Be Aware of Scamming Transportation Sites When Buying Bus Tickets Online in Thailand

We made a sidetrip visiting Chiang Rai for a few days and only bought a one way bus tickets for two going from Chiang Mia to Chiang Rai as we were not sure the time of our return from this city.

 

Today we were sure that we would  like to return to Chiang Mia the next day, Sunday. We went online to purchase our tickets for the Green Bus which was the bus that brought us to Chiang Rai. But strangely, we could not find the Green Bus site or any information about their buses.

But one site kept popping up, giving us information for private cars, vans and SUV's. However, the fee charges were calculated in US$ and it was a lot! It was very strange and frustrating as we kept typing in Green Bus to Chiang Mia but no information was coming up.

 

  My husband said"Well, it looks like may be the Green Bus seats are all sold out because tomorrow is a Sunday. We may have to go with one of the smaller companies' van."

  But then the charges were outrageous once we converted them in Baht, Thailand's currency . It was  almost 10X the charges. "Forget about it! We would not pay for that." We thought.

We went to our hotel concierge and asked them how to buy Green Bus tickets as we were having problems buying them online.

 " You can go to the bus station directly. Or you can buy from 7 Eleven, up the street." replied the nice lady behind the front desk.

  That was exactly what we did. We went to the 7 Eleven, a convenient store, which has many stores all over Thailand and bought our Green Bus tickets going to Chiang Mia the next day. Easy as pie and we didn't have to pay un reasonable price!

 We finally figured out the site that popped up right away was a scam always directing users like us to their site and preventing  us from getting to the real site that we wanted.

 

A word of CAUTION: When travelling in Thailand, you must be aware that whenever you are directed to a site that looks like a legitimate business site but is not the one you want, you may have to pay much much more. Lots of scams around in Thailand when purchasing things or looking for information online  these days. Consumers beware!

Happy Travelling!

R.T, 

Chiang Rai, Frustrated in Thailand

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