News: ‘Big Trouble in Thailand’ (TV Show from UK)

[Deknoi]

"Foo-ket"

"Foo-ket" ?!

Not a lot of Thai involvement in the production then.

[Sved]

Wonder where all the action were?

[Stephen Cleary]

Im just half way through this documentary, thoughts so far.
This jet-ski scam has been going on a long time, and sure they are paybacks to local corrupt boys in brown. But the law is the law, JJ isnt entitled to a single baht in that one-on-one situation. Instead of the naive American running away from him, he shoulda went to a high ranking cop in the station - he would have discussed with JJ and if the compensation he asked was too much - then, it's a court case.

[Sved]

Originally Posted by fileeep

As Andrew Drummond stated....’Another nail in my coffin. My wife thinks I just come here for a golfing holiday’ So what does he come here for? Maybe the documentary about these sleaze bags is justified? They are certainly out there in big numbers, those people who mind about this documentary, don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

I only seen the first episode at Youtube we follow a young marine who seems to get scammed by the Jetski rental (YOU returned it BROKEN!!). The situation seems a bit intimidating but it was filmed by a TV team and they eventually radio for the military police who comes there and yells a bit before making the marine pay 35,000, a price he already agreed to pay. (altho it can be argued it may have been like 10,000-15,000 if that guy had been in charge of the negotiations from start)

Then we follow the young farang lady who been arrested for possession of cannabis at what appears to have been at a fullmoon party. By her own admission she didn't buy anything it was just given to her and she only had this much <-----------> (she motions with her fingers in the movie).

So far I can't really understand he hype about this show

[Deknoi]

Yeah but Sved, she didn't even smoke any so it should be okay, right?!

I thought the jet-ski thing was bad, makes me realize when I hired one in samui and the owner cancelled the pre-agreed 900 baht price and changed it to 1000 because I was 'late', I actually got off lucky! That is the sort of thing that could put people off Thailand.

As far as the idiot British girl and the idiot Australian I didn't think that was going to hurt thailand - She was just one of the swathes of moronic 17-30 year olds who come here and assume the law doesn't apply.

The australian was massively drunk, claims he tried to "run upstairs" in some brothel and was beaten up? Riiiiight!

[Khun Don]

Originally Posted by Deknoi

Yeah but Sved, she didn't even smoke any so it should be okay, right?!

Turns out it was her boyfriend's!

Possession is the offence-smoking it or not smoking it is not an issue.

Not "okay"-No money to pay bribe=Jail time and deportation-as the trailer to next week's episode strongly suggests.

[Deknoi]

Hope you don't think that I was serious there...

[Richard Barrow]

I have just finished watching it now. The jet ski part looks very much like it was staged with multi camera angles. I am not saying that this kind of thing doesn't happen as it is one of the most widely reported scams at www.bangkokscams.com. But it is also strange it happens so far away from the beach. Then the tourist police part. I thought they were there to assist the Thai police when tourists were in trouble. But in one scene they were following a tip to do a drug raid on a Thai street vendor. No Thai police in sight. Overall it doesn't really put Thailand in a bad light. It is more of an embarrassment for all foreign tourists.

[Deknoi]

I agree that the jet ski part looked staged... would someone serious enough to pull out a gun really let them keep filming?

[Khun Don]

I have just watched all 4 parts on "You Tube". Can't say I was impressed at all-not one positive thing said about Thailand by anyone and idiot tourists treated as victims for the most part.