Sino ThaiThailand, and Phuket in particular, has recently become almost the main holiday destination for Russian-speaking tourists. Some people choose a hotel holiday, while others are looking for an apartment with a kitchen. The times when you could fly to Thailand for pennies on a last-minute ticket are in the past. Now flight prices have increased significantly, so many tourists began to come for a month or more. In addition, the number of winterers and people working remotely has increased significantly, who are trying to rent an apartment with a kitchen; besides, if people have children, the kitchen is a great help in terms of cooking. As for the rest, apartments (condominiums) are in no way inferior in their infrastructure to a hotel – they also have a swimming pool, a gym, cleaning and maintenance staff.
When choosing a hotel holiday, everything is quite simple – buy a ticket from a travel agency and pack your suitcase. But when booking an apartment, options are possible. If you pay for your reservation through well-known platforms, such as Agoda or Airbnb, then the risks are minimal, since these sites are a kind of guarantor of security, but now, however, there are problems with booking and paying using Russian bank cards.
Another way is to pay directly to the owner or a management company that rents out the property on behalf of the owner. And here you need to be very careful and not fall for the tricks of scammers, of which there are quite a few in Phuket now. It is necessary to check the entire chain of documents: agreement between the management company and the owner of the property, power of attorney (if there is one), the owner’s documents for the property (passport, chanot and blue book), work permit (chanot), certificate of the management company (DBD) – very important, so that the management company works officially. In addition to the documents, do not be lazy to ask and check the website, YouTube or social media page of the management company to which you are going to transfer money – decent companies work more than one day and will provide you with this information without problems. And also, carefully check the names and names of companies in the documents so as not to run into fakes. You should have a logical chain from the property with its owner to the person who offers you to rent it. Only after all this make an advance payment!
As an example, we would like to give a few real-life stories of how people became victims of scammers – we hope this will be useful for you to know.
The first deception. The family made an agreement with the man, sent him money for the booking, he sent them some kind of paper, like a booking form from Booking, where their names, passport details, and number of vacationers were written down. However, when they arrived at the airport, the promised transfer did not appear, they take a taxi and go to the hotel, where they are told that they do not have such a reservation either. Evening, it got dark, they and the children were outside. This happened to people whom we later helped with housing. The woman was crying, the man was nervous, and so their long-awaited planned vacation began.
Second deception. People flew to Phuket and, like the most advanced tourists, did not take a car from their compatriots, but took it from a Thai, it would be cheaper. And indeed, it turned out cheaper. However, after 2-3 days the car disappears with all the things they left in it. It turns out that the Thai rented a car for a week from an official company, then he rented it to them for a month or more at such a great price that they immediately paid all the money for the rent and deposit. The company began to take action when the car was not returned. They started calling the Thai. Realizing that he is not going to return the car or, saying that he forgot where he left it, the company finds the car using a GPS tracker and takes away its property on a tow truck. People call a Thai person who has already blocked them. According to information from Phuket chats, 7 similar cases were recorded in December 2023.
Third deception. There are a lot of scams with currency exchange. People look for the cheapest course and find it. They write to a person, send him money, and they themselves stand next to the ATM and wait for this person to send a code for cash withdrawal. However, either the code is incorrect, or they are simply blocked.
In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about our company and tell you how we work. Sometimes we hear reproaches that we offer for booking a property that is not the one that was in the advertisement. But this is not surprising – there are not as many advertisements as there are apartments in our management, and besides, some apartments are being vacated, while others are occupied by guests. Therefore, by contacting us, people leave their request, and we select and offer, in accordance with their requirements, what we have in stock. Our manager Oleg tries to answer all requests, usually in the shortest possible time. Further, if our offer suits the client, he is provided with all the supporting documentation for the property and our company, which was mentioned above. We have nothing to hide, our company operates officially, pays taxes in Thailand and has all the necessary documents. In addition, we have a website and YouTube channel, which also contain all the necessary information about us and our real estate properties.
In addition to renting, we also sell real estate, and we are very successful. Our entire team lives and works on the island of Phuket, we know the local market and its features, and we invite you to use our services!