Since July, there has been a sharp increase in the number of scams in the Sukhumvit area of Bangkok (Phrom Phong, Thonglor, and Ekkamai) in which women (or men dressed as women) claiming to be tourists or business travelers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., accost Japanese men in English or a few words of Japanese and try to swindle them out of money.
If you are approached by a stranger on the street, please be suspicious of the possibility of a scam and do not easily trust what they say.
For example, they may say, “I am in trouble because I lost my wallet or passport while traveling from XX to Bangkok,” “I need to borrow 100,000 baht to pay for the reissue of my passport and hotel expenses,” or “I need to know your account number so that I can refund the money from my bank account. The perpetrators then ask the victim to withdraw cash from an ATM or transfer the money to their own bank account.
In addition, in order to make the victim trust them, the offender may claim to work in the medical field (x-ray technician), exchange contact information such as LINE, show the victim his/her bank book and account balance, etc. After obtaining cash, the offender may repeatedly demand money transfer, saying, “I need more cash to pay for an ongoing project,” etc. Even after receiving the cash, they may repeatedly demand money transfer, claiming that they need more cash to pay for ongoing projects.
This criminal technique has been used for several years, and the Embassy has received intermittent reports of victims since 2022, when the new Corona virus was introduced.
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