The Half Thai Australian and the Sydney Relationship Scam
I am half Thai myself born in Bangkok to a Thai mother and Australian father but raised in Sydney. I can’t read or write Thai but I can speak the language fluently comparable to a high school student. There are some topics that I don’t have a vocabulary for mainly adult concepts such as politics the economy and formal news. However as a quick summary on my Thai language skills when speaking to a local over the phone they can’t tell that I’m not full Thai.
My story starts towards late 2019 in Sydney Australia. I worked at a great job as head of my department and every Friday the team and I would head to our local pub. There a beautiful Thai girl always caught my attention. She was a female bartender and cocktail waitress possibly a hostess now. When I say beautiful I mean modelesque. She has over 50000 followers on her Instagram and is very well known in the Thai community in Sydney winning beauty pageants in the past. I visited the pub and saw her around six to eight times but never interacted with her apart from saying thank you when she brought us our meals and drinks.
The Clever Approach
One Friday work drinks were cancelled because of some heavy rain. Everyone else went home but I had some time to kill and I saw an opportunity to introduce myself to her. I already knew she was Thai as I had heard her speaking over the phone previously. On this particular Friday I was a bit nervous to approach her directly and so I had concocted a small plan.
I decided to walk into the bar after calling a Thai friend over the phone. I spoke with him in Thai hoping that I would attract her attention. It worked. When I finished talking with my friend I approached the bar and ordered a beer. She asked me in Thai “Are you Thai? You don’t look Thai.” And this is how it all started.
After chatting with her for about ten minutes asking her the usual questions and responding to the same I felt that we had great chemistry. I told her that I wanted to take her to dinner and she should join me next Friday night. She agreed noting that every other man would ask her but I am the first man to tell her which she liked and she gave me her number.
Over the course of the next week we chatted periodically over texts. She always initiated the conversation first and was always very polite over messages not flirtatious but very engaged.
On my Instagram she came up as a suggestion as someone I may know. This generally happens when you save someone’s number on your phone and allow the app permissions to make these recommendations. I did some digital stalking went through her profile and looked at all her images. I remember noting to myself that I must have hit the jackpot well known well respected beautiful looks like she’s part of high society or is upper class definitely not a working girl.
The First Date and the Boss’s Wingman Shenanigans
On the Friday I booked a table by the water at a very upscale seafood restaurant. They were my client and so they always treated me and my staff with great benefits. She turned up about twenty minutes late. I didn’t mind as she had the courtesy to tell me well in advance and it was a good trait in my eyes.
I had told my boss prior that I was going on a date with this woman and he decided to book another table nearby with one of my other colleagues. He was going to help wingman and had his own plan. I was curious and he is a top dude and we were close so I didn’t have any doubts on what he was planning.
So when she and I sat down the conversation was flowing. We were talking in a mix of Thai and English fluently. She was educated having a bachelor’s degree from Thailand‘s most exclusive university and had obviously learned English from a young age. She came from a very good family and had class in how she conducted herself.
It was about an hour before the food arrived this was intentional on my part. I told the waiter in advance before she arrived that I wanted to talk to her for at least an hour before any food showed up. We continued talking while eating and when the meal finished the owner of the restaurant came up to our table introduced himself to her as my friend and gave us a very expensive $500 bottle of wine on the house. I knew this was the shenanigans of my boss he was the one who was personal friends with the owner not me and so was the one who organized this. I looked over in his direction and he gave me a wink. She was very impressed and we had a wonderful evening.
When it was time to end the night I decided to walk her about twenty minutes home. At this point we were both quite tipsy we had both shared an impressive three bottles of fine red wine over the course of four hours. When we arrived at her place I decided to say goodnight but she insisted that I come in for a nightcap. I wasn’t expecting her to invite me inside but honestly I was hoping for it.
We ended up sleeping together that night and in the morning she followed me home and ended up staying with me at my place for three more nights. She was very embarrassed noting that she has never slept with someone so quickly “a slut a slut a slut” she said. She has only had three partners and it was months of being in a relationship with them until she slept with them. She stated that I was clearly different and that she very much wanted to be with me. She followed me home because she was afraid I would just use her for a one night stand noting that I seem like someone who would date pretty women often which was not true. She was my first date in two years. However I can understand where she was coming from.
The Conversation Begins
This is when some red flags or alarm bells started ringing for me. I needed to be careful but at the same time I was excited that someone that is an 11 out of 10 in beauty is with someone who is just a five out of ten me.
The Traditional Thai Wife Too Good to Be True
Over the course of the three nights she stayed with me I always came home to a clean house cooked warm meals clothing washed and dried and a very warm embrace. She made me breakfast each morning. I told her on our first day that I am looking for a traditional relationship I wanted to find someone who will support me working twelve hours six days a week and them taking ownership of anything domestic in nature. She was looking for this traditional relationship too. This made me very excited.
After the three nights she went home. We talked every day getting to know each other more and more for a few months. We would see each other on the weekend spending time hiking our mutual favorite pastime going to nice restaurants and generally spending quality time with one another.
Then COVID hit. We went into lockdown. She had lost her job at the bar because it had to temporarily close and she couldn’t support herself. Ah shit here we go again. She also didn’t earn any income on her Instagram anymore as her niche for content was within restaurants and clubs which also all temporarily closed. She was unable to pay rent or bills and was at risk of being flown back overseas.
I decided to invite her to come and live with me. She moved in within the week bringing her boxes of expensive clothes luxury handbags luxury shoes another red flag for me.
The Red Flags Keep Coming
Over the course of the next six months we got to know each other more deeply and more intimately. Even though she was treating me well at face value and being of the nature of a very traditional Thai wife many red flags kept popping up.
The first thing was her age. I thought she was in her early twenties. I was 27 years old at the time. She looks incredibly youthful. My friends and I were shocked to learn that she was 36. She thought I was in my mid thirties because of my job and the way I conduct myself. Okay I noted this but found it strange that someone at her age with her prospects and beauty was still single.
She was on a student visa and because she didn’t have a job anymore the only way to keep her in the country was to continue paying her education bills while she attended university remotely. I did this not quite a red flag at the time as it was necessary considering the circumstances around COVID.
She started talking about a dowry if we were to ever get married. I am familiar with the concept because I am also half Thai but the money she was proposing for me to pay her parents was ten times the expected amount. We got into a massive argument over this.
In Thailand as some of your audience may be aware it is expected that the man pays a dowry fee to the family when taking the daughter away from them. This has been quite normal and part of the culture for a very long time. Thailand doesn’t have many social welfare benefits and generally the daughter would take care of the parents in old age. Taking her away from the family means the parents won’t have a retirement safety plan and so a dowry is expected to be paid for their loss.
When considering a dowry you would take into account the education level age job prospects virginity status beauty family status social class and more of the bride-to-be. I had secretly consulted a dowry specialist and they concluded that her dowry would be around the 1 million baht mark. She was asking for 10 million baht.
The Dowry Argument
At the end of the argument I put my foot down 1 million baht maximum but we will speak about it again if it does come to me asking her to marry me. She cried she screamed she compared herself to her friends in Thailand and how much they got for their dowry. I just was not having it.
The Lease and the Immediate Change
Our life continued during COVID lockdown. Besides that one argument everything else was great. Six months had passed and my current lease agreement was about to expire. I decided to take advantage of the lockdown and look for a better place to live at a more affordable lockdown rate. Landlords were competing with each other at this time and so everything was very cheap.
So I ended up finding a new place bigger better more modern yet more affordable than my current place and she insisted that her name be put on the lease. This is generally used as evidence of a relationship for Australian immigration if we later decide to move her from a student visa to a partner visa. Other forms of evidence immigration would look for would be photos together on social media shared bills etc. However because of lockdown we didn’t have many photos together only a few from before lockdown hit but nothing put publicly.
After we moved into the new place there was an immediate change in her attitude and behavior. She became lazy lounging around all day not being productive. She spent more than ten hours a day on her phone playing games or watching social media videos. No more prepared meals no clean house no chores being done on time.
After a month of clutter and her mess built up around the house I asked her about it and she apologized with an excuse saying she has been feeling unwell but that it wouldn’t happen again. Things improved maybe 80% back to what her effort was before. It dwindled again and I brought it up yet again a month later. This continued where each time there was slight improvement but it always dwindled back down while she became more unruly more aggressive with lots of shouting and crying from her part.
At the same time I could tell that this woman was not what she portrayed herself to be in the initial periods of knowing her. I didn’t want to argue or deal with her unruliness and aggression anymore. I didn’t want to deal with her constant crying and shouting and her excuses that she is feeling more and more unwell with each passing month. I remained patient.
The Devastating Diagnosis She Wasn’t Lying
Now almost a year goes by and the lockdown was finally over. Things started to open up again. The lease on this new place was approaching its end and I told her that I wanted to break up as things didn’t improve. I was going to find my own place again and I suggested she find a new job restart her Instagram and find her own place.
She cried and begged not to break up blaming COVID blaming feeling unwell and blaming the feeling of being trapped for the past year not being able to go out because of government curfews and lockdown. Everything was out of place and she felt depressed not being her normal self and not motivated to do anything. I called her out on this and asked her why she didn’t communicate any of this earlier and she responded by not wanting me to come home from work and worry me with more problems at home. She said she is ready to settle down and she wanted to be with me. At the time I was empathetic to this and so we renewed our lease for two years cheaper rates to renew two years instead of one.
She continued to be lazy. Her health was apparently getting worse and nothing improved. She didn’t contribute to the relationship at all. I was paying for her school her bills everything. The difference is that now there is no more lockdown she was leaving the house three nights a week to go to dinners with her friends go drinking or go clubbing (yes at 36 years of age) and in general she was just going out and about. Major red flag to me at this point as she still doesn’t have any income. How was she able to afford any of this? This went on for about two months.
Until one day she asked me to take her to the doctor’s. Her health and I use these with quotation marks was apparently getting worse and worse. Honestly I thought it was a combination of her excuses and going out and binge drinking so often as to why it was getting worse. We went to see a doctor. They quoted strange symptoms. They had a full analysis of her body and blood work done etc. It turns out that she does have problems and the doctor referred us to a specialist.
Wow. Turns out she has a neurodegenerative disease with no cure. Scans and MRI confirmed all of this. She has multiple sclerosis advancing quickly. Oh my Buddha I am an arsehole. She was not lying at all. I thought she was just leeching and mooching off me for months. No she was losing motor function. She was losing control of her nervous system. Over time she will eventually be in a wheelchair and she will be disabled. She was out and about enjoying drinking because alcohol calms the nervous system and she isn’t in pain whenever she drinks.
The Spiral Binge Drinking Missed Meetings and a Curfew
Many occasions after receiving this devastating news she would return home incredibly drunk at 4 or 5 in the morning wake me up when I have work the next day and I end up having to hold her hair back while she vomits in the toilet. This happened at least once per week.
One evening she came home and kept me up all night and I missed a very important meeting the next day something that cost me $6000 as I needed to extend hotel stays for some clients due to my non attendance to the meeting. This was my last straw.
Because of her health and because of her behavior I set a curfew for her. I never texted her never called her while she was out I am not the jealous type but from then on I told her she must be home before midnight. I realized that she had a binge drinking problem exacerbated by the multiple sclerosis. I remember she told me she was ready to settle down. This behavior is not being ready to settle down. This is behavior from a teenager.
She apologized and cried and agreed to this new rule. I told her that in order for us to move forward she needs to behave like an adult not a teenager and she needs to focus on her health. If she doesn’t try I won’t help anymore.
So weeks went by and after that last point she didn’t go out at all. Things improved at home. She showed more effort in domestic chores albeit at not doing the harder more laborious tasks like vacuuming or deep cleaning the bathroom I started doing that. Things were going well despite the health issues and things seemed to improve slowly.
I was paying for her education and I was also now paying for her health. It was incredibly expensive because she is an international and not a citizen she doesn’t receive the same healthcare benefits as Australians. Each appointment was $800 each blood work ordered was $400 the experimental medication was also expensive it was an oral form of chemotherapy. I was spending all together around $2500 per month inclusive of monthly nails and her salon treatment to help keep her sane. I was also periodically buying her expensive gifts such as a new MacBook jewelry shoes and more. I love this girl and I feel like an arsehole for not believing her before when she was complaining about her health getting worse. I was happy to support her.
Two Years of Stability
This continued for a stable year. We were now about two years into our relationship at this point and everything seemed good. We spent a lot of time going out together. I was taking her to nice restaurants I took her overseas and she would take a lot of photos showing off on her Instagram the nice life she was having. She was still going out to dinner with friends and when she parted she always came home around curfew. She did not binge drink anymore. There were some occasions where she had to travel solo back home to Thailand and to Singapore for work related stuff helping her brother of which her brother always paid for her tickets. Sometimes she was gone for a week at a time. No biggie I also travel for work for a week at a time so I understood.
The Night She Didn’t Come Home
Now one night when everything was seemingly going well she randomly went out and didn’t come home by midnight. I texted her but no response but I could see that she left my message on read. I called her no answer but I could see her posting on Instagram after I attempted to call her so I know she had seen my missed calls. She did not end up coming home that night. I was disappointed and frustrated. When she had eventually come home late the next day she did not even apologize. She said nothing.
Now all the red flags started to come to me stuff that I had not picked up on before. Anytime that she went out to dinner with me or her friends in the past she always posted content. When she was with her girlfriends they would always be in the content with her. However I was never in her content. I started questioning myself. What about the time she posted content at dinners where her friends were not in that content was she actually with other men? I re asked myself similar to before how was she affording this with no job? Was she now earning income from her Instagram again?
I brought this up to her. She assured me that the reason I wasn’t ever on her Instagram is that her Instagram is portraying only her it’s her work. She wants to appear independent and single it’s better for clout. I brought up the evidence that immigration would eventually ask for social media posts together. She said the rental lease would be enough her friend has done the same thing in the past. I was not satisfied with that answer.
From that moment on especially because she went missing for one night I always asked her who she was meeting. If she was truly meeting with her girlfriends she always used their names. Many occasions she would just say she is meeting with “her friend” and I know what this means.
So I suggested to her now that she is earning money again through her Instagram perhaps she should start contributing to the bills especially when it relates to the education and health costs. She became immediately angry saying that in Asian cultures the man always pays for everything. I rebutted her and said that I have been but if she wants me to assimilate into Asian and Thai culture more wanting me to pay her dowry in future and she wants to live in Australia she would also assimilate into Western culture and values too. This is only fair. I found it a very logical argument. I asked her to contribute $200 per week and she started screaming and refused.
The Unlocked Phone The Truth Revealed
Over the course of the following weeks things deteriorated again. She was going out more again returning to her old habits. She stopped contributing domestically entirely and did not come home before curfew.
One night she came home incredibly drunk and passed out in the bed. She left her phone unlocked. I took this as an opportunity to go through it. I went through all her messages on her phone her Instagram everything.
The whole time we were in a relationship she was seeing other people. She was going on dates with other men. She had been asking multiple men to also help her with medical and educational bills. Here I am shocked and heartbroken. I had been paying for everything and she was leading on all these men to transfer her money which she would pocket herself. She never received income from her Instagram. All the posts were not content that restaurants paid for or sponsored it was content from dates that she had gone on of which the men paid for.
Literally more than 200 different Western men. Even before we were dating. The time she went overseas to help her brother with his work were all rich men paying her to come visit them. She was scamming vulnerable and desperate people out of their money. She was essentially a secret high class escort. None of the messages indicated she slept with any of them in fact many of these messages were angry at her for not doing so saying they gave her so much but never put out but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did for some.
Now I understand where all her luxury items come from she has a Rolex luxury handbags shoes and jewelry. There were times she came back from overseas from “helping her brother” where I found receipts in her luggage for items worth thousands.
I was irate and disgusted but I knew now that I had to remain levelheaded. I never told her I saw all her messages. I kept it to myself. I airdropped screenshots to myself and deleted the screenshots from her phone afterwards and made sure everything carried on as normal.
Researching the Enemy A Clever Narcissist
Over the next few days I asked around in the Thai network as I mentioned she is very well known here in Sydney. I managed to get in contact with her ex. I talked to them asked them for their side. It was the same my girlfriend was apparently abusive secretive manipulative and every relationship she had left a trail of destruction. However because of her status in the community no one says anything for fear of backlash. There have been occasions where she destroyed people’s reputations using her following. She used all her partners in her prior relationships.
This is when I realized she is a very clever narcissist probably even a sociopath. For her to reach a point of status in a foreign country have tens of thousands of fans and followers and control the narrative with so many other men at the same time and receive income secretly is a testament to her intelligence. I was scared. What should I do if this ends badly? She could ruin my reputation within the large Thai network in Sydney. I started thinking on what one might call an exit strategy.
The Exit Strategy Two Years of Patience
So I let her do her thing for a few more weeks while I planned. She was about to finish or fail her current degree and hence the student visa was about to expire. I brought this up with her and said that I was so close to having a deposit on my own place if she could take over her education and health bills temporarily maybe pay $500 a week to help with rent just for three months then I can buy a place. She can renew her student visa for another two years but we can start the process of transferring her to a partner visa. She doesn’t even need to attend all the lectures she just needs to pass until the new visa kicks in.
In Australia you can transfer visas during another active one. She asked if I was going to propose soon and I said to be patient let me buy the house first. She even with no shame brought up a prenup and asked if I was going to make her sign one. I said no no need I want to spend the rest of my life with you I trust you. She was excited and happily agreed. In her mind she would have thought that I was going to propose and she would have a claim to the house and half my assets after marriage. What is three months of her paying her own bills when she could get hundreds of thousands of dollars down the line? A great investment in her mind.
Now I did some prior research before talking about the above with her. I found out that if someone has an incurable disease and it costs the Australian taxpayer more than the threshold to support them on Medicare then they will never be granted permanent residency here even if married. I knew this.
Three months passed by and we talked to many immigration lawyers and agents. They all said the same thing we cannot transfer her visa. She will never be able to get permanent residency until there is a cure for her multiple sclerosis. Trouble is for her she has now locked into the two year student visa and she can’t abandon it either. She has failed every prior degree on each student visa she has been on and this was her final student visa to successfully complete otherwise she will be banned for life from ever returning to Australia on this visa. Yes she always failed every single course in the past. She was using the system to remain in Australia but never genuinely attempted the courses to pass. I already knew this but of course feigned ignorance but this was part of my plan.
I immediately broke up with her under the guise of being shocked and upset. “I’m sorry we cannot have a life together here anymore. I hope there will be a cure so we can be married in the future.”
Now at this point I also know she won’t be able to find a new place to rent. She doesn’t earn a standard paycheck she scams people for money so she doesn’t have a taxable income to prove to a real estate agent that she can support herself. She doesn’t want to go back to working at a bar. I continue to say that I won’t be able to help you with your bills anymore now that we are broken up. “I realize that now we aren’t together and you won’t be able to find a new place to live it’s best that we just live together as roommates and you can pay half the bills.” She reluctantly agrees. She’s locked into her new visa so she doesn’t have a choice.
A Difficult Night in Bangkok
I obviously didn’t end up buying a place for myself but she never brought it up. I don’t want her to know where I would live and I wouldn’t want her energy inside the walls of my new house.
Now for the next two years I patiently pretended everything was fine that we are still good friends. I lied and told my friends and family about the no permanent visa situation above and they gave me their sympathies. But in reality I wanted all the money I have ever spent on her back in my pocket.
Over the next two years we split the bills. At the end of the two years the roughly $60000 I had spent on her in the prior two years had been paid in full from her contributions of $600 a week after the breakup. I would have lived by myself anyway and paid the full rent on my own but hey at least I was getting my money back slowly over time.
Now in that two year period after the breakup she ended up finding another rich man very quickly to scam. She spent a lot of time away from our rental she only spent one maximum two days a week at home and spent the rest with him. It was probably his money that was paying for her current rent to me but I didn’t care anymore. I had the whole place to myself most of the time and she was paying her rent.
During this time when she was seeing this other person I recorded every phone conversation I had with her every argument just to protect myself. After one heated argument I ended up recording her admitting that she was using this new man for his money and that she isn’t going to tell him that she has multiple sclerosis and she will never be able to get permanent residency or that she will be returning to Thailand when her current visa expires. I kept all the recordings just as a backup plan if she tries to do anything against me. There is a lot I can bank for evidence if needed especially relating to her committing fraud to the Australian education system and scamming many people.
It has now been about three weeks since she moved back to Thailand. I am now free. All her friends and even my friends and family believe that it just didn’t work out because of her health issues and not being able to get permanent residency. In reality I escaped the clutches of a sociopath with all my money back without having her followers or network target me or any reputation destruction from her part. Two years pretending everything was okay. Two years of remaining patient.
What the Traveler Learned
She told her new man that she had to go back for an emergency. He continues to send her gifts and material pleasures of which she posts on her Instagram pretending that she bought them herself.
In summary she was a narcissist and a sociopath that relied on scamming vulnerable Western men to keep her lifestyle to show off on her Instagram. Everyone believes she is independently successful and that she maintains her lifestyle by modeling and influencing on the platform but I know the truth. She is still unaware that I know.
Now the only other good thing that came out of this whole experience apart from getting all my money back is that her own friends spread information fast like wildfire. When she left Sydney permanently I am now known to the men in the Thai community here as the champion who dated the hottest Thai girl and known to the women as the sweet man who took care of her during her health issues. It has opened new doors for me.
Be careful out there guys evil comes in many different forms. All the best.
