Fake Thai Marriage Scam Ruined Him

I traveled to Thailand in 2024 with a group of friends for one week of golfing and the second week to let loose a bit out in Pattaya. I really only went there because I like golfing and I was due for a little break from work.

I had no real interest at all in the nightlife and meeting up with girls, though I did know what kind of place Pattaya was. But I was only going to be there for a week, what’s the worst that can happen? Surely nothing can happen in a week, right? How wrong I was.

Meeting The Thai Girl of My Dreams

After a week of golfing, me and my friends all went out for some drinks. There were about 15 of us, most of us were single and most of them were looking for fun. While eating, this stunning girl walking past said hello to me, and I said hello back. Then one of my friends said, “Come drink with us.” He was obviously joking, but the girl replied, “Are you sure?” So of course he had to say yes.

She came in and sat directly next to me, started asking me questions and we just hit it off really, got along pretty good. She spoke good English and joined us on our little pub crawl. At each bar she would sit with me, with me buying the drinks of course. As the night went on she told me that she had to go and meet some friends, so I gave her my number and told her if she wanted to get together again while I’m here she can text me. I wasn’t expecting to hear from her again, to be honest, because I was a bit older than her and well out of her league. But this is Thailand after all, it’s not all about looks there.

A Perfect Date in Pattaya

The next day, she messaged me telling me she enjoyed coming out with me and thanking me for buying her drinks and being nice to her. I asked if she wanted to meet up again that night, but she said she had to go to a friend’s birthday or something, so we met up the next day in the daytime and spent the whole day together. It was great, couldn’t have gone any better in my opinion. She took me to a temple in Pattaya, no idea the name of it, and then we went to the beach. In my eyes this was a date, and I hadn’t experienced a date this good before. Dates in the UK are not really anything to write home about.

Later that day, she returned to her condo to get changed, and we met up for drinks. She took me to Walking Street to meet some of her friends. Although it was nice to experience Walking Street, it felt like I was in another country and not Thailand, if you know what I mean. After that we went back to the hotel and had an amazing night together. I really had no complaints about that day, it was perfect and to me, so was she.

The Feeling of Falling Hard For A Thai Girl

The next day she told me she wanted to spend the rest of my week there with me. I wanted it also, but I didn’t want to exactly just bin my friends off for her. So after talking to them and telling them about her, they told me to go for it and have fun, but “don’t fall in love.” I thought they were joking, but later I realized I should have taken that to heart and followed through with it.

We spent the rest of the week together, and it was better than I could have ever imagined. She took me on the back of her bike around Pattaya and on the outskirts, can’t remember the name of the area now. She was a really sweet girl, always seemed happy, very talkative and she seemed like the type of woman that wouldn’t harm a fly. By the end of the trip, she didn’t want me to go and was asking me to stay longer so she could spend more time with me. I really wanted to stay longer as well, but with work and life back home, there was no chance I could do it on such short notice. So on the Saturday I had to return to England. She even came to the airport to see me off.

The Long-Distance Girlfriend Process

As soon as I landed in England, I messaged to say I got back safe, and within two minutes she FaceTimed me. She told me that she works as an assistant at some office, though I never did see her there even though she would FaceTime three or four times a day, sometimes for hours on end. My birthday was coming up, and I really wanted to spend it with her, so I asked if she’d like me to come over and spend it with her. She was over the moon with it so we started planning our three-week trip together. We were going to do a week in Pattaya, then a week in Bangkok and finish off the rest of the trip in Phuket.

She did tell me that she was already married to a Thai man but they had split up a long time ago and she was in the process of getting a divorce. I kind of wish that she had told me that while I was there with her, but I guess at the time it was none of my business and at least she’s told me now and they are no longer an item.

The First Red Flag – Asking For Support

All was set and I was preparing for my travels until one night she rang me in hysterics telling me that she couldn’t get in touch with her aunty. She had told me previously that she was raised by her aunty

The problem was that her family lives near the Cambodian border, far away from Pattaya, so I sorted transport out and paid for her to get back home safely. Once she got home she called me from outside the hospital and said that she can’t take her phone inside. She said that her aunty needed 700 pounds for surgery which is about 30 thousand baht. She was crying and telling me she doesn’t know what to do because she can’t afford it and didn’t want to ask me. Feeling sorry for her and seeing her in this state, I offered to pay if it meant her aunty was going to be okay and able to get the surgery done. So I transferred her the money.

She was there for two weeks, then flew back to Bangkok where her ex lived so she could get the divorce process going. After that she went back to Pattaya and continued FaceTiming me and messaging me every day until it was time for me to fly there.

Return to Thailand: The Wedding

The day finally came and off I went back to Thailand. She met me at the airport and she was there with a bunch of flowers. Amazing. I know some romantic guys turn up to the airport with flowers, but I’ve never seen a girl do it, so it felt amazing when it happened to me. We went back to the hotel where we did some catching up for a few hours. She really was amazing, just everything about her, from the way she looked to the way she treated me, a dream woman for me that’s for sure.

We were going out for meals and drinking every night, getting to know each other better. One night in Pattaya while we were out drinking and having fun, she was telling me about her family back home and how life is completely different there. She told me that she would love to move back there but there isn’t much to do and not much work about. I told her that if she wanted we could skip Phuket and Bangkok and go to her family’s home to spend my birthday there. And that’s exactly what we did. She told her family that she was bringing a farang home and told them we would be spending my birthday there.

We rented a car and on the way to her home, she told me that it would be nice if we buy some things for the house as it will show respect for the first time they meet me. I was thinking food and drinks, but no, we ended up stopping at a store where I bought a new mattress, pots and pans, two deck chairs and some other crap. This cost me like 15,000 baht and I hadn’t even got there yet. Looking back, that should have told me the kind of people her family were but I was blinded by love.

When we got to her home it was exactly as she had described but in an amazing way. Yes it was extremely boring but it was right up my street, basic, quiet, chilled. It’s certainly a way that I could live. I met all the family and we partied and drank all night. We spent two days at her family home with lots of her family. It seemed like her family just kept turning up, there was no end of people coming and introducing themselves to me, even though hardly any of them spoke English.

The day of my birthday, my girlfriend asked me if I wanted to do anything special or just stay at the family house again celebrating and drinking. Trying to be smart and make her laugh I said, “Let’s just get married.” This was obviously a joke on my side but she replied with a big smile and said, “Really?” Now I was in deep, but everything felt so right so I said sure. I figured it wouldn’t be any time soon and we would have time to at least talk about it and plan it properly. However that night while sat eating and drinking with her aunty and some other family members, she brought up us getting married. They wanted to have a Thai-style wedding there and then while I was in Thailand. They told me it wasn’t an official wedding and we could have a proper one at a later date. As it wasn’t super official in the eyes of the law but meant a lot to Thais, I agreed to it and went through with it.

Then the dowry came up and they told me what I had to do for it. I had never even heard about a dowry until then. I even Googled it while I went to the toilet just to find out if it’s actually a legit thing in Thailand, turns out it was. So a dowry was agreed at two hundred thousand baht, and I also had to buy gold for around 50 thousand baht. All the wedding was set up, organized and blessed by the monks the following Saturday, talk about living in the moment.

The day of the wedding came. I walked down the street followed by lots of people from the village and had the day of my dreams. I was thinking that I had moved way too fast, in fact I already knew that, but I thought she was actually the girl of my dreams so just like that, we were married.

The Cracks Appear

We partied all night again and spent the rest of the week in the village. Although I had wanted to go through with everything and had the best time of my life so far, I started to see the cracks almost instantly. Every day she wanted money for something, and it wasn’t small money either. She wasn’t asking for a thousand baht for this or that, she was asking for amounts like five to ten thousand, and this was every day. Money was disappearing like water.

When it was all coming to an end and we traveled to Bangkok for my last couple of nights in Thailand, we discussed what was going to happen next. She wanted to go back and live in her village. She didn’t want to stay in Pattaya and she didn’t like her job, so we discussed it and agreed that I would give her 200 pounds a week which is like 8,000 baht I think, nothing serious but more than enough to live where she was. In the meantime while I was back at home, we applied for a visa for her to come and visit England. She went to Bangkok, did all the tests and paperwork and submitted whatever it is she needed and that was it, then you just have to wait for the decision from the embassy.

The Games Begin

It was when she got back home that all the games started. She and a family member wanted to start a food store together but they needed money for a new car and two food carts. I told her no and that we had to save money because if she is granted a visa to the UK then we will need money and everything is a lot more expensive here than it is there. She got upset and angry and actually blocked me from everywhere like a child. I literally had no way of contacting her. Seeing how easy it was for her to block me when she didn’t get her own way should have been another red flag for me and a chance for me to walk away. I probably should have done that actually, blocked her like she did me and just left things and walked away.

On the Friday night, I was still blocked from everywhere and heard nothing from her so I thought, “Forget this, I’m going out for a drink with the lads.” It just so happened that she FaceTimed me as I arrived at the bar, telling me she is sorry and asking where I was. When I told her I was at the bar she went crazy at me, accusing me of having another woman, saying that I don’t love her and I can just go with this new woman that didn’t even exist. She hung up on me and after that my phone started going crazy—message after message. She then sent me a video message of her laughing at me while she is stood next to a brand new car and items for her new business, saying things like she had sold all the gold I gave for the wedding and used the dowry money to pay for everything. I replied and told her what I think of her and how deceiving she is, and then once again I was blocked from everywhere.

The Cycle of Manipulation From Thai Women

The following Thursday, I woke up again to a flood of messages and missed calls. I called her back and she was sobbing saying that she is sorry and how much she misses me, how much she regrets selling the gold as it meant so much to her. I caved and gave in to her. I sent her 1,500 pounds to get the gold back as she had pawned it. We chatted for a week, we were okay. Things seemed like it was going back to being civil but then I had trouble contacting her when it was nighttime for her. I found out through one of her family members that she was just drinking every night in the village until the morning and then practically sleeping all day. It started to do my head in because during our phone calls in the day she hardly spoke and just looked out of it, and at nighttime I never heard from her so I questioned her about it. I told her to stop drinking every night, she went mad at me again and yet again blocked me.

About a week later she unblocked me and called me as if nothing happened and everything was fine. During the call I could see she looked different, turns out she had those lip injections that girls get to make their lips look bigger. I mean, I didn’t mind how she looked but in my eyes it’s just a waste of money. I told her that I should come back to Thailand for a bit because clearly she was going down the wrong path and just spending money like it’s nothing. She told me not to worry and that she will sort herself out, and told me not to book any tickets yet. She didn’t want me to come to Thailand yet but she asked me to increase the money that I would give her each week.

She wanted 300 pounds a week now instead of 200. I know it’s still not a lot of money but in her village where she lives, nobody needs that amount of money. I asked her why she needed this much money and she claimed that her aunty is using most of the money for the house and leaves my girl with next to nothing. I personally didn’t believe that story at all. When I was there her aunty did not seem the type of woman that cared that much about money. I think my girl just needed an excuse. I said we agreed on 200 pounds, and she started screaming down the phone like a crazy woman and guess what? That’s right, she blocked me for another week.

After a week when she didn’t unblock me, I stupidly gave in and sent her 300 instead of 200 like she asked. That got me unblocked and I woke up to all the lovey romantic messages. Though this time I was not getting any video calls, it was just text messages and even then it wasn’t many messages a day. It was hard to hold a conversation with her. Then I turned into the bad guy. Everything was my fault, she was always complaining and I was always the cause of this. Again I told her to let me come over to Thailand so we can be together for a bit, talk everything through and just be happy together again. She was having none of it, telling me now is not a good time to come over and that she is unsure of what she wants anymore. She claimed to be confused and said that we should have waited before committing to each other properly. I mean, I agree we shouldn’t have had a wedding ceremony so soon, but that was her idea, not mine. I would have been more than happy to wait, so I’m not sure how that is my fault.

The Price of Love In Thailand

She claimed that money is really tight now she is not working and her food cart business never actually got anywhere, so she said to continue our relationship, I would have to pay 1,500 pounds per month, 60 thousand baht. She really just made it so clear that I have to pay to be in a relationship. I understood sending her money to support her because technically she was my Thai wife, but the way she talks it’s like I really do have to pay to be in a relationship. I said there is not a chance I’m sending an extra 60,000 baht just to be with a girl that I thought loved me. She ignored me for days and then texted me saying it’s okay that I can’t pay that much and that 10,000 a week is okay. I kept this up for about a month, but the messages were getting less frequent, shorter and I hardly heard from her some days. Now I was starting to get fed up with everything. So I messaged, “Listen, you can’t keep acting like this. It’s not fair to keep me waiting for nothing. I want to know, do you love me or not? Please just be honest with me.” She replied the next day, “Yes, I love you.” That was it. Even when I responded to it, she read my reply but did not even bother to message back.

The Final Blow

Literally the day after she texted me telling me she loved me, I woke up to a message saying, “I can’t live like this anymore. I need a man that is willing to send me more money and take care of me better. I won’t message you again, goodbye.” I really couldn’t believe what I was reading. She made it sound like I did nothing to support her. I had spent a hell of a lot of money trying to make this work and was willing to spend even more if it meant that we would be good in the long run. I haven’t spoken to her since, blocked on everything. She never did unblock me after a week this time. Her aunt and family members also blocked me from Facebook and everywhere else. I guess they heard that the ATM is no longer in service and didn’t see any good use for me anymore.

The Dark Aftermath

For a month my life was really crap. I was in such a dark place. I didn’t go out, I didn’t go and see friends, I spoke to nobody, just kept everything bottled up inside. I don’t know if it was because of the heartache I felt or the embarrassment that I was stupid enough to allow something like this to happen to me. After a month, she unblocked me on Facebook, not to message me or contact me, she just wanted me to see that she changed her profile picture, and in the sunglasses you can see the person taking the picture which is clearly another foreign guy. It felt deliberate. Like she knew I would look. Like she wanted me to see it and sit there thinking about it. That’s how much I think her mind is twisted.

Now I’m grieving and cannot do anything about it. She has already moved on or had never moved on from whoever this guy was. Either way, I was no longer in her life anymore. I kept telling myself to leave it alone and stop checking, but when your head is a mess you don’t always do the smart thing. I was barely sleeping, just lying there going over everything in my mind. So with a bit of digging around online during my dark state, I found some photos of her on her friend’s Facebook profile. She was never working as an assistant in Pattaya at all. Can you guess where she was working? I’d give you three guesses but you would only need one. Yep, she was a bar girl. The outfits, the bar background, the way she was posing, it all made sense straight away. All those FaceTimes, all the stories about the office job, it was just a complete lie. Then a couple of days later I checked her profile again like a heartbroken school kid and she had put up a new photo with a new man, a Westerner. It blew my world apart.

Counting the Cost

It’s been the best and worst year of my life. I truly thought that I had found happiness when I first met her. She was everything I could have asked for. She had everything that I looked for in a partner. All the smiles, the sweet words, the way she made me feel special when we first met. I bought into all of it without thinking twice. Realizing she was only with me for the money and that everything was probably set up from the moment she laid eyes on me hurt more than I can describe. I’ve never been so low. For a while I just felt empty. Work didn’t matter, friends didn’t matter, nothing really did. It was like I’d built my whole future around someone who was never really there.

It really did ruin me, and my world fell apart going through all of this. On the bright side, she could have actually scammed me for a lot more if she carried on pretending to be in love with me, so I guess there is that. I did miss a lot of the story out to make it as short as possible but when I worked the money out, she had about 35,000 pounds off me, and that would convert to about 1.5 million baht. I am not rich and I don’t exactly make great money from my job, so 35,000 quid is a lot of money for me.

A Warning to Others

I am sure there are not many people out there that will make the same stupid mistakes I made but still, be careful, guys. They are the best liars about.

Just to add a bit extra that I forgot to mention, while doing some searching about her, I found out that I am her fourth foreigner that she has had a Thai wedding ceremony with. God knows how much money she managed to get from them as well. I have many friends in England with Thai wives. They are so happy together and nice people. I guess I just found the wrong one.

Thanks,
Jay from the UK