Thailand forum

this is hearsay. i don't think it is right to cross-post these types of things because you have absolutely no idea if this is true or not. at least when these rants are posted directly on Travelfish, we have a chance to evaluate who the poster is. more often than not the poster is a first-time contributor who is just trying to get even for a bad experience and most of the time the bad experience is due to communication errors rather than a shady business model.

i don't think i agree with you about not dealing with agencies either. i've lived, worked, and played in asia on and off for several decades now, and the overwhelming majority of the time the service and value i've received from agencies has been quite good. there are certainly scams out there too, but those are more the exception than the rule and a little research and common sense will help people avoid most of them. enough said? cheers.

To be honest, I can't be sure this claim is 100% on, but I see no harm in posting the warning.

I've used agencies on occasion to book local tours and never had a problem, but I've also been scammed in Vietnam, and KSR has quite the bad rep, especially the bus tours. I always buy my plane tickets directly from the airline, it's so easy these days.

With the amount of newbie postings I see everywhere from here, CS and TB, it looks like a lot of people aren't doing the research and using common sense. Better to keep them on their toes than in the dark I say. No of course not all agencies are out to rip people off I agree.