John Galt Presents: The Stickman Syndicate

We are first going to take a look at this week's Stickman's column. If you didn't have a chance to see it before it was taken down you can look at it here - Galt's Copy of: Stickman's That Feeling of Helplessness. Please read the opening column and take notice of the very first story about Stickman's interaction with the student at his school.

Stickman called this guy a young punk. Wrong move. The first you do is not jump to a conclusion that the guy who hit your car is a bad guy. You keep calm. You approach him in a respectful way and ask him to explain what happened. In most cases, if a person responds nicely to you, the matter will be resolved in the correct and agreeable way and the student will take responsibility for his actions.

If you jump out of the car and go off on the youngster, then yes, you're going to have trouble with them. Stickman speaks Thai, that was to his advantage. It's very possible the youngster would have responded rather well, but Stickman didn't handle it correctly. In most cases the Thais will respond very well to level headed reasoning.

There are some situations where people will be defiant. When this happens you have to set the standard and take the correct action. You must stand up for what is right and be ready to bear out the consequences. A teacher is the example in school. Do you show the student that he can just damage the car and walk away from it? Or, do you stand up and impress upon him that he must take responsibilities for his actions? The greatest harm you can do as a teacher is to set the wrong example.

Stickman, if you were feeling a little intimidated by the student, you can always take your laptop and hold it in front of you and that will help you deal with the situation. You always feel more bold behind your keyboard.

I read all my email from Stickman's supporters and I consistently sense their naiveté about Stickman's organization and true power. Stickman is a force. He knows it. Behind the scenes Stickman is brash and brazen. He has a penchant to bully people he doesn't like (who he thinks are smaller than him). He is also very clever and quite the trickster. He hides in secret while he manipulates people and information for his own profit.

In the beginning Stickman was only one man. Now, he is nearly an entire crime organization all of its own (not all parties are on outside of the law but the glue that holds them all together is). If you map out all the players and sponsors of his on-line empire, it might looks a little bit like a picture of tentacles that was used a few months back to describe the dealings of the former prime minister. Perhaps Stickman has been following Taksin's game plan but in the farang underground world?

Here is a simple diagram of Stickman's alliances and contributors. I'm sure I have not listed all his sponsors. Some of these sponsors may be trading services for ad space. I would believe most pay for their ad space. Some sponsors may not be paying but are friends of Stickman.

I believe a great many of these businesses are legal. Some are providing questionable services (we don't have time in this article to address those people). Certainly some are sending money or other deliverables to Stickman. Stickman is probably taking these deliverables outside the confines of the law. The major problem with this is that he wide open and public about it. It's not a quiet dealing. It's not a secret. Anyone can can see it. This is a public relations nightmare openly calling on the press to come take a look.

Stickman also runs a private investigation service. I don't believe Thai law allows foreigners to conduct this type of work. Stickman preys upon the fears and feelings of his readers and entices them to send him money to do bar girl investigations. That income is also undeclared and illegal.

Stickman hires others to conduct investigations. He hire farangs. This is another breech of Thai law (the type of breach they consider worth prosecuting).

We also see a large group of outsiders who contribute work product to Stickman's web site. That work product ultimately becomes a Stickman income. Does Stickman offer any compensations to these writers? Does he take them to dinner? Now, we have a situation where Stickman may be involving a larger number of foreigners in doing something other than tourism. What might the repercussions be for all these people?

Meanwhile, Stickman is a full time English teacher at an upscale school in Bangkok. He should be very happy to have this position because his teaching credentials are not that strong. Perhaps he should not be teaching at all? If he would enter the country today, would he be able to win the job that he currently holds? That is not for me to decide. Stickman should be taking care of his students. How can he really be doing his best work for them if he is running an internet-empire and running down to Pattaya on most weekends to do private investigation work?

I have had email from several guys who inquired with Stickman for investigations in Bangkok and Pattaya. The price for a basic investigation in Bangkok was 7,000 baht and the price for Pattaya was 13,000 baht. Now just how many investigations can be done during the week or on a single weekend? We knew that Stickman has been going down to Pattaya every weekend (based on his weekly columns). Let's say he has an average of 1.5 investigations each weekend. That would be easily to do on the weekend in most normal cases. Let's say he did 2 a week in Bangkok. I think these are fairly conservative numbers. 4.4 weeks in a month, do the math and we come up with $147,400 baht. That sure does seem like a large income. But, Stickman may NOT be doing all of these himself (although he certainly could). So, maybe he hired junior PIs. A Stickman PI told me that the normal payment for a job is about 5,000 baht. So, part of that 147k will be paid out to others. Let's say Stickman does 1/2 of his own investigations. He paid out 38,500 baht to others for their work. By the way, all of this money comes into the country through Western Union and I would guess to some extend untraceable (unless authorities can track these types of transactions). So, rough guess an a decent month he'll make about 100,000 baht for investigations. Those are good numbers.

If you ask Stickman about his ad space, he will respond with email very much like this one:

Thanks for your email and thanks for your interest advertising on my website, Stickman's Guide to Bangkok.

You're right, the Stickman Weekly column is the most popular part of the website and is the most frequently visited part of the site. Following the weekly column, the next most popular section is the Reader's Submissions section. After that, it is the Expat Living section and the Teaching section which receive about an equal number of visitors. The number of visitors to the site continues to rise all of the time.

I personally believe that the best and most effective place to place a banner ad is on the main index page or in the weekly column.

Banners can be hosted on your own server, or I can host them. JPEG or GIF picture files are fine, as are Flash style banners. The maximum dimensions for a banner are 480 x 70 pixels, and the maximum size 30 Kb.

Following are the rates for banner advertising on the most popular parts of the site. If you would like to advertise elsewhere on the site, please advise the specific location and I will be happy to quote you a rate. All rates are listed in Thai baht. I have quoted three prices, a weekly rate, a monthly rate and a three monthly rate. Rates for longer terms can be discussed.

SITE LOCATION	One Week	One Month	Three months
Main index page	3,000	6,000	15,000
Weekly column	2,500	5,000	12,000
Weekly column index	2,000	4,000	10,000
Readers' Submissions index	2,000	4,500	12,000
Every second submission	2,000	4,000	10,000
3 large sections (anywhere)	1,500	4,000	10,000
Any other location	POA	POA	POA

Making an estimation for total income is going to be a bit of a guess. Let's say he has 5 people on the front page, he normally has about 10 advertisers inside his weekly, and 2 on the weekly column index. He has another 3 to 5 unique advertisers in the travel section and a few more in other places (say 5 more).

Let's assume they all are long term customers paying the lowest fees on a continual basis. That mean he has about 25 client. Not everyone is paying, a couple trade ad space. But, I still think 25 is a reasonable guess. Let's say they are all on the 3 month plans. The figures would sum up to about 265,000 baht for 3 months or about 88,333 baht a month. Not a bad take.

We can't forget, Stickman is an English teacher. He gets a salary every month. He is at a good school. Conservatively he gets 35,000 baht each month. He may actually be making closer to 60,000 baht a month.

Short Update Nov 17th: I received email from a reader today who claims they have a friend who works with Stickman. That source suggests the teachers salaries are much closer to 80,000 or 90,000 baht per month.

Add all the numbers together and you get 223,333 baht. BUT WAIT, we didn't talk about Google moneys. Each click on google for the Stickman sight costs the advertiser about .08 to .1 baht. Out of that Stick will receive a smaller fraction. Stickman hosts thousands of readers each day. I'm guessing here because I personally don't take Google moneys but I would expect his intake to be a least 20,000 baht a month.

Short Update Nov 17th: This email came into me Nov 17 10:20 pm about Google Adsense revenues.

That number may be off by plus or minus 60,000. Oh, Stick you naught boy. You've been poor mouthing the readers for years now. Farang Kee Nok Mai? - Mai Shua!

Stickman recently brokered the deal to sell the HIV Test kit business. His commission on that deal was very likely 20,000 baht. How do I know that? I have some insider information that appears to be very credible.

Last week I asked you to vote on exposing Stickman's true identity. I also, wrote that in order to be fair, I would also release my own.

I thoroughly agree with your exposure of this pompous hypocrite Stickman! Well done.

Yeah! Go for it - let's know who he is and who you are. What's the problem in that? Neither if you have done anything illegal - it's just a public spat that needs airing.

I think you have done the correct thing in exposing this scamster Stickman,he is a parasite thats plays on peoples emotions when he investigates(not)some bar girl.if i guy is stupid enough to fall for the old mama sick,papa sick,buffalo sick he has only himself to blame.

Always been kinda intrigued as who the Stickman is.

Don't really care who you guys are, but I think the smart thing for you to do is expose yourselves. That's to protect yourself from any future hanky panky.

Look, if the guy maintains that he is making an honest, legal living and doing nothing wrong, then why would be be ashamed to hide behind a pen name. Out him!

Go ahead and out him. I don't think you need to out yourself, but it's a nice gesture.

I don’t really have anything against Stickman, other than I have always considered him rather naïve and un-traveled to be handing out advice like he does. His perspective of Thailand is very narrow, constrained by his fixation on lower Sukhumvit and his low paid job. He is the classic example of just because you speak Thai fairly well, it does not make you an expert on Thailand; it just means you have a knack for mimicry.

I've been a fan and regular reader of your website for over a month now. I even like stick's site - especially the reader submissions...

That being said, I vote for EXPOSURE!

I have been an avid reader of Stickman for a long long time and have always looked forward to his offerings, NOW...I am less inclined to read and will be following your efforts with interest. I feel exposure is the correct path to follow..... I wish you good fortune with your endeavors.

He deserves it and his cronies have been posting information about you regularly, but not word about Stick. Seems a bit one sided and you can balance it out.

I know you don't want anyone other than yourself, exposing your own identity...and that is exactly what Dickman, or one of his little dick friends, would try to do immediately if you reveal his identity. sooooooo, you're thinking if you expose him, then you voluntarily expose yourself and no one one-ups you. I'm hoping you reveal him, but i'm thinking you won't in order to preserve your own anonymity. CHOK DEE NA

This month even more untruths from stickman, he deserves it

Voting expose, expose, expose. From negative personal experience

John..please expose this fart for what he is..

I've been married to my lovely wife (Thai) for some years and we are considering moving back to Thailand in the coming year as we have both been offered excellent jobs out there, but to be true the thing holding us back is the welfare of our daughter and specifically her education. Thailand has an epidemic of arseholes like Mr Stick masquerading as teachers to fund their night time habits. In my country (UK) if a school teacher was exposed as a guy who frequented gogo bars and the like on a regular basis and was responsible for publicizing this industry on his website then there would be no doubt of the outcome...he would be struck off the teachers register.. How many of these guys exist in the Thai education system???? from my experience Id say that every fellang I have met who teaches in Thailand is there for one reason ....and it ain't the 30k/month salary !!!!! Get the fucker deported and lets start something to wake the Thai's up to this cancer within their education system. You have done a good job in exposing this leach.

Go ahead and do it. Expose the both of you. I've enjoyed your website, but if you want to wrap it up and move on, what better way than to pull back the curtain and take a bow.

Why not? YOUR name, photo, and business are now known on another Thailand site

So stickman is back. I am amazed he can keep his job. I figured if those parents of his well-to-do students found out what he wrote about he would be toast. Stickman has bragged about his high teaching salary, so I figure he makes 60 to 70 thousand baht per month. Is that in the ballpark? His website doesn't charge that much to advertise and I doubt many of his readers click google ads so I don't see it making that much. What do you think? Keep up the good work.

I just came across your work on NOTstickman and was really impressed. It's about time someone came out and poked some fun at that guy in an intelligent way. Now if only someone would do that with thaivisa!

Expose the Stick Man! Expose the Stickman! Sticks been acting a bit too like Machiavelli in his ways and doings...

As stated in mango , u have outed the hypocrat par excellence , but where are the details ????

Yes, please expose the bastard. Thank you

I think it is great that you do what you do. So many of us take for granted what Stick says as the gossip truth. How wrong we have been. Why he hasn't come clean I cannot understand. If he has nothing to hide, what is the big deal? Please be careful out there wherever you are. Keep up the good work.

Wow, I can't believe all the negative reactions on mangosause. It goes to show you that many prefer lies than the truth. PLEASE, don't let it get you down. We are all with you on this... and the truth always prevails of course not without the evil to attack you.

Again another week goes by and another great read on your site! Please do not let your foot off the gas pedal DO NOT let stickman off easily. You have done a lot of work in a few months time to blow the doors right off years and years of stickman misleading the public, so I ask why stop now??

While what you propose is more fair than just posting his info, to expose without his approval would just not be the right thing to do ..

What you have done so far has been OK, don't do something that is just not right.

Stickman has a wife, etc.. don't screw him up anymore than you have so far .. and I don't have a problem with what you did so far.

Please, stop harassing Stickman. You very well know that by mentioning his school, you already exposed him -- anybody with a bit of curiosity now has his full name, workplace name and a picture. What else do you want to expose? Phone number? Shoe size?

I don't think you should expose Stickman or yourself. I read Stickman for a long time - years, I imagine - and along with other sites his site prepared me for my trips to Bangkok. Having been there three times in the past five years, for a few weeks at a time, I don't really read his stuff any more (too much blathering about falling in love with bargirls - what idiots), and came upon your site by accident. In general, I think your exposure of him has been valuable, within the limited range of its overall importance in the world.

Such a reveal on your part would be pointless, seeing as how most people that have followed your masturbatory antics already know that
you are Keith Summers, and you would only be trying to cover up how badly you were at covering your tracks - i.e. your 'reveal' would only serve to cover your ass, and at that, only to yourself.

What kind of person are you? Has this person (stickman) really done you or anyone else any real harm? Have some compassion that we are all different people in this world and have the right to ply our trade. If you really feel that he is malicious in his attempts to alter the truth to the extent that is aggrecious then you might have a case for doing it.

You already declared Sticks identity when you put up the Banana girls article so we already know what he looks like and thanks to your own
vanity, we all know what you look like too. So what's the point of asking if we want to see him or you for?

I've googled this a thousand different ways and still can't find the guys photo or real name. Nevertheless, I say don't expose him. And I say this as someone who basically agrees with just about everything you have said AND done so far! Keep exposing the BS, keep on with your column, but stay anonymous, both you and Stick. Why? Well it seems like your achieving what you setout to do without having to actually expose him. Why pour gas on the fire when the building's already burning down? Might as well avoid any possible headaches in the future that might come from actually outing the guy.

I actually enjoy both Stick's site and now yours. And the anonymity also is a big part of that enjoyment. I strangely do not want the burden of knowing the true identity of either of you guys. You know...'ships in the night' and all that. I too own a business in Thailand that sometimes requires me to 'look the other way' at times in the name of expediency.

In your early “columns” I believe you vowed to protect stick’s identity and not expose or otherwise hurt him? As someone who visits Thailand for a few weeks each winter, and was first there in 1974 in the military, I enjoy his banter and his take on The Kingdom. Whether he makes money on ads or by plugging a bar or restaurant, or some click ads, who cares? Readers can vote with their mouse and stop going to his page.

I don't know who you are or who Stickman is and I don't care. I don't even care what your problems are with him. I even enjoy the differences of opinion your site provides.

Thumbs down John, I would rather you not expose yourself or Stickman (keep it in your pants!). Over the past three years, I have enjoyed Stickman's column and never really cared who he was. Also, I started to read your column a few months back and now visit it regularly. In my opinion, your column works well on its own. You bring a new and refreshing perspective to the Thailand scene and you don't need to take Stickman to task to make your site successful.

Stick is a real person. Many of us already know who he is. He has never hidden that to his contributors. He has always been ready to get together for a beer. Do you want to make the life of an actual man and his wife already harder than it is? Do you want to hurt him and his wife? Farangs should help, not hurt each other.

John I think you need to see a shrink, you have a unhealthy obsession with stickman. Before you think I'm defending stickman well I'm not, I dont know him & never spoke to him, be it by e-mail or face to face.

I had been wavering on my decision for a long time. On one hand, if Stickman wanted to leave the on-line web business and stay in his teaching position, I would have leaned towards allowing his to stay hidden. However, his actions of going off-line and back-on line suggest that he will not give up the web side of his work. Fine, that is a reasonable decision.

Part of being on-line means you have a responsibility to the public to do an honest job. You have a responsibility to be a good steward of the public trust. I don't believe he can adequately accomplish this without being the public eye. Bernard Trink worked for many years in the public's eye. To my knowledge, he didn't have any reason to hide. I recognize that Stickman is a school teacher, but if that is a conflict to his web site work then he will need to resolve his conflicts and choose a path. To continuously flaunt the rules will only bring a public relations "black eye" to the foreign working population when it does become an issue in the Thai press. He has an opportunity to avoid that now.

In recent days, Stickman took down his web site when I placed hints about his teaching workplace on my web site. He has shut the site down and turned it back on twice now. I think he has made efforts to declare his choice to stay in the web site business. That is a fine choice. Whatever conflicts he has with teaching is between him, the school, and the Thai parents who sends students to that school.

In my experiences and in the testimony of those who wrote email to me, Paul has demonstrated a tendency to abuse his public power through his writings on the web. Those abuses were starting to grow. If he sways public opinion, he should be taking a stand to show himself to take direct responsibility for his positions.

Therefore, I believe it's fair to tell you his true identity. In fact, in just the past several days, we have been seeing Paul change his web site to become more legal. That is a welcome move. Sorry that I had to bash him to make it happen but some people don't always take the high road until forced to do so.

Stickman is an English Teach who lives in Bangkok and works for Patumwan Demonstration School EPTS in Bangkok. Mysteriously, their web site has been up and down in the past week (is someone tinkering with it behind the scenes Paul?). If you can't get through to that site directly, here is my back up copy of it EPTS1 and EPTS2.

His real name is Paul Owen and as you probably already know he is from New Zealand. By his own writing Paul is in his mid 30's. He has been here about 8 years and speaks Thai proficiently. He does have a Thai wife and I believe he has been married a 2 or 3 years now. Paul is also teaching some computer courses in addition to his English teaching responsibilities.

My real name is Keith Summers. I'm an American. My background is in computer engineering and software development. I run a facility that manufactures motorcycle turn signal products and LED lighting electronics and control. I'm 44, I've been in the Kingdom about 5 years. My Thai is functional but not great. I am not married.

You probably want to know a little bit about my company's products. We produce turn signal products for foreign motorcycles (nothing for Thai bikes). Most of our customers are in the US but we do ship all over the world.

Our business model is also a bit unique. We manufacture and sell directly to the end users. Wholesalers don't touch the product. We make more money and the customer saves more money. It's a winning combination. This technique allows any company here in very specific vertical markets to beat the Chinese out of market share.

We also produce LED lighting fixtures and electronics. This is a wide open future opportunity. This market is just beginning to take shape. There will be an explosion of companies doing this type of business over the next 5 to 10 years.

The Thai government has a long list of un-approved professions and a list of encouraged business opportunities for the foreign investor. Thailand wants the introduction of new technology. Thailand wants enterprises to create real value in Thailand.

Export opportunities are of strong interest as well. Our work here falls in line with these major goals. If you come to Thailand and establish a similar company that brings fresh money in from outside the country with manufacturing and export, I predict your efforts to become legal and set up with the government will go quite smoothly.

With so much good legitimate opportunity here in Thailand why would anybody go through all the trouble of doing illegal activities? Just because it's fun? I guess the change the Visa rules are going to weed a number of these individuals out of Thailand.

Paul sounded defeated and over-run. He was polite to me. I believe he wants a way out for this situation.

He admitted leaking my personal information to his friends who are now posting malicious content about me on the Internet. He also admitted that he was miss-behaving a little bit with his power of his web site on the Internet over the past year.

I asked him directly about a couple of things that were in one of his columns. He swore that he didn't know anything about that topic. I said, well, you talked about it in your column twice in recent months. Why don't you know anything about it? Paul stumbled and acted like I had caught him in a lie.

Evidently, much of what is written in the Stickman Weekly column is put together by other parties.

Paul is not a tough guy. I think he is afraid. He feels really strong behind the computer but person to person, I have the impression that he is between a rock and a hard place.

I strongly suspect that some darker elements of the naught night life business have been exerting influences against Paul Owen.

One of the reasons that I believe this is that I have received some threatening email from one of the companies that sponsors ads on the Stickman site. This sponsor came off very ugly to me, I can only imagine that Paul is extremely intimidated by this same individual.

If Paul is afraid of a student's retribution as seen in his last column "That Feeling of Helplessness" then I can certainly expect that he is intimidated of these other powers who are solidly focused on controlling the farang services market.

I think Paul needs some help to get out of the mess. Maybe Paul needs to cut a deal with the Economic Crimes Suppression unit of the Thai authorities? I don't how big that influence is so I'm just guessing here.

Paul told me that he wants to keep his teaching job. He told his boss knows about this web work and she required him to remove the naught night life elements from the site. Paul agreed to her requests. I tried calling his boss today before I posted this article to verify that she knew and that terms were on the table for him, but I could not reach her although several attempts were made. So, I could not confirm any of his efforts or his honesty with me.

Paul wanted to negotiate and way to keep his identity hidden, but he failed to accomplish his agreements on a time line as agreed. This is a case where Paul waited weeks and weeks too late to come clean and honest with me and the readers of his web site. Paul is in a mess, but I don't feel sorry for the guy because he created this mess.

To recap, I strongly suspect dark influences were working their way into his column. I think Paul flirted with these people. I believe he thought he could handle them. I suspect some of them are handling him.

No surprise this week as we are still seeing a steady stream of people looking for answers. Readers want to know what the hell is going on with Stickman. I still see a strong trend for readers local to Bangkok.

Many of my readers have expressed interest in seeing more articles about living in Thailand and Thai culture. I hope to get back to my other writing very soon. Thanks for your patience as we migrate back to truly wonderful cultural topics.

And don't forget -- don't believe what I say just because I say it. Prove it to yourself. There are just too many damn liars in Thailand on the Internet. Get your advice from a variety of sources. Ask a lot of questions. Challenge what you are told. (Expect some friendly deception on occasion because people want to find out if you are gullible or not) If you can do this, I fully expect that you'll do quite well in Thailand either as a tourist or a resident.