Thailand | Thailand/Cambodia border scam Anonymous | 14 Feb 2011

"The overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok wasn't that great. The bus from Bangkok to the border was really cool but when I got to the border the problems all started. The bus driver took us to a hotel a mile from the border where the travel agency offer to do the visas for you for 1300 baht ($35) a guy came over to me and the Canadian girls I was with and told us it was a scam and we could say no and go to the border and pay $20 as all the books say and we agreed together that we would stick together and not let anyone screw around....(a great mentality to have at the time). When we got to the border we met the travel agent that was taking us from the border to Siem Reap and said he would take us through the border. He said (prompted by signs at the Thai side of the border) that regulations changed at new year and we had to pay in baht now but it was 1000. So we all agreed and went through, he gave us the forms to fill in and asked us to give him the forms, money and our passports. One of the Canadian girls and me has a big problem with the whole situation so he took us down to Cambodian border to get our  dept/arrivals cards from the tourist police.

While we were doing it he took our passports from the police and walked off. The police told us to calm down and he would be back. When we were waiting another of the girls went to the toilet in a building next to where we were waiting, which turns out to have been the actual Cambodian passport agency. With big signs saying it was $20. I checked and we had lost $10 to the travel agent. At this point team spirit kicked in and as a group we decided we weren't going to put up with it as he wasn't with the police and it what we had tried our best to avoid. When he got back we all kicked up a massive fuss. He gave us 1000 baht back and promised us the rest when we got through the border (away from the police) from an atm. After we got through he started kicking up a fuss saying that it was just business and we had to accept it etc. and we argued for 10 mins about it. He continued to admit that he couldn't give us the rest because he had used it to bribe the border police. At which point I wanted to back off, I didn't want to mess with border police. I hadn't realised in the time we were arguing another of the girls had found a police officer, told him what was going on and he rang the border and spoke to the travel agent. We were told we had to go back to the border, explain the situation to the consulate and we would get our money and be put on a bus. We got back to the border and all went to plan. It took two hours all in all. But....GO TEAM UK-CANADA!!!!!