I love Thailand. I have travelled to many different parts of Thailand and would love to stay there months at a time.
But not everybody goes to Thailand and manages to come back without having been had by scammers. Although most scams involve you getting cheated out of your money (and I'll get to those in subsequent posts), my top Thailand travel tip is what I think is the worst scam of all, one that involves intimidation and threats of physical violence.
Please keep this one in mind if you go to any of the beach destinations in Thailand. I suppose this excludes Krabi though as I read here that Krabi's doing much better at preserving their beaches.
My top Thailand travel tip is: Never rent jet skis
Jet skis might look like fun but they can seriously ruin your holiday. The jet ski rental scam occurs in beach destinations all over Thailand but cases in Phuket have probably had more exposure, most famously in UK's TV Show Big Trouble in Tourist Thailand a couple of years ago.
Despite this, I regularly read about more tourists falling prey to this scam. I often also find articles saying that the authorities are getting the situation under control but I seriously doubt this can ever be a 100% thing. Thai authorities are rather well-known for not following through.
Victims of this scam are subject to intimidation and threats of physical violence, which really makes it worse than all other scams.
The way it works is: You rent a jet ski and have your fun on it for a short while but when you return it, the owner finds some damage. He asks for a huge amount, often something like 50000 or 75000 baht (which is $2000-3000) in compensation. Naturally you argue that you didn't cause this damage. That's when the owner's pals gather around you and threaten violence if you don't pay up. Even if you somehow manage to get the police involved in this and they manage to negotiate a reduction, you will still have to pay something like 15000 or 20000 baht (still a hefty $500-800) to the jet ski owner.
It's better to be safe than sorry. Do not risk your holidays for 30 minutes of fun. That jet ski owner may look friendly before you decide to rent from him but that might change as soon as you return to the beach on his jet ski.
