Tourist-scam information online is scattered, outdated, and often anonymous. We built tabiji to fix that for ourselves and we publish it for free for everyone else. Below is exactly how a scam moves from a random Reddit complaint into the published archive — and the rule we use to throw out the ones that don't make it.
The three-confirmation rule
A scam ships only when we have three independent confirmations:
- A first-hand traveler report (Reddit, regional travel forum, or a reader email).
- A named press citation (national or regional outlet, dated, archived where possible).
- An official record (police arrest, embassy advisory, or tourism-authority warning).
If any one of the three is missing or stale, the entry stays in the staging file. We'd rather publish 800 verified scams than 1,500 plausible ones.
What disqualifies an entry
- Single-source claims. One Reddit post saying "watch out for X" without corroborating press or police record.
- Stale-only sourcing. Press citations older than five years with no recent re-confirmation that the scam still operates.
- Pattern-by-stereotype. Anything that depends on profiling a group rather than describing a documented method.
- Low-impact nuisance. A souvenir vendor mildly overcharging by 20% is not a scam; a tour operator running a documented overcharge-and-extort cycle is.
One worked example, end to end
Below: how Bangkok's "Grand Palace is closed" tuk-tuk gem scam moved through the pipeline. We picked this one because it's the most-documented tourist scam in Thailand — every step in the rule above has a verifiable public artifact.
Case study: the "Grand Palace is closed" tuk-tuk gem scam (Bangkok)
The pattern. A friendly local approaches a tourist near the Grand Palace, claims the palace is closed for a royal ceremony or Buddhist festival, and offers a "free" tuk-tuk tour to other temples. The tour ends at a gem store or tailor where high-pressure sales push purchases of ฿14,000–฿70,000 ($400–$2,000) of low-grade gemstones or shirts. The driver receives a 30–40% commission on anything sold.
The published entry: tabiji.ai/scams/bangkok/ (entry #1).
Traveler reports
The pattern surfaces repeatedly across travel-community discussion. We track it across:
- r/Thailand — broad country subreddit; the Grand Palace warning thread recurs every few months.
- r/Bangkok — city-specific reports of recent attempts, including the exact scripts the touts use.
- Tripadvisor — reviewer warnings posted directly on the Grand Palace listing.
One source gives us a hypothesis. We don't ship hypotheses.
Named publications, dated
For the Grand Palace scam we have multiple independent press citations from major Thai English-language outlets across more than a decade — which is exactly the longevity signal we want. A short list of the ones we cross-referenced for this entry:
| Outlet | Headline | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Bangkok Post | Grand Palace touts nabbed | 2018 |
| Bangkok Post | Tuk-tuk, gems swindling suspects arrested | 2015 |
| Khaosod English | Thai Police Arrest 22 'Grand Palace Scammers' | 2015-05-22 |
| Khaosod English | Police Arrest 21 People Over Long-Running BKK Gem Scam | 2015-07-04 |
| Khaosod English | Tourist Touts, Khaosan Forgers Busted (Photos) | 2017-02-22 |
| The Nation Thailand | Tuk-tuk scam threatens tourism reputation | 2015 |
Two outlets is the minimum. Three or more is the bar for the books, where claims need to survive the longest re-verification cycle.
Police, embassy, tourism authority
Press alone isn't enough — a journalist may have repeated a complaint without independent confirmation. We require an institutional record: an arrest, an advisory, or an official warning. For the Grand Palace scam:
- Tourism Authority of Thailand · Tourist Police 1155 — official 24/7 hotline that logs scam complaints (English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, French, German). Confirms the scam pattern as a formally tracked category.
- U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Thailand · Common Scams to Avoid — names the "Grand Palace closed" gem-tour pattern as a documented scam targeting U.S. citizens.
- Police arrest records. The Khaosod English citations above directly report named police operations — the May 2015 arrest of 22 touts and the July 2015 arrest of 21 gem-shop operators. Both arrests reference Tourist Police case files (Khaosod is a Thai paper of record; case-file numbers are referenced in the original Thai-language reporting we cross-checked).
"If anyone, no matter how friendly or official they look, tells you a major temple is closed, they are lying."
— Tourist Police, public statement carried in multiple Thai outlets
Editorial review
Once the three-confirmation bar is cleared, the entry is drafted (with LLM-assisted research support — we use AI tools to surface candidate scams and produce initial drafts; read more on /about/). The draft includes:
- The exact script the scammer uses (verbatim phrasings reported by travelers and corroborated in the press).
- The red flags that distinguish the scam from a legitimate interaction.
- The counter-phrase — a short, specific line that breaks the script (for the Grand Palace scam: "Mai chai, kop khun krap" — "no thank you" — and walking on).
- The financial damage range, in local currency and USD, with the price band documented in press reporting.
- The recovery path — exactly which authorities to contact (Tourist Police 1155 for Thailand) and what to bring.
Bernard Huang reviews every entry before it ships. Rebecca Leung sets the editorial standards the entry has to meet — voice, accuracy of detail, and the "would I send my parents into this?" filter that keeps the writing concrete instead of cautionary boilerplate.
The result: see entry #1 on tabiji.ai/scams/bangkok/.
How we keep entries current
Tourist scams evolve — counter-phrases stop working, new variations appear, prices drift. Our re-verification cadence:
- Annual full re-verification for every published entry. The press citations are re-checked, prices re-confirmed against current reporting, and the entry's "last verified" date is updated.
- Quarterly spot-checks on high-traffic destination pages (Bangkok, Paris, Rome, Cairo, Istanbul, Marrakech).
- Reader-reported updates. If a reader emails us about a new variation or a pricing change, we treat it as a new traveler report (Step 1) and re-run Steps 2–3 before adjusting the entry.
Who actually does this
Two named editors, AI-assisted research tools, and a small set of named country contributors who verify on the ground. Full team and credentials on /about/.
- Bernard Huang, Editor — final review, bylines every published scam page. LinkedIn · X.
- Rebecca Leung, Editorial Standards — sets the inclusion bar and the voice rules every entry has to clear before it ships.
What we publish vs. what stays in the staging file
As of April 28, 2026, we have 1,168 published scams across 123 countries. Roughly an additional 600–800 candidate patterns sit in our staging file — flagged in Step 1, missing one or both of Steps 2 and 3. They stay there until we can verify them. The 1,168 is the floor of what's actually been corroborated; the 1,800-ish is what we're not publishing because we can't.
17 countries currently have full Kindle atlases — those are the destinations where the entry density and re-verification cadence support a stable book edition. The other 106 have web entries only. Both formats use the same three-confirmation rule.
Corrections and disputes
If you spot an entry that's wrong, out of date, or misses a verification step, email [email protected] with subject line "Correction". Include the URL of the entry and the source you'd like us to consider. We aim to respond within a few business days. Material corrections are noted on the entry with the date and reason.
What we don't do
- We don't take affiliate or sponsorship money from tour operators, hotels, restaurants, insurance carriers, or credit-card issuers — anyone whose business decisions our editorial would otherwise shape. Our only revenue source is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing royalties on our books (full disclosure in our Terms of Service).
- We don't list a venue, tour, or operator in our recommendations as a favor.
- We don't publish entries we can't substantiate. If the three-confirmation rule isn't met, the entry isn't in the archive.