PETALING JAYA: You go to bed knowing where your car is or thinking it is in good hands. You wake up to learn it has been smuggled out of the country and deep into Thailand – all in just 12 hours.
That was the nightmare faced by several car owners who lost their vehicles after leasing them out for rental.
Getting the car back can be harrowing; it involves a risky trip across the border and paying thousands of ringgit to thieves and “helpers”.
Zack, who owned a four-wheel-drive vehicle, knows all about it. His nightmare started when he rented his car to a man in Pantai Dalam, Kuala Lumpur.
He said his car was in the Malaysian capital when he went to bed at around 10pm.
“When I woke up at about 8am the next day, my GPS tracker showed that my car was in Narathiwat (Thailand).
“I lodged a report that evening and my case was passed back and forth between the crime department and the commercial crime department.
“The police officer kept asking why I rented out my car and he told me that it was wrong.
“Then he told me I would not get my car back. He also told me to bring my friends and hire a tow truck to retrieve my car from Thailand,” said Zack.
Finally, it was the Thai police who came to the rescue.
With the help of two acquaintances – one of them a Thai, Zack and his wife went on an arduous trip to retrieve their car that was apparently kept in a mafia lair in Sadao, Thailand.
“I almost gave up because the car hadn’t moved in over three days. On the fourth day, I saw my car was moving towards a vehicle scrapyard. So I asked the Thai police for help.
“After 20 minutes, the police called and told us to go to the car. We used the spare key and drove it away. There was no one else around at that time,” Zack recalled.
Although he was relieved to get his car back, his struggles did not end there.
He was asked by the Thai police to take the car to the police station first for processing.
“The policemen asked us to pick up the car at 8pm. When we went there at the appointed time, we were asked to pay RM3,000 as a gift that they called ‘wang satu hati’.”
Zack paid it but then found that his dashcam, spare tyres and car mats had been removed.
It is not just those who rent their vehicles out who have to cross the border to recover their vehicles.
Fatimah, 53, had parked her Toyota Hilux in front of her house at night. She learned the next morning that it had reached Narathiwat.
She lodged a police report that it was stolen but she claimed the police suspected her son, who was the last to use the car, of insurance fraud.
Four of her family members, including an acquaintance who can speak Thai, tracked the car down and found it parked at a house in Songkhla, behind the Sadao police station.
“My family members went there and found that the plate number had been changed. They had cut off our car radio antenna, thinking that it was the GPS tracker,” she said.
She too had to pay a “fee”. The acquaintance demanded RM10,000 as a gift and had threatened to sell off the car if it was not paid within 30 minutes.
Fatimah, from Ampang, Selangor, said she managed to raise the money with much difficulty and eventually got her vehicle home.
Keyword: Risky trip to Thailand to get back cars