I was once explaining to someone in the US why transactions in Mexico and Brazil take a tumble and start to be rejected at a much higher rate than usual due to banks being more stringent after 10 PM as its much more likely these would be fraud/scam/crime in general in these countries and they were amazed that this was a thing.
Its sad that these scams are so widespread today that a heavy handed approach like this is necessary. Unfortunately doing these attacks is incredibly cheap :(
It's probably one of the biggest criticism about PIX, the Brazilian method of transferring money: it's too easy. Early on, kidnappers started taking people off the streets and forcing them to transfer all their money, because victims had no choice but to give their password, and there was no limit on the transfer amount.
Perhaps similar to the situation where if you block internet traffic from a region or country ... you really do reduce the amount of malicious traffic and attacks an application sees, significantly. To the point that if you can, it's surprisingly effective.
I once wired som money to an acquaintance in Ethiopia using Western Union. The clerk made sure several times that I knew that I was doing and he was really surprised when learned that I actually personally knew the guy I was transferring money to.
I opened that link expecting to be outraged but instead finding myself sympathetic to their solution.
High value transfers should be subject to additional scrutiny to confirm it’s legitimate.
The hard part is making sure you balance that well enough so that you’re protecting against malaise without the bank then becoming a consumer problem themselves.
It will be interesting to see how well this works.
New customers will be defined as "high-risk" with, a separate classification from "vulnerable" which is for under 15s and over 65s.
The limit for these "high-risk" customers is 50000 baht a day, which is surely going to be inconvenient to deal with if you ever need it, e.g. for medical bills.
High value transfer is relative to the person making it. For some people, moving $1k-$5k daily is as normal as it is for a college kid moving $10-$50 daily. Then for some people $10k-$50k is the norm.
What's the real reason? Fraud has been around forever now. How is it that people were able to create so many mule accounts in the first place? What sort of KYC was going on? Why start limiting bank accounts without warning?
So many questions...
Update: my Thai friend just wrote me this:
"Not in trouble, it's the Chinese and Russians money laundering. Every Russian has had their accounts suspended, this was about half a year ago, now they are slowly doing the Chinese and Brits too. Vietnam is not much better, also suspending all foreigners accounts until you can prove you have a trc here."
The truncated headline is extremely misleading; it makes it sound like they're having a currency crisis, rather than this being an anti-fraud measure. (I'm not finding any indications in other sources that there is a currency crisis or that the anti-fraud rationale is pretextual, though I could have missed something.)
(ETA: HN title has been re-edited, previously didn't have the "to curb fraud" clause.)
> Bank of Thailand (BOT) will meet with commercial banks and the Anti-Online Scam Operations Centre (AOC) on Monday to address growing complaints about the wrongful freezing of bank accounts.. after small retailers and individuals reported being abruptly cut off from their funds without warning or recourse.. Assistant BOT Governor.. acknowledged that current procedures for identifying and freezing suspected “mule accounts” need refinement to prevent harming innocent customers. Many account holders have taken to social media to express frustration over being unable to access their money or conduct business after transfers from unknown sources triggered automated freezes.
I live in Thailand, many expat accounts have been closed down, making it very hard to pay bills etc. in the country. That will form part of the 3 million. Huge overreaction that will dent the economy and will no doubt be flip-flopped on in a few months time.
I wonder in the crypto based future if there will be any safeguards to avoid scams and fraud. Instant settlement is not a good thing for me, Ideally any transaction over $1000 should take a week and can be cancelled. Transactions over $100k I'd like to go to a physical location and prove my identity.
Does "MM" usually stand for "million"? In German we have "Millionen" and then "Milliarden", but in English that is "Billion", so "MM" cannot stand for "Milliarden" either. And "Mega" already is *10^6, but only has 1 "M". So at first naturally I read "Million Million", but then thought: "What? There is no way they have that many accounts!"
It is a very confusing way to write the number and no explanation seems to fit, other than "There is a second 'M' to avoid clash with the company name '3M'.". Is that the explanation?
> Over the past two weeks, Indonesia has been rocked by some of the most widespread unrest in recent memory, with mass demonstrations erupting across Jakarta and other major cities. The protests are the result of long-running economic strain, political discontent, and public outrage at perceived elite entitlement.
Its basically a worldwide proletariat uprising against the elite. And the current article hits people in the pocketbooks. And any protestors who are gaining popularity will undoubtedly be in those 3 million accounts blocked.
They’re trying to reduce non-technical people or elder scams and fraud.
A scam network takes over phones, tricks people on friends lists to follow directions so their phone can be remotely controlled (Apple and Android). Then the cycle repeats and they try to drain bank accounts in the process.
Thailand is placing 50k maximums for digital transfers then adjusting over time based on … 50k baht = $1,575 USD
I know of a Thai person who fell for an "e-work" scam over the last year.
The hook was that you pre-pay some amount, do some trival work, then get like 500% return on your "investment". So they filter+train their mark by having them sign up for whatever financial transfer workflow, and figure out how gullable they are by giving them some payouts. A big part of this is some chat-group where lots of other fake-workers post comments saying how nervious/risky it seems and how sometimes the payment is delayed but they all eventually get paid. Eventually they let the mark sign up for some high-value amount, like equivalent of a few thousand USD. When the mark doesn't get paid, they contact the "technical support" team that then tries to social engineer the victim to loose even more money transferring funds the wrong direction (the scammers picked financial apps that make this mistake easiest).
I kind of find it unbelievable that people fall for this stuff, but the obvious proof is that enough people do :(
36 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 47.5 ms ] threadIts sad that these scams are so widespread today that a heavy handed approach like this is necessary. Unfortunately doing these attacks is incredibly cheap :(
High value transfers should be subject to additional scrutiny to confirm it’s legitimate.
The hard part is making sure you balance that well enough so that you’re protecting against malaise without the bank then becoming a consumer problem themselves.
It will be interesting to see how well this works.
So many questions...
Update: my Thai friend just wrote me this:
"Not in trouble, it's the Chinese and Russians money laundering. Every Russian has had their accounts suspended, this was about half a year ago, now they are slowly doing the Chinese and Brits too. Vietnam is not much better, also suspending all foreigners accounts until you can prove you have a trc here."
Update2: just saw this on IG… https://www.instagram.com/p/DOZM0ZOkUAy/
(ETA: HN title has been re-edited, previously didn't have the "to curb fraud" clause.)
> Bank of Thailand (BOT) will meet with commercial banks and the Anti-Online Scam Operations Centre (AOC) on Monday to address growing complaints about the wrongful freezing of bank accounts.. after small retailers and individuals reported being abruptly cut off from their funds without warning or recourse.. Assistant BOT Governor.. acknowledged that current procedures for identifying and freezing suspected “mule accounts” need refinement to prevent harming innocent customers. Many account holders have taken to social media to express frustration over being unable to access their money or conduct business after transfers from unknown sources triggered automated freezes.
this wasn't a swift action overnight
they could be blocking this many accounts on a yearly basis just from scam reports at the police station
or more which seems to be the case recently, but not overnight
this is bad article
It is a very confusing way to write the number and no explanation seems to fit, other than "There is a second 'M' to avoid clash with the company name '3M'.". Is that the explanation?
But if you pay attention to GPS jam maps and news sources, they are currently also under significant unrest.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/09/indonesias-unrest-revives-fe...
> Over the past two weeks, Indonesia has been rocked by some of the most widespread unrest in recent memory, with mass demonstrations erupting across Jakarta and other major cities. The protests are the result of long-running economic strain, political discontent, and public outrage at perceived elite entitlement.
Its basically a worldwide proletariat uprising against the elite. And the current article hits people in the pocketbooks. And any protestors who are gaining popularity will undoubtedly be in those 3 million accounts blocked.
A scam network takes over phones, tricks people on friends lists to follow directions so their phone can be remotely controlled (Apple and Android). Then the cycle repeats and they try to drain bank accounts in the process.
Thailand is placing 50k maximums for digital transfers then adjusting over time based on … 50k baht = $1,575 USD
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M
The hook was that you pre-pay some amount, do some trival work, then get like 500% return on your "investment". So they filter+train their mark by having them sign up for whatever financial transfer workflow, and figure out how gullable they are by giving them some payouts. A big part of this is some chat-group where lots of other fake-workers post comments saying how nervious/risky it seems and how sometimes the payment is delayed but they all eventually get paid. Eventually they let the mark sign up for some high-value amount, like equivalent of a few thousand USD. When the mark doesn't get paid, they contact the "technical support" team that then tries to social engineer the victim to loose even more money transferring funds the wrong direction (the scammers picked financial apps that make this mistake easiest).
I kind of find it unbelievable that people fall for this stuff, but the obvious proof is that enough people do :(