A married factory worker took her tale of lovelorn woe to the media yesterday, after an online love affair with a man claiming to be a foreign pilot turned out to be — you guessed it — a scam.
The 40-year-old woman from Rayong province, who requested anonymity, said that she chatted with the foreigner on Facebook for two months, before her tricked her into transfering a total of THB110,000 (US$3,300) to pay the customs fees for expensive gifts he intended to send her, including a suitcase full of cash and a wristwatch, Sanook reported.
Of course, at this point you’re probably wondering why someone with a SUITCASE OF CASH would need to have cash wired to him, but hey, love can be a tricky thing.
The scammer, who went by the spectacular Facebook name Morgan Jericho, assured her in a series of online chats that he was moving to Thailand to start a business and the customs fees would be money well spent, according to screenshots of their chats (which are clearly facilitated by Google Translate).
“If you pay the fine they’ll send the gift to your home,” he wrote in Thai.
He later added reassuringly: “My love, you have to relax. It will be OK.”
The woman said her husband found out about the online affair after he noticed the money vanished from their bank account.
The couple actually filed a police report some time ago, but as they never heard back, they decided it was time to take the story to the media.
In other news, Tourist Police held a press conference today to announce that they have recently helped 11 victims of romance scams get their money back — an estimate amount of THB2 million (about US$60,000). They’re currently working on the cases of 30 other victims.
