Tourist Trap
The second day of my two-week-long honeymoon in Thailand. My wife and I decided to go exploring and wanted to visit the local mall in Bangkok. We get off the ferry boat with a map in hand, looking somewhat confused and a nice, well- dressed Thai man comes up to us asking if we need help in surprisingly good English.
He mentioned that the shopping malls are closed till 1 pm due to the “mourning of the Kings death” but he knows of a place where we can get high-end suits and dresses discounted. If we follow the road all the way down a Tuk Tuk ( Thai taxi type of thing) will take you there. Sure enough, we walk along the road and a gentleman was waiting right there for us.
We hop in, and they drop us off at this big fancy clothing store. They separated my wife and I to our men’s and women’s departments much to my dismay and horror. She didn’t seem too concerned so I let it fly. They start showing me fabrics for a custom-fitted suit. I pick out some and before I know it I’m being measured. Finally, find my wife and she has two dresses picked out. Grand total came to about $1500 American dollars.
We leave and the same Tuk Tuk is waiting for us, and then takes us to a Jewelry store where a gentleman is showing us rare “gemstones.” My wife is a sucker for Jewelry so buys one for about $250. Finally, we leave and get a regular cab back to our hotel.
I pull out my phone and look up the “suit” place we went to. It literally was hundreds of people describing the scam from the beginning ( nice, well-dressed Thai man giving assistance, to the Tuk Tuk Driver) to the end. We felt absolutely robbed. Also, read that the gemstone was fake hence the “no return” policy.
We finally got our stuff in the mail back in the States about two weeks later. My wife’s dresses are essentially Wal- Mart quality. My custom fitted suit is surprisingly decent and does fit incredibly well so it wasn’t a total bust. But we were tourists that got absolutely swindled.
Story credit: Reddit / obie1124