A German expat in Phuket, Dirk Schmidt, has lost 600.000 baht due to skimming.
His Kasikorn bank account was emptied by skimmers in early January. Four months later, he is still waiting for any progress on this matter.
On January 5, 6 and 7, the daily limit of 200.000 baht was withdrawn from his account at three different ATMs on Koh Samui. At that time, the German was staying on Phuket, where he enjoys his early retirement eight months a year.
When he went to an ATM in Patong on January 7, there was only 125 baht left in his account.
“I was speechless, almost got one,” says Schmidt. “I thought something was wrong, that there was a mistake.”
He went to the police in Kamala and Patong and immediately contacted employees of Kasikorn bank, who gave him a printout of the transactions.
The police were helpful and said they would request the camera images from the ATMs. Unfortunately, the wrong camera images were sent from Koh Samui. Schmidt is still awaiting the correct CCTV footage.
Schmidt is especially angry with the Kasikorn bank, which has still not done anything about the case, while a police report was already made after three days.
He also says that he normally does not have that much money in his current account. He had just transferred money from Germany to buy a car in Thailand.
He also recalls a suspicious incident at an ATM in Patong on December 17. He wanted to withdraw money from an ATM, but the ATM did not recognize his card. A man behind me offered to help him, but he declined. When he tried to pin a second time, it worked.
The website of Kasikorn bank states that in the event of skimming, the bank will compensate victims. However, the difficult communication with the bank does not bode well.
Never experienced any problems in 5 years of Thailand, I do try to withdraw from banks as much as possible, preferably in a busy shopping Central mall (Pattaya).
Am myself satisfied with Kasikorn & , but .... fear for that German compensation , is not the same as in Europe , they will probably pretend PIN negligence .
The solution is a second bank account without a bank card, and top up the other account with a card via transfer with a smaller weekly/monthly amount required and thus reduce your risk
However, Kasikorn does have a good security system for internet transfers / payments, before the payment is finally made, the client receives a code by SMS that must be entered to complete the transaction, and you can set that you also receive SMS for other transactions / collections, they after the transaction (if unauthorized, you can have your pass blocked by the service center to prevent further disaster).
But read the month of January in the article…. so these measures may have been taken later by KK
I wish Mr. Schmidt the best of luck with the settlement by the Kasikorn Bank.
Recently I had the same bad experience after withdrawing an amount from my ING account at one of the Kasikorn Bank branches in Pattaya.
In 3 days my account was looted to the maximum amount at various ATMs in Bangkok.
However, all praise for ING, after they had received my claim form and official report, all debited amounts including bank costs and the costs for creating a new bank card were immediately refunded to my account.
The downside, however, was that my new bank card and pin code never arrived, but that is the Thai Post's fault.
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Yes, I had my account looted with kasikorn last year during illness in the BKK Pattaya clinic. Had to give an advance with visa. However, it was fortunate that only 240.000 could be deducted, to almost 0. I had to pay 900.000 for it, but I had to pay clinic costs and withdrew a large amount myself to purchase goods and the clinic in cash. My bank card was used there by Thais to buy mopeds, mobile phones and gold. One can buy in Thailand with stolen visas without code no. Just go to the store and the best thing is to buy gold that they will then sell back immediately, almost without a loss. Put a scribble instead of a signature and everything is OK. So never any more visas in Thailand. Printout of kasikorn took 1 year and police do nothing at all. In the meantime I also know who did it, but has family members in the police who were also involved: So no refund of money for visa fraud or theft. As a foreigner you have no rights there, but life is better than here and cheap. These are 3rd world countries with their advantages and disadvantages and total corruption in Pattaya.
Response: Skimming
We were also screwed 2 years ago; pinned in Ao Nang, between November and December. In March, it turned out that 600 euros had been withdrawn from Malaysia; months later. The fright of your life. In the future we will do pins inside the bank. I'd like to hear if this has happened to people inside the bank. Question: Are ATMs on Suvarnabumi safe?
Regards, Mike
Extra information
Wish hereby some useful information for foreigners about visa card
Thailand. I have had my card stolen and with a visa card the
thai completely flatten your account without knowing the code. Just by
let the device slip into any store and bought a moped with my card,
computer ,+ ideal was gold in gold shop which can then be sold directly in
other gold shop with small loss and then they have cash money. Om retirement
to have a visa, one must have a minimum of 800.000 in the bank. They can use this
completely empty several days with stolen visas without knowing code . Bank
can find out how it happened, but does not pay back and the police do
nothing against thai at all, unless large sums are paid to the police
. You should let us know about this on thailandblog.nl.so that the thais are less de
foreigners can plunder and where we in thailand can't do anything about
do. Have possibly had other setbacks too. I live in viewtalay 2B
Pattaya and have 3 condos very nice but a Thai lady was very good friends
with the security and during the 5 months that I was in Belgium, the security
break in with a locksmith and they have 4 with thai men and women
month lived at my expense and dabbled drugs and smoked up to .2 thai
men have been arrested in my condo and placed in prison in corat . Moped
was stolen and the police drove it. One could not steal a car with a copy
keys, but battery stolen. Thai lady used my moped
in clinic while very ill and copied my keys. Got new ones
locks placed in my condos that cannot be copied, but have security
Called a locksmith and had her break in and large part of my
apartment robbed with 2 large TVs 52 inch total 250.000 baht. Luck
that I gave my condo for rent to another Belgian for free, otherwise everything would be empty
robbed , but he had to have a keymaker come in to get in and
frigos were ready to take with you. Hope to be of service with that info
to prevent this for others. Police arrested her 1 month ago,
but let it go back, think for a fee or by her uncle who is with the police
works in soi 9 pattaya and drove my moped that I was able to steal back from him. There is almost nothing you can do about it and the police help almost nothing, unless you pay heavily, but for Thais everything is free. Account was also with kasikorn bank. Foreigners are walking ATM machines. Corruption is taking on serious proportions here.
Luc.
My wife's ING card was skimmed in Roi-Et but the full amount was reimbursed by ING.
By the way, also at the Kasikornbank.
Have had an (internet) account with the Kasikorn bank with accompanying debit card for years to great satisfaction, hope I can keep saying that.
Try to use your PIN as much as possible inside a bank building as well as in the Netherlands, but is that 100% safe? Let's just assume that there will have to be a debit card somewhere.
An acquaintance of mine had his bank account looted after he had handed over his card inside the bank for verification.
the sns bank returned the money after a lawsuit was filed.
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