Hair today, conned tomorrow: Bald man scammed in Pattaya
Indian tourist duped by touts selling pricey 'miracle' hair oil in back-alley shop
A bald man was left fuming after coughing up more than a grand for soap and coconut juice sold as a miracle hair tonic in a herbal remedy shop in Pattaya.
Pattaya Tourist Police swooped on a herbal huckster’s shop on July 7 after a furious Indian holidaymaker said he’d been duped into shelling out 51,000 baht (£1,100) for bogus baldness remedies.
The victim, named only as Ajaykumar, told officers he was strolling near the Baywalk Hotel when three foreign blokes struck up a chat and started banging on about a herbal concoction that could regrow his missing mop.
Seduced by the sales pitch, Ajaykumar followed them to a back-alley store, where he handed over 15,000 baht in cash and transferred another 99,000 rupees for three bottles of murky liquid and four bars of soap.
Only later did he twig he’d been well and truly rinsed, and marched straight to Pattaya City Police Station to file a complaint.
A team led by Lieutenant Colonel Torlap Tinamat of the Tourist Police Division 2 raided the shop in question but found it already abandoned.
So they hit another nearby outlet in Soi 13/2, where they nabbed two Pakistani men and four Thai women flogging similar “herbal” snake oil to unsuspecting tourists.
Police seized bottles of mystery gloop containing butterfly pea powder, coconut oil and other unlabelled ingredients matching the dodgy goods described by the victim, Pattaya News reported.
The six suspects were charged with producing and selling unregistered herbal products and the two foreign nationals were also done for working without a permit.
All were carted off to Pattaya City Police Station along with the fake follicle fixers.
Police say they’re cracking down hard on rogue traders targeting tourists in the seaside party town, where complaints about miracle-cure conmen have been piling up for over a year.
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