Trick of unscrupulous Traders

It was an eye-opener for me when the tourist guide on the bus bound for Hat Yai told us something which we had to be careful about when shopping in the small town in Thailand.

He asked us to watch out for unscrupulous fruit traders. According to him, when we buy fruits the trader will get ready two bags and place them side by side. As you are looking at your purse while taking out the cash to pay him, he will steal the time to take out a number of fruit and put them into the bag beside it all because you are not looking. Hence, he has two suggestions to avoid this cheating. First, ask the trader to wrap up the fruit and you watch him do it. After taking over the packet do you take out the purse and search for money to pay him. Alternatively, you bring a friend along to watch him wrap the fruit. In your friend's presence, he won't do it of course