Why do ONLY foreigners get special promotion?

[PettyTyrant]

The advertising board on the way to Airport is shown "Foreigner Zone.. Buying house (somewhere around Bangkok..) Foreigner, with Special Price!!"

I know the property company may want to attract foreigners to invest in property in Thailand. But, what about Thais who also want to own the property in their own country but have to pay higher price than non-resident?

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Funny funny funny...by special price they mean the foreigner will pay more..much much more than the Thai would pay..
I you are right in pointing out that 2 tier pricing system is unfair and racist... but you probably would not agree that Thais should have to pay the same price as farang.

[Billy Baht]

I disagree with with the OP with respect to "Special Promotions" that foreigners receive in Thailand. We, foreigners, can not own land in Thailand, are charged 10 times the Thai price for admission to National Parks, Grand Palace, etc. and usually are the loser/at fault party in any traffic accident or disagreement with a Thai citizen.

Maybe the "Special Treatment" we receive is exploitation and mistreatment?

[NorDevil]

The advertising board on the way to Airport is shown "Foreigner Zone.. Buying house (somewhere around Bangkok..) Foreigner, with Special Price!!"

I know the property company may want to attract foreigners to invest in property in Thailand. But, what about Thais who also want to own the property in their own country but have to pay higher price than non-resident?

Sure hahahahahahahaha " Special Promotion " as a farang I have to pay higher prices on everything !
If I buy a car cash then I can not even register the car in my own name - special promotion
I can not get a creditcard in Thailand - special promotion
If I buy a house I can not have in my own name - special promotion
Thailand has a lot of " Special Promotions " for us farang . . . .
It is my deepest wish that Thais also get ALL the " Special Promotoins " that we the farang get ! ! ! ! !
Why do I not leave Thailand ????????
Easy !!!!!
Thai women also has " Special Promotions " for us farang . . . . 55555555555555555555

[rogerbangkok]

As a foreigner with a wonderfull Thia wife i will tell tell you what a special price is. 25% to 30% more than Thias if you can bargin. When we buy any thing i keep out of sight & my wife gets the right price.
Roger - London

[Profiler]

As a foreigner with a wonderfull Thia wife i will tell tell you what a special price is. 25% to 30% more than Thias if you can bargin. When we buy any thing i keep out of sight & my wife gets the right price.
Roger - London

hi roger, have you heard about that one farang with no such wonderful wife. she thought to be rich & prominent with her farang and spent all his money generously, giving extraordinary tips, buying herself friends like politicians buy votes.
when he wanted to save money, he went shopping alone & left her at home.

Pathetic comment

[Ian]

When I first came here I negotiated a price with a local builder, when I paid without screaming he overpriced the next job so I told him to get lost. This has happened with 4 builders so far, 3 in my village, now no one will do business with them cos they "charge farang prices".
Now the economic \\ //// has hit the fan, the opposite is happening with the taxis (5 in my village), I used to pay 800 Baht for a return trip to Bangkok, then another offered the same for 600 Baht, now another one is offering 500 Baht. I enjoy this "Limbo, limbo, how low can you go" game.

[DJD THAILAND]

I see that the special promotion for foreigners has been on going for a while...
Amazing to see that we all like to complain about, special prices, farang prices, double pricing standards etc...

So why are we then still here...? there must be something about Thailand that at first brings us here and eventually makes us stay.... wonder what that might be?
Twenty years living and working in Thailand... you learn to live with it... and admit it, it's a good conversation piece with the"newly" arrived farangs...

It gives you the "savoir vivre" experience in Thailand.

[cracker99]

Me and my Thai girlfriend were given an example of the ‘special foreigner’ treatment by several taxi’s in a row last weekend. Coming over to visit from Cambodia (where I work) we decided to do some shopping at MBK and then visit the Emerald Place (shocked to say she had never been there despite living in BKK).

Outside our hotel, a tuktuk driver insisted the Emerald Palace was closed that day and he could take use somewhere better with good deals! My girlfriend started to get angry….

At the Emerald Palace, the first Taxi diver would not take use back to the MBK centre as ‘its too short a trip’ unless we first when to looked round his friends shop…..the girlfriend got even angrier.

Final at the MBK centre 2 Meter Taxi’s in a row refused to turn on their meters, asking for a 100 baht for a 40 baht trip, this infuriated my girlfriend as they never try this with her….when she started to argue this with one of the driver he said to her (in Thai) ‘why you choose farang over you own people, he can afford it’.

She says to me ‘why they do this, this never happens when I’m on my own?’ because your with a farang dear.

So to sum up, the ‘special treatment’ farangs get from Thai businesses deeply embarrassed my girlfriend and ruined our weekend together…Thailand such a special place for tourists. Next time she wants to come visit me in Cambodia instead, they still overcharge you their, but there way less obvious about it.

[grass-seed]

One of the previous posts complained that as a foreigner one couldn't buy a house, car and not even get a credit card.

i am a Kiwi living living and working in Ubon Ratchathani for 15 years. I don't own my house (registered in my son's name) but I do own my car and pickup and also two other work pickups are registered in my name. I also got terms to pay off my two private vehicles because the dealers were offering no interest payment terms which made sense to me. I also have a credit card with Siam Com. My only complaint there is it has a limit of only 60,000 baht but at least I have it for hotels and for traveling.

I never seem to get charged extra any where I go, except at those places where there is a policy of dual pricing. I did have problems getting my house built but that was more to with shoddy workmanship, a problem most Thais have as well.

[foreign-currency]

Great discussion, but I think a bit of understanding Thai history and Thailand is in order, albeit I cannot do this topic justice in a short post.

First of all, "taking from others if you can" is a fairly common theme in Thailand. I don't know exactly how long it goes back, but it goes back a very long time.

For example, the Thai government created the Thai police without providing them enough funding and basically gave them, (and other institutions in Thailand), the authority to "gin muang" (literally "eat cities"), and this has become deeply institutionalized in Thai society. When the government does not fund something enough (like the police force, customs workers, and most bureaucrats), they traditionally have been tacitly entitled to gain benefit from their position and "gin muang" (sorry, I don't know how to write the Thai word for "eat" in English and make it sound right, LOL).

The same type of "gin muang" mentality is applied to the vast majority of foreigners and tourists in Thailand, and for a lack of a better word or phrase, could be called "gin farangs", where the people, who are underpaid certainly have to make money somehow, as well as the government, basically permits the general population to "gin farang" as much as they can. As long as the farang does not complain about it (the "up to you" mentality), then it is easy and correct, per "gin muang" or perhaps more fun, "gin farangs" mentality.

However, this concept does not only apply to farangs, Thais in business are also subject to "gin muang" and often pay both the police for protection "gin muang" and also the local strong men for protection (we call this protection money "extortion" in the west, but that is often too strong of a word in Thailand).

So, in fact, it is not just the foreigners in Thailand, who are subject to "special pricing" or "special promotions", your social status and the perception of how much money you have (as other posters have mentioned), often determine how much "gin muang" you experience. The goals is to "get your money" and this is not much difference in any country with similar social-economic conditions.

Thailand is nothing like Western countries, BTW. People with only short or casual experience in the Kingdom, and people who do not study Thai history, are better off (sorry) not to try to overly simplify situations here. Of course it is common for people to get as much money as they can from foreigners, especially since they don't know the system(s) as do the Thais in their own country. Why should the government care if foreigners are unwittingly cheated? They don't, unless of course it makes headlines news and keeps other foreigners away.

To ask the question "Why do ONLY foreigners get special promotion?" is a great example of someone who really has a lot of learn about how Thailand operates, or otherwise is simply trolling to start a heated debate. There is no doubt that racism contributes to "gin farangs" as many in Thailand (both Thais and many foreigners working here) would consider it a glorious act of achievement to cheat a foreigner out of their life savings, if they could. This is normal here, sorry.

Of course, when you say this truth, the perfect example of the degree of racism and real thinking toward foreigners becomes self evident with the replies "why are you here farang, go home if you are so negative" .... this is because in Thailand, regardless of the state of the state of Thailand, foreigners are "farangs" and "Thais are Thai". Thais Love Thais. The rest of us are appreciated mostly according to how much money we bring in to the country, and how liberally we spend it.