At 6:36 PM on March 19, 2025, Mr. Mark, a 63-year-old British national, filed a complaint with Police Lieutenant Mana-sat Phol-yiam after falling victim to a group of foreigners who tricked him into buying overpriced goods.
He informed the authorities that while he was leaving a shopping mall to meet a friend and walking along Jomtien Second Road toward South Pattaya, he encountered two unidentified foreign men and one unidentified Thai woman near the Night Bazaar market. The three individuals approached him and struck up a conversation, saying, “You’re very fat, we have a medicine for that that will help you lose weight immediately.” They then told him to buy two bottles of honey from a convenience store but said they had the other herbs needed nearby. Afterward, they led him to an unnamed shop selling goods in Soi 13/2, Pattaya.
There, the three individuals discussed the medicine and its supposed benefits, claiming it was a body tonic that could reduce belly fat, mixed with some unknown herbs inside the honey bottles. They offered to sell it to him for 20,000 baht, insisting that he must buy it. Believing their claims, Mr. Mark purchased the product, and the group then took him to withdraw cash to pay for it.
Later, Mr. Mark contacted his girlfriend and told her he had withdrawn money to buy weight-loss medicine and suspected he might have been scammed. She advised him to meet her. When she arrived, she confirmed he had been deceived after checking the product and finding it lacked the claimed benefits and was exorbitantly priced. Convinced he had been swindled and suffered a loss, he decided to file a complaint with the investigators at Pattaya City Police Station.
Initially, the police recorded the incident in the daily log. Officers from the investigation unit accompanied the victim to the scene, where they found the shop closed and unoccupied. The police inquired with neighboring shops and managed to contact the shop owner, who then came to speak with the victim. After discussions involving the shop owner and the group of foreigners, an agreement was reached. The money was refunded to the victim, and both parties went their separate ways.
The Pattaya News notes this alleged scam has received dozens of complaints to us over the past ten or so months and has led to multiple raids and arrests previously at various locations involving foreign nationals.
