Thailand Pass applicants are being warned about numerous scam emails from accounts posing as the Department of Consular Affairs or a team from the Thailand Pass system. Some emails are requesting personal information, such as passport numbers, and others include an encrypted link. Officials haven’t confirmed if any other information besides email addresses has been compromised from the Thailand Pass system.
A Thailand Pass QR Code is a requirement for those entering the country on the Test & Go or Sandbox schemes. The approval process can take a week, but while waiting to hear back, travellers are being warned about phishing emails. Authentic emails on the Thailand Pass are sent from email addresses ending in @tp.consular.go.th or @consular.go.th, which are both official accounts under the Department of Consular Affairs.
Some travellers have gotten emails saying there are problems with documents submitted to the embassy and asking for the last four digits of their passport number as well as their name and date of birth. Other phishing emails say a document needs to be downloaded, specifically on a PC, for information to be updated on the Thailand Pass system.
Various spoof emails with malicious links have been sent to Thailand Pass applicants for the past several months. Some applicants say they’ve gotten an email months after being in Thailand.
On the Thaiger Talk forum, several people say they have received strange emails about the Thailand Pass. One user wrote…
My wife has received exactly the same email from [email protected] and a similar 12 hours ago (just with alternating thai and english) from [email protected]. These mails are in my opinion phishing mails – they tick all the boxes being unspecific, no identifiable information (full name or application ID) and now also coming from two different email addresses.
Another user on the Thaiger Talk forum wrote… This is a huge problem. We had to use credit cards to pay for the pass. We had to upload our medical records, Image of passport, and full home address. What was leaked? Why has nobody talked about this?
One person, named in the forum as “TheDumbass,” wrote… Unfortunately, I wasn’t bright enough and followed the whole process from this email. I have even downloaded a received file and opened it. (TheDumbass didn’t mention what happened to his computer after he opened the file.)