Scam Alert! Border Crossing at Krong Koah Kong Cambodia into Thailand
If you happen to take the "VET" (Virak-Buntham Express Travel) bus to this crossing it is likely that a creepy little man will be allowed to load all of your bags onto a cart from your bus and scurry across the border before you are able to disembark and have your passport stamped. Once you've cleared Cambodian and Thai customs you will find him on the Thailand side with a pile of bags for which he will demand sizable gratuity to relinquish. (Imaging the agony he saved you by carting your backpack 100 feet.... and leaving your pack in the rain.) I was disgusted to see the number of tourists who where actually willing to give money to this dildo. PLEASE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR! This is a scam, and if you contribute to it's profitability life is only made miserable for your fellow vagabonds.
If someone does this to you, just take your bag and tell the perpetrator to kiss your ass.
Okay, this was total bullshit. This little cretin basically stole our bags as they were being unloaded from the bus while the passengers were still stuck onboard. We got off the bus to see our bags being trucked in the rain to god knows where. Since we had yet to go through customs and whatnot, we were completely unable to follow or protest. Then, after all the customs and immigration junk was completed, we caught up with our now soggy bags, and this little fuck monkey demands cash from us. Not just once, not twice, not even three times, but four separate times. Any of the brainless morons who actually gave this buttpipe money paid him to steal their bags and hold them for ransom. Very much not cool. Perhaps I should start paying random people not to mug me or sending cash to televangelists. Same diff.
I posted a link to this on Lonely Planet Thorn Tree and got some pretty emotional responses. What's interesting is most of it consisted of apologist rhetoric for the thief!!!
I agree with your position, but your outrage seemed a bit over the top, hence my comment. All I can say is that the trip must have been fantastic if the boarder bastard was that bad.
Our comments were obviously meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Why not be over the top and have a little fun with it? But yeah, the trip was indeed fantastic.
My post was intended to be a little overboard and very sarcastic. Of course it wasn't a really big deal, merely a minor annoyance. However, having anyone simply walk off with a cartload of bags that do not belong to him should be a cause for concern for any of the people involved. My true ire is directed to the people who paid him, effectively reinforcing his unacceptable behavior. I was also unhappy with his repeated and extended requests for money, as though we would simply pay him to go away. The trip was indeed amazing, I found the vast majority of the people we came into contact with exceedingly polite and easy to deal with. It made the luggage scammer stand out that much more; I'm sure the locals would have people notice the culture and kindness of their country and not remember some loafer trying to mooch off gullible tourists.
