General Reports

[Explorer8939]

Never experienced it, but last couple of years I usually I pay via my phone in Thailand. Even the barfines. If you have a thai bank account, you can use the ubiquitous QR-code system which even the local coconut sellers on the street have, and if not, most credit cards can be loaded into google pay / google wallet, or apple pay for iphone users.

I have bank account info for many ladies in my rotation and pay via bank transfer.

This worked out badly for a lady last night when she went home. Her young Thai boyfriend demanded cash, which she didn't have, and got so violent she left her room and came back to my place to sleep.

[The Cane]

I was in Bangkok last week and found out that some of the Starbucks locations do not accept cash payments anymore. They only accept credit card payments. This was around BTS station Siam.
Has anyone else experienced this, either in Bangkok or somewhere else? It was rather annoying because I do not carry around my credit card all the time.
Luckily the Starbucks locations that I visit the most (in Soi 2 and Terminal 21) still accept cash.

I have read posts from other members here who claim they have patronized establishments in different parts of the world where only a credit card was accepted. No cash. In all my many travels around the world this has never happened to me. There have been times when I was told no credit cards and cash only. But never the other way around. Still waiting (shrugs). When on a mongering trip I greatly prefer cash. It's quick and easy and everyone takes it, at least in my experience! And it helps me to better stay within my travel budget too versus just whipping out the metal (my preferred cards are all metal now versus plastic).

[Werqweq]

I was in Bangkok last week and found out that some of the Starbucks locations do not accept cash payments anymore. They only accept credit card payments. This was around BTS station Siam.
Has anyone else experienced this, either in Bangkok or somewhere else? It was rather annoying because I do not carry around my credit card all the time.
Luckily the Starbucks locations that I visit the most (in Soi 2 and Terminal 21) still accept cash.

Never experienced it, but last couple of years I usually I pay via my phone in Thailand. Even the barfines. If you have a thai bank account, you can use the ubiquitous QR-code system which even the local coconut sellers on the street have, and if not, most credit cards can be loaded into google pay / google wallet, or apple pay for iphone users.

[Mogwai]

I was in Bangkok last week and found out that some of the Starbucks locations do not accept cash payments anymore. They only accept credit card payments. This was around BTS station Siam.
Has anyone else experienced this, either in Bangkok or somewhere else? It was rather annoying because I do not carry around my credit card all the time.
Luckily the Starbucks locations that I visit the most (in Soi 2 and Terminal 21) still accept cash.

[Mogwai]

Next we convince the girls that getting naked is the norm while having their nails done in those Skytrain station shops.

One of your wet dreams?

[Mogwai]

Definitely not it. Regular oil massage is normally naked (sans either a towel over genitalia, and also over the breasts for girls, or one of those one-time underwears some places offer), and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this forum who also gets naked for his foot massages.

If you mean the foot massages that are done in full view of all passers-by, then I'm afraid you're the only one.

[EihTooms]

Definitely not it. Regular oil massage is normally naked (sans either a towel over genitalia, and also over the breasts for girls, or one of those one-time underwears some places offer), and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this forum who also gets naked for his foot massages.

Next we convince the girls that getting naked is the norm while having their nails done in those Skytrain station shops.

[Werqweq]

Massage shops are definitely not my thing so I didn't know it was illegal for a massage shop customer to be naked during the massage.

Was that it? Which begs the question, how in the world would the cops know a customer got naked in a massage shop and come charging in to arrest the shop owner for it?

Definitely not it. Regular oil massage is normally naked (sans either a towel over genitalia, and also over the breasts for girls, or one of those one-time underwears some places offer), and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this forum who also gets naked for his foot massages.

[EihTooms]

His post did not say the foreigner was fucking in the shop. It only said he was getting massaged.

Massage shops are definitely not my thing so I didn't know it was illegal for a massage shop customer to be naked during the massage.

Was that it? Which begs the question, how in the world would the cops know a customer got naked in a massage shop and come charging in to arrest the shop owner for it?

Otherwise, if the post had something to do with somebody being arrested for a prostitution-related crime, what was it the shop owner did?

Yes, Explorer is corrected that the cops can arrest anyone for anything. For one, they might need to arrest someone first before questioning them about a suspected crime. And by "arrested" in this case, I only mean taken into custody. Perhaps not "arrested" in the sense that it goes on your record. "Rounded up" for questioning as is sometimes the case with street hookers.

However, "arresting" someone is one thing. And, yes, doing that is very easy for the cops to do. Charging, trying in a court of law and convicting someone of a prostitution-related crime is something else. And that is where the simple act of consenting adults exchanging sex for money is, as far as I have ever heard or known, utterly missing in the Thai legal records.

Ultimately, it is blissfully easy for the cops to bust someone "for prostitution", IF that is really a crime that can be charged, tried and convicted for in a way that does not require involving teams of Immigration Officers, renting a hotel room or scouring the internet for shameful and openly public ads, explicitly for sex.

Here is how:

They outfit a plain-clothes male cop with the same kind of hidden camera, audio / video recording device used by YouTube bloggers.

The cop walks up to any girl standing on Beach Road or working in a bar on Soi 6 or Walking Street.

Him, the cop with the hidden camera: "How much to fuck in my room"?

Her, if she is older, fatter and less attractive than most: "1500 baht", maybe she comes down to 1,000 baht within a few seconds.

Or if she is younger, slim and hot: "3,500 baht", maybe she comes down to 3,000 or 2,500 but has no need to budge below that.

LOL. But I digress.

Back to the legal angle.

Whatever amount of baht she states, that is it. If prostitution is really illegal in Thailand and assuming there is no tangential issue in that simple exchange, such as an age issue, a visa issue, nobody has been forced into it, neither of them are shouting it loud enough in public to make a tourist blush, then the cop slaps on the cuffs and off they go to a criminal charge and easy-peasy conviction "for prostitution."

The cops could arrest, charge and be 100% certain of a conviction within 5 minutes of targeting a likely perpetrator. They could bust 12 hookers per hour every hour of every day in Pattaya, Bangkok and probably most other towns in Thailand.

The same thing would apply if they outfitted a plain-clothes attractive female cop targeting any male strolling along Beach Road, Soi 6 and Walking Street.

Her: "Want to fuck me for 1,000 baht"?

Him: "Hell yes. You're hot. 1,000 for you is the best deal in all of Thailand"!

Busted, arrested, charged, tried and convicted. No problem.

Except one problem; with that audio / video device and again with no tangential factors and just a simple discrete exchange between two consenting adults, the cops will have inarguable, ironclad evidence of exactly No Crime Whatsoever In Thailand.

And that is why the cops don't do an "anti-prostitution sting" that way in Thailand.

[Mr Enternational]

So the manager of a shop profiting from the proceeds of prostitution was arrested but not the naked customer or the massage girl performing a presumed P4P service?

Yep, that would be in line with what is and is not cited as being illegal in the Thai Penal Code.

Again.

His post did not say the foreigner was fucking in the shop. It only said he was getting massaged.

[Philip Marlow]

There should be a dedicated thread for this argument, so you guys can make the same points over and over.

Regardless of the law, a prostitute is subject to arrest at the discretion of the police.

Last week, a massage shop on Soi Honey was raided by the police, and the manager taken down to the station, as they found one naked Farang being massaged in the shop.

Out of nowhere you bring up a 6 month old post about the legality of prostitution, then complain people are talking about the legality of prostitution.

[EihTooms]

There should be a dedicated thread for this argument, so you guys can make the same points over and over.

Regardless of the law, a prostitute is subject to arrest at the discretion of the police.

Last week, a massage shop on Soi Honey was raided by the police, and the manager taken down to the station, as they found one naked Farang being massaged in the shop.

So the manager of a shop profiting from the proceeds of prostitution was arrested but not the naked customer or the massage girl performing a presumed P4P service?

Yep, that would be in line with what is and is not cited as being illegal in the Thai Penal Code.

Again.

[Explorer8939]

There should be a dedicated thread for this argument, so you guys can make the same points over and over.

Regardless of the law, a prostitute is subject to arrest at the discretion of the police.

Last week, a massage shop on Soi Honey was raided by the police, and the manager taken down to the station, as they found one naked Farang being massaged in the shop.

[EihTooms]

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand...n-prostitutes.

Russians advertizing sex for sale? Foreign nationals with suspected visa offences busted by immigration officers?

Bangkok Post and other lazy media can simplify it all they want or rather all they need to do in order to please the Thai Tourism Image Protectors by saying somebody was arrested "for prostitution", but where are the reports of ordinary Thai people or even Russians who are not shamefully and openly advertising sex for sale and Foreign Nationals who are not suspected of having visa problems being busted "for prostitution"?

And are any of these Russian Advertisers' and Foreign Nationals' / Uzbek and Ugandan women with probable visa offences customers busted for anything?

Oh, that's right. The customers, of whatever nationality and whatever visa status, were not the ones shamefully and openly advertising sex for money or flagging down hookers and "observably" offering money for sex in public.

A combined team of tourist police, immigration officers and local officials launched a crackdown on foreign nationals involved in selling sex and other activities that damaged the tourism image of Pattaya. The operation took place on Thursday night.

Undercover officers observed the behaviour of the women and the way they were interacting with tourists, which indicated they were selling sexual services, police said.

To answer your question, the parts highlighted by me are, IMO, the reason anyone was busted. Not "for prostitution."

[SubCmdr]

Pattaya police arrest 13 foreign prostitutes

Thirteen foreign nationals have been arrested in this beach town for prostitution and immigration offences.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand...n-prostitutes.