Consumer Reports - Duped In Bangkok - July 2004

After spending time and money to travel to a country a TOURIST VALUES THEIR PICTURES. In Bangkok an Internet shop owner denies responsibility for erasing the pictures from a memory card. Read on...

Wednesday July 7, 2004 - National Radio Text Service

DUPED IN BANGKOK

When you take pictures during your travel how do you feel when your film is lost or destroyed by the film processing shop. That happened to us.

The story we prepared can't be told due to the loss as the pictures made the story. What's most disturbing is the time people took to tell their story and have their pictures taken. It was a waste of all of our time. It also was a waste of money and effort.

We took our memory card containing over 120 pictures to burn into a CD to the Terranet Internet shop in the Khaosan Road area. Prior to entering the shop we checked the card and it indicated that there were only six pictures remaining to be taken.

We decided to burn the pictures into a CD and clear space on the card. We had the job done there in November 2003 and felt there would be no problems. This time there was a different employee but we felt the shop had certain standards.

The female employee was jiggling the card in the memory card reader slot used for transferring the pictures to their computer. She then exclaimed…. Oh!!!

When we went to see what happened she said she couldn't open the file. The message on the screen said the card needed to be formatted. We asked where the pictures were. She maintained that they weren't on the card.

After several attempts trying to locate them she then tried to format the card in her computer. It didn't take. We left after talking to the owner Supasit Thanasupchoosak by telephone and set a meeting for that evening.

At the meeting Supasit said the memory card was bad and denied responsibility. We said it wasn't and showed him some pictures taken since we left the shop and REFORMATTED THE CARD IN OUR CAMERA. The pictures in this story were taken with the memory card that he said was bad.

He had no answer for that. His only reply was to take our problem to someone else.

This is a typical irresponsible response from Thai businesses. Once they get your money you're pretty much on your own. If you're looking for credibility its hard to find in Thailand.

TIP:

If you value your photos don't take them to Terranet Internet shop near the Khaosan Road police station and the Shell gas station @ 84 Chakarapong Road.

APOLOGIES TO ALL CONCERNED

The story we wrote of foreigners and Thai's taking Muay Thai boxing lessons is on hold since the Terranet Internet shop destroyed the pictures.

Two weeks worth of work in Bangkok and Pattaya, time, money and travel expenses were lost. The commitment of others that so graciously gave us their time was wasted.

We were dealt a major setback with the loss of over a 120 key pictures. Some of the people that we took photos of we'll probably never see again. That photo opportunity is history and gone.

Fortunately in our backtracking to the gym where we took the Muay Thai boxing photos we found Iam Pullen from London, England from the original shoot the others including the gyms owner Surapol Rangsikulpipat weren't available.

While walking down the street the little Thai lady Neeboon Boonee who we interviewed and took her picture in boxing gear saw us and yelled out as we passed by. Fortunately she agreed to take another photo but at this outdoor restaurant the boxing gear wasn't available.

Many stories will have to be put off until another time after we hopefully will have another opportunity to take pictures of the subjects that we interviewed.