Thailand. Car rental scam involves police.

There has been more bad news indicating that Thai police are involved in a scam swindling their own people out of some big money. Nothing has been proven, yet! But it isn’t looking good.

The headline in the paper was:
Number of victims of vehicle-hire swindle gang soars to almost 300, but only 20 cars have been recovered so far.

Now, what was happening was this: People were lured into the scam with the promise of getting 33,000 baht a month in revenue per car. They then bought new cars on instalment schemes that required them to pay about 11,000 baht in monthly instalments per sedan, leaving them more than 21,000 baht a month profit per sedan.
Their rental agent and also their vehicles went missing after two months.

Now, I am sorry but “if something sounds too good to be true, then it is”, this is what I believe, anyway. I mean these people seriously thought that they would get 21,000 baht per month for doing absolutely nothing. Again, sorry for being rude but they were bloody idiots.

The scam reportedly involved the owners of two car rental companies, Paradise Car Rent and Yufuku Decorate. Ms Thitirat of Yufuku has allegedly run the same swindling scam under the name of her own company, called Ratthapan Travel. She had some accomplices.

A total of 233 have lodged complaints against Yufuku Co, while 65 others have lodged complaints against Paradise Car Rent. Investigators estimate that about 1,000 cars could have been stolen by the operators of the scam, who encouraged people to buy new vehicles and offered to hire them out for them.

So, how are the police involved? It is alleged that they were helping have the cars stolen and stored them at police stations and then they were quickly transported across the border to be resold or dismantled.

This only came to light when some victims feed up with no-one answering their calls for their missing cars and went to a police station to make a complaint. When they got there a man saw his missing van parked in the carpark and another man watched a policeman get out of his stolen car. When he approached the man he was told “Some-one had just handed the car to police” This story here

Now, the three officers allegedly attached to the Special Branch Police Division 3 found to be connected with the 11-seat van owned by one of the scam's victims, have already been transferred from their current positions to inactive posts for 30 days pending the results of an investigation by a fact-finding panel about their suspected involvement in the swindling ring.

Here are some of the stories from victims, I feel sorry for them but they are so stupid for getting themselves into this position.

Nipa Kijja, 34, said she faces pressure from a car finance company demanding she pay monthly instalments, and from a loan shark. The mother of two children says she is now living in fear. She slipped into serious debt in the middle of last year after a friend persuaded her to buy six new sedans and rent them out through Min Buri-based Yufuku Co, which promised her about 30,000 baht a month in revenue from each car. She had not received any money since December.

"I didn't have enough money at that time to make the down payment. So I decided to borrow about 200,000 baht from a loan shark who charged me 10% interest per month. And now every single baht that I made has gone to pay the loan interest," she said

6 cars! How can this lady get finance for 6 cars, she must have had a good job and even better guarantors. The sad part is she has also borrowed money from one of Thailand’s notorious loan sharks. You start owing money to these people and don’t pay, you end up in a rice field to be found and wrapped in a white sheet. 10% is robbery and why a bank wouldn’t risk lending the money.

She said she had no idea how to deal with the loan shark if she could not find the money to pay off some of the debt. She must pay about 84,000 baht in monthly instalments for the cars, which have now been missing for months.

"I'm very afraid of him [the loan shark]. I want him to be sympathetic if I have difficulty finding the money to pay off the debt. I won't run away," she said. (I would)

Boonyaphat Thabpho, 31, said he and his relatives bought 16 new cars and rented them out to the same firm.

"A loan shark gave me 400,000 baht at 10% monthly interest. Without the cars I don't know how to make enough money to pay off the debt," said Mr Boonyaphat, who works for a car sales company. He had been off work for a month trying to track down his cars, but so far has located only four of them.

"I have no feeling for work anymore," he said, admitting he was so keen to get the promised income that he forgot to check the rental company's background.

Theera Homhuan, 52, who had remained at the police station since he filed his complaint on Saturday, said he rented out three new cars to the hire company, which promised him 36,000 to 40,000 baht a month per car.

Mr Theera said he received payments for three months, until December. He must now find about 40,000 baht a month to pay off the sedans, which may have been stolen and resold.

"I want my cars back and I want them [the scam operators] arrested," he said while sitting under a canvas tent outside the police station.

These are just a few stories from many and all are the same, in debt up to their eyeballs with dangerous people. I would like to see the scumbags running the scams lashed everyday for a year and have every asset they and their family have, confiscate it and sell it and the money distributed to the victims. As for the police, if they are convicted of being involved, should be jailed for life. These people are meant to uphold the law, not participate in robbing normal working Thai people out of money.

Again, I feel sorry for the victims but also, they are so dim-witted for believing that making so much money was easy. If it was then there would be millionaire Thais everywhere and rental cars all over the country. Thai people are too trusting and gullible at times.

Brunty