Thailand is a very attractive country for foreigners because of its culture, gastronomy, landscapes, cities, and nightlife. This attracts thousands of people like tourists and investors to the country, and though foreigners are happily welcomed and respectfully treated by most of the locals, cultural and language differences allowed criminals and scammers to act rather easily against visitors. One of the most common scam branches is car insurance-related since it gives criminals big profits and victims don’t realize they’ve been ripped off till way after it’s too late. For reputable online Car Insurance in Thailand look to Roojai but here are what some of the most common car insurance scams are:
- Fake agents, promotions, and deals: Back in 2017, Warapon Butsaen and Chanyut Somasri, two executives from an insurance website, scammed over 200 people with special promotions, like installment payments with zero interest and free dash cams when paying premiums in cash. Later on, after payments were made, these people wouldn’t receive any insurance contracts, and when checking with the insurance companies they supposedly had contracts with, firms said they had no contracts with them. Make sure of communicating through safe and official channels, so you talk to real agencies, and don’t get trapped with false promotions and deals. When things seem too good to be true, they’re usually not true.
- Staged Accidents: One kind of scam that can affect you collaterally involves people that stage accidents to get some money from their insurance companies. This kind of scam usually occurs in places with a large volume of vehicles, and criminals look for rental, commercial, or new cars. These staged accidents often occur when the victim is making a hard turn, criminals find a way to hit the victim’s car, and state that the victim was pulling into traffic, therefore is completely responsible for the accident. The most dangerous part of these scams is that they also attack your health and life.
- Bad Samaritans: Sometimes when an accident occurs on the road, people that were not involved in the incident will approach the scene, some of them are just curious to see what happened if someone’s in danger or things like that, but there’s a chance that someone gets close and talk to you as if they wanted to help, sometimes they’ll act as if they were insurance consultants or agents, and try to get personal information like the information you’d give to your insurance company, or even ask for money to help you solve the inconvenient “faster”. Don’t rely on any information that someone you don’t trust gives you, as there are people that might want to help you, there are others that just take advantage of these stressful situations.
It’s a little exaggerated to say that these frauds happen all the time in Thailand, but they do happen sometimes and can give anyone a hard time. So it’s always best to stay alert to any odd situation. If you’re in an uncomfortable situation with someone you don’t trust, it’s always better to talk to the police or any authority that can help you.
