Despite the warnings in guidebooks and in websites like ours, these scams are still happening every day. It is really tragic because some tourists get hurt so much that they will never return to Thailand again. Even worse, they will tell their friends to avoid our adopted country like the plague. I really feel sorry for the tourists who go to the Grand Palace on their last day only to be told by scammers that the palace is closed. I was there the other day with some friends and we were told several times that the Grand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun were all closed on that day. They said that it was our lucky day as they knew a temple called the Big Buddha which was open. What they didn’t mention was that they would drag us to a gem store where we would get a hard sell to buy worthless gems.