Bangkok is bursting with bargains for the savvy traveller. But it can also prove an expensive place for people sucked in by the Thai capital’s professional conmen. As we discovered, an increasing number of tourists are being taken for more than a tuk-tuk ride.

IT STARTS innocently enough. A tuk-tuk tour around the sights of Bangkok, a friendly conversation with a respectable Thai businessman and a visit to a gem shop. And it ends embarrassingly when a jeweller in your home country casts an eye over your glittering purchase and laughs in your face.

The Bangkok gem scam is back with a vengeance.

On the face of it, it’s hard to believe people are still being conned into buying stones that turn out to be worth one-fifth of their price tag.

After all, there isn’t a guide book, travel programme, website or foreign embassy that doesn’t warn inexperienced buyers against handing over hard-earned cash for precious and semi-precious stones.

Yet consuls in Bangkok have in recent months received a sharp rise in complaints from duped travellers. Several overseas missions, including the Australian, British, German and Japanese embassies, have tried in vain to secure urgent talks with the Governor of Bangkok, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and the Tourist Police, said Australian consul Roy Clogstoun.

“It’s just out of control,” he said.

“The Thai authorities are making noises, but they’re not doing anything about it. They couldn’t care less.”

Clogstoun said he was getting at least two complaints a week from tourists caught in the sting. He said British, German, Swiss and Japanese officials were reporting similar figures.

“It did go quiet for quite a while, but in the past four months there’s been an absolute rush of people who have lost a lot of money,” he said.

So what’s changed? Why, suddenly, are people being caught out by one of the oldest rackets in the Asian scammers’ manual?

Clogstoun blames the smooth and professional acting abilities of the con artists.

But, more sinisterly, he says westerners are being used to make the initial contact with tourists, while he also believes police may be getting a slice of the action.

“Most of the tourists are approached in the Royal Palace area which is right under the nose of the Tourist Police,” he said.

“I just don’t believe that they don’t know what’s going on. Surely they recognise the same people approaching foreign tourists again and again.

“I don’t know if there’s been a transfer high up in the police ranks and an officer who cracked down on the scam has been replaced by someone who doesn’t care or worse, but there’s been a definite change in attitude in recent months.”

Frustrated with a lack of official action, Clogstoun has on three occasions barged into gem shops and demanded refunds for ripped off tourists.

On one occasion, he managed to retrieve 64,000 baht (£1024) for a woman who had spent 84,000 baht on jewellery later valued at 24,000.

He says victims are usually new arrivals who have not travelled widely.

“You do get backpackers caught, but mostly they’re naive, first-time travellers who are in Bangkok for four or five days before moving on. They get off the plane, go to the Royal Palace and the Sleeping Buddha, get approached by these very smart conmen and most are caught within the first or second day of their stay when they’re most vulnerable,” he said.

“These conmen are very convincing. I’m told there are also westerners acting for the gem shops, a Norwegian man, in particular. These are the guys who make the initial approach and do the hard sell so that by the time they get the customers into the shop they’re putty in the shop manager’s hands.

“It’s very difficult to get refunds off these people. They tend to get people heavily involved, then close the shop, change their phone numbers and re-manifest themselves in another shop.

“It’s a terrible scam. People have to be protected. A lot of people are losing a lot of money and, for some, it might mean an end to their entire holiday or trip.”

Greg Robbins, 30, from Melbourne, lost $A5,500 in a classic sting on his first visit to Bangkok in July.

He takes up the story: “On our third day in Bangkok, we hired a tuk-tuk and asked the driver to take us on a tour around Chinatown.

“The driver told us he would show us the local sights and advised that he would drop us off at a local temple.”

After arriving at the temple, Greg and his partner were told it was closed and, waiting in the street, they were approached by a middle-aged Thai man who described himself as “a successful banker with the Bangkok Bank”.

“He said that his hobby was buying jewellery and selling it when overseas,” Robbins said.

“He spoke very good English, had a pleasant disposition and his claims of being a prominent banker seemed believable.”

The “banker” convinced the couple to visit the Bangkok Mining Company wholesale store which was having a rare direct-to-the-public sale.

“Fortunately for us,” the banker told Robbins, “this happened to be the last day of the sale.”

They travelled to the shop where Robbins spent $A8,500 on a set of gems a Melbourne jeweller later valued at just $A3,000.

Robbins said his attempts to contact the shop had failed, with the scam ruining his trip and deterring him from returning to Asia.