I received a letter from the management of The Mansion today. It was marked “urgent”. I opened it thinking that urgent must mean bad news.
It was bad news. The letter listed February, March and April as unpaid. It said if they didn’t hear from me by the 30th of April with receipts for rent paid they would consider the statement from khun P to be correct.
Khun P? Consider correct? What was going on here?
I had paid the rent at the beginning of every month in cash, as I always do since I don’t have a Thai bank account.
I pay the utilities and the rent at the same time, after going to the ATM by the 7-Eleven to get the cash. I don’t like to have that much cash on me so I go right from the ATM to the office and pay them.
The reception lady will count the money and put a PAID stamp on the utility bills. She then says I will get the receipt for the rent later. This is typical in Thailand, the receipt must be written by someone higher up and they expect me to hand over the cash first and get the receipt days or weeks later. It was like that in the building where we lived earlier too.
I thought about the reception lady. She had acted in a strange way lately. She avoided eye contact. She seemed nerveous, almost as if she expected me to lean over the desk and slap her. But even as I had noticed this I had not thought it had any particular reason. She was always a reclusive person.
I looked in the pile of receipts. There was no receipt from The Mansion for months back. None for February, none for March and none for April. I could kick myself for not keeping an eye on this. But it is a slow moving system. Sometimes the receipts have been far behind and nothing bad has happened. But now, all of a sudden, I must have receipts and I don’t have them.
And yesterday, when I dropped by the office to ask for air condition repairs, the receptionist was not there. Hm. They don’t like to stick around to face the music.
Now what? I will write the manager and explain how I have paid. They know I appear with cash. Do they have a security camera above the desk? I haven’t seen any such thing but they have cameras everywhere else and I will ask them if there is a tape.
But I am in trouble. Even if the manager believes me the money is still missing. They are not likely to get it back from the receptionist. She has probably spent it on shopping or gambling or whatever. The owner of the building will pressure the manager to recover the loss. Since I have no receipts I don’t have anything other than their sense of decency (if they have any) to rely on.
But if they do that it is bye bye to The Mansion. I won’t take that. If they strongarm three extra rents out of me it is time to leave. Embezzlement and poor office routines is their problem, not mine.
But one step at a time. I will look up my bank statements to see what dates I have withdrawn cash for the rent on. It is no proof I have paid them but it is better than nothing.
I will write a formal letter, explaining myself. And I will seek the help of my pal Farang S upstairs, who has lived in the building longer than I have. It might help if I show up with him. He speaks Thai fluently and the management will be more wary of pissing off two customers than one.
We’ll see how it goes. Excuse me now while I curse and kick myself and imagine slapping the receptionist.
Tags: apartment, gay Thailand
April 25th, 2007 at 4:40 am
I wonder if there are other tennants at the mansion receiving simliar letters. Maybe she has run off with EVERYONE’S money??? Or several at least. I think fraudsters usually try to get away with as much as possible coz they know they have a limited time before they are found out. Ask around.
I was once a cheque signatory at a company. The receptionist decided to steal some cheques, make them payable to herself (doh) and forge my signature. All this came to light while I was away on 2 weeks holiday. At first my boss thought we were in cahoots but realsed it was a forgery when he saw her version of my signature.
You have my sympathy.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Yes, it’s likely she’s done this with more than one tenant- in which case as a group you will have a stronger case against the management if they try to make you pay again.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Smart move with the bank statements. If they don’t believe you after looking at the statements, then they must somehow believe that for three months you concocted a deliberate plan to avoid paying rent. I’m sure they have more respect for you than that, especially after renting there for so long.
Another day, another stress. It’s as simple as that Silom. If you have to leave for your honour, then you will have an exciting new adventure in a new place. Maybe you can take Farang S with you to prove a point
-Whystler
April 25th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Hey There Pal…LONG TIME NO HEAR FROM!! IM SO SORRY OMG THAT THEY HAVE DONE THAT!!!!! IT IS A DANG SHAME THAT THERE IS NO HONESTY ANYWHERE ANYMORE..YES YOU SHOULD TAKE FARANG S WITH YOU TO THE OFFICE AND SHOW SOLIDARITY AS FARANGS.WHAT DOES CHALERM THINK ABOUT THIS?? I’LL BET HE IS PISSED OFF.IF HE ISNT HE SHOULD BE.HEY EMAIL ME SOMETIME.YOU ARE IN MY PRAYERS…YOUR PAL ROBBIE HARTUNG
April 25th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Sorry for your troubles. It seems that the building system of collecting rent was flawed. She found a hole in the system and took antvantage of it.
In my building they are not allowed to accept cash for rent. I have to go to an ATM and do a bank to bank transfer, but you don’t have a Thai Bank account?
They do accept cash payment for the water, but that’s not much and yes, a two page receipt come in my mail box a few days latter. I keep them all.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Bummer.
Can Chalerm handle it?
Could it be that the management is actually in kahoots with the receptionist? If this has been building for 3 months, but the receptionist just in the last week or so started acting guilty, then perhaps the receptionist has been doing the right thing all along, but the person she gives the money to recently instructed her to lie, or lose her job and be accused either way.
April 25th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
This is a very similar story to that which occurred in my condo. The accounts clerk accepted cash, but I always received a receipt, signed by her, though it transpires with a variety of different signatures. She had been ripping off the system to the tune of THB1 million. (They only discovered it after 2 years.) She has since of course been fired and the committee, (made up of some influential Thais), want her to be procsecuted and jailed, the latter no picnic, as you can imagine. The irony is that she was one of the sweetest and nicest of all the staff at the condo. As a result, the management company (Plus Property) have also been fired, and leave at the end of this month. Must be quite a common occurrence. Now we have to pay through the ATM or by cheque, which is much less convenient, but I guess safer.