wine sold by 100%--isn't that a bit steep for a duty free?
For a typical bottle of 100ml aftershave you're only saving about 200-300 baht per bottle. The Malaysian duty free you save about another 10%. In fact sometimes promotions at Paragon are sometimes better value than King Power.
I would never bother shopping at King Power. Also, many of their fashion accessories like watches and cloths are very dated. Who bothers to wear polo shirts any more for example...
Junglejim
by villager on Tue Jul 21, 2009
johnth wrote:Considering the losses of income from tourists following the closure of Suvarnabhumi Airport in connection with the demonstrations earlier, and then this scam of false accusation of shoplifting and the police blackmail of innocent passengers - one would expect that the officials and the government would react quickly.
This is apparently not so - and seen in the light of the current drastic drop of visitors to Thailand – one wonders why no action is taken by responsible authorities.
My Thai wife and I have cancelled our next trip to Thailand in August. There are other nice vacation spots around the world with much less hassle.
Yeah John, but this begs the question if you have cancelled just how many others have done the same as you?, and in my view rightly so.
villager
by mberbae on Tue Jul 21, 2009
I shopped at the new airports King Power last year. I used my Visa card for the purchase.
Unbekownst to me, an employee ( or ring of employees ) stole my credit card number , sold it to someone overseas and
within a week, I had a 20,000 dollar balance from purchases made in London. I have never set foot in England.
The fraud department at Bank of America traced the theft of my card information to King Power at the airport.
The lesson is, never use your credit card there. And as for me, I will never shop there again.
MWB.
mberbae
by Renaissance on Tue Jul 21, 2009
I doubt very much that anything will be done about the K. Power Duty Free Shops scam because the police are obviously involved as will be the Airports Authority of Thailand (AAoT) folks. The airport is a symbol of Thailand's corruption, and indeed the gateway to it.
The AAoT folks and police are the same people who seem strangely unable to stop the continuous theft of luggage trolleys through the front gate of the airport even. The AAoT are the people who run the airport taxi mafia and the other taxi counter / transportation scams. Even the airport guards are corrupt. It was only a matter of time before this spread to K. Power's Duty Free Shops. I wonder how much "tea money" the shops have to pay just to stay at the airport.
The best thing to do is to get word out about K. Power's Duty Free Shops scam so that as many travellers as possible avoid their many shops at the airport. It was on Thai TV this morning; it's on the BBC's website; and there's a Forum set aside on the Bangkok Post website about K. Power, so this is a good start. Enter their shops at your peril!