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My wife and I are Irish and decided on taking a big holiday on the advice our of kids both of whom had been to Thailand. On our second day (7th June 2007) in Bangkok my wife and I had got off the sky train at Siam and were making our way to the MBK Centre for some shopping, A very well spoken local lady walked up beside us and engaged us in small talk. "Where are you from" "where are you going" She tried to convince us that far better value could be obtained from an international exporter who was only opening to the public on that day. She was willing to organise a Tuk Tuk for us. After some hesitation we declined.
We had walked a further 50 yards towards the MBK Centre when another very friendly person (male this time) approached with a similar story. Our defences were weakened as we felt that there must be some truth to what was being said to us, A Tuk Tuk was organised and next we found ourselves being delivered to the Manhattan Tailors at 455/42-45 Rama Road.
We were led into a room on our own where two of the staff got to work on convincing us of the merits of purchasing custom made cloths from them. The product would be high class, made of the best materials and of course they had a huge amount of repeat business. To make a long story short, after about a hour of being soft soaped , being constantly reassured of the their integrity and that we would be very satisfied we agreed to go ahead. This turned out to a very expensive and distressing mistake.
My wife paid 23,500 THB for two suits , a blouses and one skirt. I paid 12,500 BHT for a suit and two shirts and a tie. We realise now that we paid hugely over the odds. The measurement were taken and we both gave instructions on what we wanted.
It was obvious from the first fitting two weeks later ( we travelled to Chiang Mai and PHI PHI), at their premises, that we were in trouble. My suit was completely different from what I had ordered. I made this quite clear and was told that it would be altered to my satisfaction. My wife’s suits were far too tight.
The next two fitting, conveniently for them happened at our hotel. I suspect that they did not want us at their premises again in case we upset other innocent targets.
The night before our departure the clothes were left at reception in the same state as they has been presented at the last fitting the night before.
I rang their premises the morning of our departure and asked that someone contact us. Nobody did. I have emailed these ‘low life’s ‘ and expressed complete dissatisfaction with their product. I propose to pursue any avenue open to me to get my money back. I have made initial contact with MasterCard. They operate a system called Chargeback. However am unlikely to succeed due to lack of purchase documentation.
While my wife’s clothes might be able to be adjusted locally, at extra expense, my suit is so badly made that it will never be worn. I would have better off buying a suit in the local Mark and Spenser’s.
The whole experience nearly ruined our holidays and has left us with very bad impression of Thailand. At the very least tourists should be warned to be constantly on their guard from approaches from such ‘nice’ people and the entrapment techniques used by such tailors. The inexperience tourist in Thailand is constantly targeted.
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This also happened to my boyfriend and I on our trip. I believe it was our first or second day there (July 1st or 2nd, 2007) when we were approached on our wat to the Grand Palace by a 'nice' local w/ suggestions on where to go. After ended up at Voglee Export Tailors and purchasing the suits we started to think we might have been scammed and looked them up online. We found out that many others had been caught up in a similar scam. Because of this we were afraid we would be shipped nothing. My credit card has already charged but I am going to attempt to dispute the charge. We'll see what happens.