Written on April 22, 2003

To the editor:

Dear Sir:

We applaud the comments made by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as reported in your April 6, 2003 article ("PM aims to stop scams by jewellery shops" as posted online at http://www.bangkokpost.com/060403_News/06Apr2003_news07.html). The Prime Minister is correct that these scam stores do harm the reputation of Thailand abroad, but more importantly is that these stores take tourist dollars out of the legitimate economy and funnel them into the pockets of criminal organizations, many of whom are involved in other illegal activities, such as drugs.

Two immediate changes that would severely curtail the incidence of this scam are easily implemented by a government determined to put an stop to this scam.

1) Require the Tourist Police to actively negotiate refunds on behalf of scammed tourists who file a complaint. In most instances, a scammed tourist will be more than happy to get back the 70% mandated under the JewelFest rules, and a higher rate of such a refund would reduce the hard feelings tourists have. There is a genuine sense of frustration that the Tourist Police seem more interested in protecting Thais than tourists.

2) Require new jewellery store registrations to include a refundable 500,000 baht deposit with the Ministry of Commerce. This deposit would be refundable after three consecutive months of operations with no unresolved complaints against the store. This requirement would not apply to existing stores, but to the scam stores that generally operate on a two to four month life cycle, before closing up and re-opening under a different name. Given the value of inventory that these stores carry, this requirement would not be onerous to new store applicants, and would not apply to existing, legitimate stores. The deposit money would be held in trust and used to refund victims of scam stores.

These two changes would be highly effective in reducing the amount of ill will felt by victimized tourists, as well as make life harder for scam stores to close and re-open at will. The added bonus is that these measures would also reduce an important money-laundering channel for the very drug cartels the Prime Minister is waging war against.

Contact: thaigemscamgroup@yahoo.com


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thaigemscamgroup@yahoo.com