Renting a scooter is super easy, common and awesome in Thailand
Especially on the islands it's an amazing vehicle to get around, get a tan (or get burned), enjoy the breeze aswell as the landscape.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of scams going on and about in Thailand. Especially when it comes to scooter rentals. They will say that existing damage is new damage and will make you pay for it.
Story time!
Once upon a time in Koh Tao, we were too cheap to rent scooters for 250 Baht at our hostel and wanted to rent them for 200 Baht elsewhere. We were with the four of us and rented two scooters. As the deposit, my friend gave her passport and we were on our way.
We had a lovely day and the next day we wanted to return them. Apparently, the scooter guy decided to actively inspect my friend's scooter for scratches and accused us of damaging the scooter. My friend made pictures of the scooter before, but he decided to pick the spots which weren't too visible on the taken pictures.
He 'calculated' the damage around 300 US dollars and wanted us to pay that otherwise he wouldn't give the passport back. Yes. Oops.. Expensive scooter rental huh?
Fortunately for us, the girl who gave her passport has two passports. The one on which she was traveling, wasn't the one she gave. And the one she gave was about to expire anyway. We left it as it was, she filed her passport as lost and left the island.
Moral of the story: NEVER give your passport as deposit and rent the scooters at a place you or someone trustable knows
Whether you are staying at a hotel, a hostel or anywhere else -- please rent out a scooter where you can trust them. If you are staying at an Airbnb, ask the landlord if he knows a reliable place. More than often, people get scammed or ripped off and that is not something you want to get yourself into.
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Yeh need to give some serious thought to using scooters when on vacation. I lived on an island in the Caribbean for many years. I frequently saw tourists coming off scooters at times with serious injuries. Riding on the wrong side of the road not wearing helmets no shirts too much alcohol. Scary stuff. Sorry to ruin peoples fun.
Yes, that's true! I don't know what it's like to drive around in the Caribbean but in Thailand I was quite careful. It really is different to drive at the other side of the road, and potholes aren't helping either.
I never drink and drive and always wear a helmet :) Thanks for your concern!
I see that in Thailand almost every week. Traffic is very dangerous in some places but what's even more dangerous are unexperienced tourists that drive too fast or drink and drive. So there are always accidents where tourists are involved. My opinion is, if people can't really drive a scooter confidently, they should not rent it. Places like Koh Samui or Phuket are the wrong spot for learning how to drive a scooter.
Yes people go on vacation and do things they don't normally do and wouldn't do at home. Sometimes it doesn't end well.
The same thing happens here sometimes.... and yes that was very cheap of you guys lol... 50TBH difference is like a $1.5 right?
amazing post
thats sucks, but very nice tip.
I hope you have a good day.
success always for you.
good post friends.
you are now in what country ... ??
I am in Malaysia now.
Oh good
Woah! How did she even think about giving her passport as a security. They could misuse it for all the wrong reasons.
These rentals are huge scammers, not only there but in India as well.
We had similar issue in Madhya Pradesh.
Always better to check their reputation before renting.
I guess she didn't care about that passport as she wasn't traveling with it and had to get it replaced next year anyway. I was pretty firm on the fact that I am not giving my passport away for anything - TAKE MY MONEY BUT NOT MY PASSPORT. She reported it as lost and cancelled the passport right away though.
And yeah, we should've thought about it more. I am glad it worked out in the end though!
@sjennon, what a small world! I've been following you for about a month but I didn't know you are a part of the firepower's team.
I read some teammalaysia posts yesterday (I have some stemmit friends belonging to teammalayisa) and found a familiar face there, you! What a small world!
I hope you and your team had a wonderful time in Malaysia. Come to Hong Kong, I'll treat you guys to some delicacies and gorgeous views.
Have a good day.
Haha, aah surprise! Hehe :D
We did have a wonderful time. Now in India :D China isn't on the list unfortunately, but never say never! I've heard its beautiful indeed.
Enjoy India and make it big with Firepower and team!
i got scammed too while i was travelling abroad..but in my case it was the taxi driver ! LOLZ....The driver deliberately took a long road of an hour drive whereas the actual destination(where i asked him to take me) was only 20 minutes away...and whats more funny is that he was demanding a huge tip!(which i gave him anywayz)
Ah, I would have never given him a tip! And ALWAYS ask for the price beforehand - don't care what road they take, I will just pay that fixed amount.
that's why I like uber... you can actually check on the map if they took a detour. And customer service can check it too and will give your money back if they see something weird.
I adore uber!
Renting a jetski, a gliding parachute, a buggy or anything in Thailand is very likely to get a foreigner scammed... That same shady trick of inspection, threatening and blackmailing in gang, I've heard of thousand times... Police hardly help...
Yes exactly. That's why we didn't want to get the police involved in the whole getting-the-passport-back. Not really sure what to do about this except for checking their reviews online.
@sjennon, I have been to bangkok twice and I do find dishonest people such as the tuk tuk drivers . They take opportunity to scam you on the rate despite agreeing on the rate earlier on.
Oh really? That's something new! I always just paid the price that was discussed earlier and they never said otherwise. I am sorry to hear about this though :(
It seems nice place to drive scooter. Thanks for sharing.
@sjennon I hope you look at my introducing post. Have a nice day...
Not if you get scammed it's not nice.
Awesome article! The art of getting what you want and not getting scammed :)
That really is something to dig for! Thanks for stopping by :D
Omg! Sorry that happened to you all, yikes.. thanks for sharing tho, a story like this is good to keep in mind
Yeah. I mean, I've heard about these scam stories before but we always tend to have some good faith. I am glad we were relatively lucky, but lesson learned!
I agree.
It seems you enjoyed a lot sjennon.
Great!
Waiting for your next post.