The Thai girl pregnancy scam

Published: April 28, 2019 - Reading time: 12 minutes
» Updated: June 17, 2024

The Thai girl pregnancy scam is one of the more sinister scams that can occur in Thailand. Put simply, it works by spinning a web of deceit and playing on your emotions. If you are spending time with women in Pattaya, Bangkok, Phuket, or any touristy areas of Thailand, then you may find yourself falling victim to the Thai girl pregnancy scam.

When reading this article, you will probably think to yourself “this could never happen to me”. Since we first published this article, we know that it has been read by unfortunate guys who did find themselves falling victim to this trick, and they also thought that it could never happen to them when reading the article.

How does the pregnancy scam work?

How does the pregnancy scam work? It is really quite simple. You’re spending some romantic time with a Thai bar girl, dancer, or even a ‘non-working’ girl that you met while in Thailand. Maybe the condom breaks or you didn’t use one. You head off back home and think nothing more of it until you get a message which reads "My period is late... I think I’m pregnant".

From here the story can take many different paths. If the man believes that he has made a Thai woman pregnant, he might fly back to Thailand to spend more time with her. He may start to reconsider his relationship with the woman and start to make long term plans to live with her in Thailand, or to get her (and the baby) a passport/visa for his home country. He may consider sending the lady money to start up some form of business, or prepare/furnish her home for a new-born baby.

Most guys will have no problem sending money for check-ups in a private clinic or hospital.

Whether or not he discovers that she is not truly pregnant before he makes long term commitments to the woman will depend. In some cases, if a guy makes big financial commitments to a Thai woman, and she is able to take a good amount of money from him, then that will leave her better off even if the relationship abruptly ends when he discovers that she is not actually pregnant.

Of course, many guys will not end a relationship when they discover that the lady was not truly pregnant. She may claim to have miscarried and present herself in floods of tears – most foreign guys will not walk away from a woman that appears highly upset, crying, and claiming to have lost his baby.

In other cases the lady might try to become pregnant while her boyfriend believes that she already is. If the lady cannot get pregnant, or doesn’t want to get pregnant, then she might use friends, or corrupt medical staff, to create the illusion that she is truly pregnant. Cases which run on for several months tend to include details which make it seem extremely convincing that a woman is pregnant while she is not. For example, a lady might visit the hospital many times and take photos of herself there, but she was in the hospital visiting friends or just passing by it. She might pay a clinician to speak with her boyfriend in English about the fake pregnancy, which is usually very convincing.

Fake pregnancy tests in Thailand

Fake pregnancy tests can be purchased all-over the world, and this is also true in Thailand. Fake pregnancy tests are cheap and readily available; sometimes tests with positive indications are sold online or behind the counter in stores. Other times women that are actually pregnant will make money by selling pregnancy tests which show a positive indication. A lady that is expecting a baby can help to provide any style of pregnancy test with the result "positive". She might provide multiple different positive pregnancy tests made by different manufacturers to make an even more convincing story.

Seeing a photo of a positive pregnancy test can help men to fall for the Thai girlfriend pregnancy scam hook line and sinker. We have even seen examples where Thai ladies have used photos of positive pregnancy tests that were found to have been downloaded from Google!

Why would a Thai girl lie about being pregnant?

Why would a Thai girl lie about being pregnant? Well, any man with a conscience is much less likely to walk away from a woman that could be carrying his child. The lady might demand money to pay for an abortion; but more often they will use the claim of being pregnant to lure the man back to Thailand, or to extract more money from him so that she can stop working around alcohol while pregnant. Perhaps the lady is deep in debt and feels that she can earn extra cash by convincing her boyfriend that she is pregnant. Maybe she does need money for medical treatment or to build a house… There could be thousands of different reasons that would drive a woman into making a false claim of pregnancy.

Whatever the motive behind this scam, the same principle applies each time. It is a form of emotional blackmail which gives the Thai woman a sense of security that the man will not walk away from her. And it usually causes her boyfriend to do things which he would not otherwise do if he did not believe that she was pregnant. How each man reacts to the belief that their Thai girlfriend is pregnant will of course vary in each case.

Often ladies involved with this type of scam will have used it on many different men over a number of years. Over time they can hone their abilities and make their claims seem very believable. They learn exactly the things to say which makes their lies to seem convincing, and they learn the best methods to extract money from their boyfriends.

Ladies that are involved with this scam typically understand enough about Western men to know what drives them and how they think. Trying to outsmart a professional fraudster using the information contained in this article will be extremely difficult in most cases. This makes our work during Thai lady investigations all the more vital to the wellbeing of our clients.

Pregnancy in Thailand

Pregnancy is a big deal in Thailand. Unlike in Europe or North America there is very little government welfare available, if you can’t afford to feed and clothe your baby there are few safety nets. With this being the case, it would be unwise for a Thai woman to fall pregnant with a man she barely knows.

If your Thai girlfriend is from a poor family (typically from rural farming areas in Isan), then supporting a child without help from the father, or any other means of income, will prove very hard indeed. Many of the ladies working in bars and nightlife areas are in fact there to support their parents and any children from previous relationships. Surviving on Thai minimum wage, and supporting a family of people, can be very hard in many cases.

Because there is no real safety net in the form of government aid, getting pregnant and having enough money to raise a child is a big deal. The cost to buy things like baby formula and diapers in Thailand is comparable to the prices in Western countries, and raising a baby does take a lot of money.

Child support in Thailand

In Thailand, a man can only be held liable for child support if he was legally married to the baby’s mother at the time of birth. Otherwise, a court would need to rule that the man is indeed the father of the child. He could then be held liable for child support.

Child support is fairly uncommon in Thailand, and while many Thai people will have lavish wedding ceremonies, they do not always legally marry each other, which can hinder claims for child support. Thai women usually do not pursue child support against the father of their children after the relationship has ended… Of course, there are exceptions to this, but the attitude of many Thai women is not to seek out money from their partner after a relationship has ended.

This is one of the reasons which mean that Thai women usually will not get pregnant as thoughtlessly as some ladies in Western countries. Women from north America or Europe may be eligible to numerous government support programs, welfare programs, and child support payments, when they have new-born babies. In Thailand this is not usually the case.

Don’t be fooled

It can often prove very difficult to outsmart a woman that is practiced in romance fraud, as they’ve heard and seen it all before. Positive pregnancy tests can be ordered online or obtained from pregnant friends. There are even reports of some ladies allegedly taking drugs which bloat out their stomachs and help to make their foreign boyfriends believe that they’re really pregnant.

By the time the man has found out his lady was lying, he will have spent more time with her and formed an emotional attachment to her which will be hard to break. We have often seen women that claim to be pregnant conveniently miscarry shortly before they're due for an ultrasound examination. Others can be more creative and string out their claims even longer.

How the lady decides to play the scam, and how her boyfriend will react, can be very different depending on the individuals involved. However, the outcome is rarely positive.

If a Thai woman that you barely know is suddenly claiming to be pregnant with your child, then maybe take those claims with a pinch of salt. Is she being serious? Could she be exaggerating the truth? These are questions which you should ask yourself.

We can help

If you think that you might be falling victim to a romance scam then there are things which we can do to help you... While it is usually not possible for us to determine whether or not someone is in fact pregnant, we can find out if they’re lying to you about other things before you make emotional or financial commitments to them. We could place the lady under surveillance, for example, which could seek to find out if your girlfriend is cheating on you while you’re out of the country; or try to see if she is continuing to consume alcohol while claiming to be pregnant.

We also offer a romantic background check service which can help to check and verify certain factors relating to your girlfriend. 

Checking your Thai girlfriend in this way has the potential to help you avoid romance scams, and protect yourself from financial loss and heartbreak.

We are a leading detective agency working across Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket. Get in touch with us if you think that you could use our help. We offer free quotes for all work and are glad to offer help and support to our clients.

Please note that due to large volumes of traffic received through our website we are unable to offer free relationship advice. If you would like to receive advice from us on your situation without instructing us to perform any form of investigation then a consultation fee will apply.

Learn more about Pattaya private investigators.