Woman accused of scamming after being scammed

 | Wed 1 Jul 2020 16:54 ICT

Various news outlets across Chiang Mai were contacted by Kamonluk Saithong, 20 and Leelawal Yindeesuk, 21, from Lamphun and Chiang Mai respectively, who asked for justice after being scammed.

The two met with CityNews and other reporters, bearing reams of documents, to prove that an unknown man had scammed them. According to the two women they had responded to this unknown man’s advertisement looking for serving staff at a new restaurant. The two girls provided all the documentation required which included ID card and other official documents. But then later, they say, they began to be contacted and called to court by numerous people across Thailand who claim that they had been scammed by the two women. The women say that they know nothing of any scams, but they suspect that this unknown man had used their identities to steal.

Kamonluk told reporters that she applied for the job via an online application when she was asked for her papers. At one point she was told that her papers were not clearly visible and was asked to send photocopies of both sides of her ID card. What is not much known is that the back of the ID card contains sensitive data which should never be shared.

She admitted to being naive, but she didn’t suspect anything could go wrong from such documents. She was then called in for an interview when she met the unnamed man who she said she felt untrustworthy. While interviewing her he had a mask on as well as sunglasses and acted suspiciously. After the interview the man even asked her for 500 baht processing fee to open a new bank account for her salary, which she paid.

As the day to start work approached he kept putting her off until she realised that she had been scammed, thinking it was for only 500 baht and leaving it at that. She said that she thought that she had got rid of her bad karma at that point and after reporting the incident to the police she kept a tab on whether this restaurant would open or not. Realising that it was never going to open she said she shrugged her shoulders and moved on.

It was around one month after the incident at the end of June when she was informed that she was being accused of theft. After looking into the matter she discovered that six other people had also accused her from all across Thailand – Prathum Thani, Nakorn Sawan all the way down to Narathiwat provinces.
In all cases it was her ID card which was used by the scammer. According to Kamonluk, many of the victims have now formed a group and cases are piling up against her. Yet she insists she herself is also a victim.

She said that all of her documents will clear her as she was in no way involved, but that she wanted the media to warn the public against sharing private documents with people, especially the back of the card which has digits which should always be kept private.