American TikTok star sues Porsche dealer in Thailand
An American TikTok star and his Thai girlfriend filed a lawsuit against a Porsche dealership in Thailand showroom claiming that the used car they paid 13 million baht for is not only a different model than they ordered but it doesn’t work.
Yesterday at 4.30pm, 39 year old Sam [psuedonym] and his wife [name reserved] met with celebrity lawyer Decha Kittiwittayanan to seek legal assistance regarding alleged deception from Porsche dealership in Thailand.
Sam said that on July 12, 2022, he saw an advert on social media for a used Miami Blue Porsche 911 model on sale at a Porsche showroom.
He phoned up and made an appointment to see the Porsche and take it for a spin that same day. He loved the car and paid a deposit of 250,000 baht right away.
On August 7, Sam returned to the showroom with his girlfriend to pick up the car. He paid 5 million baht and signed a contract to pay for the rest in three installments, totalling more than 13 million baht.
Soon after, Sam was driving his Porsche 911 to Pattaya when the engine suddenly cut out on the highway.
He rang the showroom who advised him to ‘rest’ the car for a while, start it again and take it in for repairs.
The showroom ‘fixed’ the car and returned it just for the same thing to happen again, said Sam. He said he and his wife drove for less than half an hour to the beach and the engine cut out for a second time.
Sam said he started to lose confidence in the car but because he loved it he decided he would take it to a different repair shop himself. However, he needed to wait for the car’s documentation to arrive first.
When the car’s manual arrived, his girlfriend opened it and found that the car was not the model that they ordered.
Sam and his girlfriend agreed to buy a Porsche model from 2021, but this model was from 2020, they told Lawyer Decha. The car that the showroom sold to them does not match the car in the advertisement, they said.
The showroom snapped back claiming that the 2021 date detailed in the advertisement means when the car was registered for sale, not the model year.
Annoyed, Sam and his girlfriend asked to return the car to Porsche. Porsche asked to buy it back for 12.2 million baht, which Sam and his girlfriend agreed to.
When the day came to return the car, Porsche issued a refund of only 1.5 million baht, claiming that the showroom had to close the finance contract with interest charges totalling 9 million baht.
Lawyer Decha said he will file three charges against the Porsche showroom and its salespeople, including violations of…
- Criminal Code Section 343 (Public Fraud): assertion of falsehood to the public or by the concealment of the facts which should be revealed to the public, the offender shall be punished with imprisonment not exceeding five years or fined not exceeding ten thousand Baht, or both.
- Section 14(1) of the Computer Crimes Act: if any person commits any offence that involves import to a computer system of forged computer data, either in whole or in part, or false computer data, in a manner that is likely to cause damage to that third party or the public they shall be subject to imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine of not more than one hundred thousand baht or both.
- Criminal Code Section 271 (Deceptive Trade Practices): Whoever sells any goods by means of deception to cause a buyer to believe in the source of origin, nature, quality or quantity of such goods which is false, where it does not constitute the offence of fraud, shall be liable to imprisonment for not exceeding three years or a fine of not exceeding six thousand baht or both.
Sam says he has lived in Thailand for more than 12 years and has always treated Thai people very well. He said he loves Thailand and never thought he would fall into the position of victim.
The victim says he wants to prevent the showroom from deceiving customers into buying faulty cars again. He said he wants to be the first and last victim of the Porsche showroom.
Sam is still in possession of the blue Porsche 911, which is sitting in his condo’s parking lot. He says he is too scared to drive it because the engine cut out three times in total and he doesn’t think it is safe to drive.
