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problem scam thailand marriage

Here is my personal experience, or my review of wed-in-thailand.com aka thaino1.com or Thai No.1 Connections

After deciding that getting married in Vietnam was not really an option, and having found this website that said that it would all be rather much more easier to do our wedding in thailand, I contacted the company concerned and asked them for more details about how to arrange a marriage in thailand for a Vietnamese national.

They replied asking me when I wanted to do it, but also told me that they had experience of arranging a Vietnamese marriage in thailand and that they could do everything for us but that they would need a deposit before they could really go in to details as it would involve them incurring costs (although in reality this is obviously that they don’t want to give out information for free and allow you to bypass them - which is fair enough really as they are a company).

It was at this point that I voiced my concerns, asking them questions about the company, had they definitely done a Vietnamese wedding before and what would happen if something went wrong. I was given information about their company address and registration in thailand which certainly seemed legitemate and I was also told that they had definitely arranged other Vietnames to non-thai marriage / weddings and that they guarenteed me that there would be no problems and that we would definitely have a marriage certificate within 4 days, although the english translation may take slightly longer but that that could be posted on to us afterwards.

I also contacted their 3rd party payment broker, www.thaiepay.com to ask them what their policy was in regards to buyer protection should one of their merchants not supply a product or service. I was told that if one of their merchants does not provide a product or service as agreed, they would indeed refund my money.

On the basis of the promises of the company behind www.thaino1.com and www.wed-in-thailand.com and on the assurance of a refunds policy from www.thaiepay.com I sent the deposit of 8500 THB (about $250). I also booked flights to Thailand for myself and my fiance, as well as a hotel room for 4 nights, giving us 5 days in Bangkok.

A few days later I received an email stating that as a UK national not married before I would need to fill out an affadavit that they sent to me, and bring my passport with me (which obviously I would need to anyway as I was travelling to Thailand to do the marriage). They then sent another email detailing the requirements for a Vietnamese National;
Affadavit to be collected and completed in the Vietnam Embassy - they did tell us that this document was not available and that we would need to collect it in person at the embassy on our arrival.
Certificate of No Impedement aka a Civil Status Certificate
Passport
ID Card
Birth Certificate

Ok, so the list for the Vietnamese person is slightly more involved than that for a UK citizen but that is to be expected (particularly to anyone that has dealt with Vietnamese bureaucracy before.

No where on any of the emails from thaino.com did it suggest that we contact the Vietnam embassy ourselves before we arrived in Thailand to do our marriage. This as I later learned was their (and our) biggest mistake.

A month or so passed and I was then contacted again as a courtesy to check I was still coming on the dates we’d previously agreed and I replied that yes I was and that I had collected all of the documents they had listed to me as being needed.

When myself and my fiance arrived in Thailand and we met with the representative from wed-in-thailand.com, we were taken to the Vietnamese Embassy. Upon arrival there we were given an affadavit form to fill in… and we were told that we did not have all of the documentation required for them to issue the certified copy that we needed to get married in thailand.

There is only one reason for this. Wed-in-thailand.com had given us an incomplete list of documents. The reason for this is that they later admitted that they had tried calling the Vietnam Embassy, but that the Vietnam embassy had refused to hand out information to a non-Vietnamese person.

No where on their website, or in any of the emails that they sent to me, did thaino1.com tell me that they had been unable to speak to the Vietnam Embassy. At no point did they suggest that I arrange to have a Vietnamese national (such as MY FIANCE) phone the Vietnam Embassy to double check what documents they require to issues the affadavit needed by the thai authorities.

Your company has ONE service - arranging marriages in thailand… does it really take a rocket scientist to work out that if you’re not sure what documents an embassy require, you tell your customer they need to call that embassy?

As a result of this negligence on behalf of the company behind wed-in-thailand.com, they were unable to complete our marriage in thailand. The missing paperwork was that the Vietnam Embassy require both the Vietnamese Civil Status Certificate, but they also require an English translation of this document certified by a particular depart at 6 Alexandre du Rhode in Ho Chi Minh City. The translation and certification process in HCMC would have required 3 days to complete, so upon learning this we realised that the earliest we could possibly get married would have been the following Tuesday, one day AFTER our flights from Singapore back to the UK for me, and Vietnam for my fiance.

I tried talking to their representative about a refund who simply told me that the money was “gone in to the company” and that I couldn’t get it back and was very reticent about giving me any contact details for the owner. I did eventually get an email address and after emailing him I was simply told that they take a deposit for this very reason, that sometimes they incur costs but are unable to complete a wedding.

I’m sorry… what now? You take money from people specifically because you know that sometimes you DON’T complete the service that you have guarenteed me by email you can and will complete?

He also tried to suggest that as it was ME that CANCELLED the service, they would not refund the deposit. Excuse me? I cancelled nothing, I did everything that this company asked me to. It is purely because of an assumption and failing of this company that this company could not provide the service they promised.

Luckily I had planned to travel to southeast asia anyway both to visit my fiance and to go to Singapore for the F1 weekend, so at least it was only the flights and hotel in thailand that were a waste of money, I’d be severely more annoyed if I’d flown all the way from the UK JUST to get the jerkoff these guys gave me.

They eventually agreed to give me my deposit back “minus costs” which amount to nearly half the deposit… erm, hang on… you promise a service and completely fail to provide that service and yet you get to keep some, any, or all of my money?

My opinion of wed-in-thailand.com is that they get by on a wing and a prayer, making guesses and half assed attempts at helping people get married, and even when they get it badly badly wrong, they still expect to make a profit at your expense.

My advice to anyone thinking of getting married in thailand is; do not use thaino1.com aka wed-in-thailand.com

Later I’ll post up more information about exactly how to get married in thailand without really needing the “help” of a company like thai no. 1 connections as you can actually do it all yourself within about 1 week for around 2000 THB plus the visa fees instead of 17,000 THB which is what thai no.1 wanted to charge me to not do it right anyway.

Posted by dontusethaino1 on 2009-09-30 14:37:20 | Rating: