07.04.2014

Forged IPAF Pal card

Spotted by an eagle eyed reader, a street trader in Bangkok, Thailand, offering counterfeit PAL cards from a portfolio of forged documentation.

Our reader spotted it in a video posted on Liveleak, which shows a man looking to buy a false FBI card, but as he flicks through the huge collection of false documents offered by the trader, you can clearly see the PAL card, featured alongside US Military documents, FBI cards and forged university degrees.

How good these forgeries are and how much demand there is for them in Thailand is a moot point, as anyone can easily verify a genuine PAL card online or via a quick phone call, making forgeries unusable on sites where cards are checked properly.

Sadly the man making the video did not enquire what the going rate was for the PAL card, although he is told that the FBI card will cost him 1,000 we assume that this is 1,000 Thai Bat – roughly $32, rather than $1,000.
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The forged PAL card sample

What this video does show is how widely the PAL card has become accepted, with more than half a million valid cards currently in circulation. To see the short video for yourself just click here

Vertikal Comment

While IPAF might well be concerned over forgeries popping up like this, it will also be flattered that a street trader in Bangkok feels that it is worth including it in his range. Perhaps it also indicates that the time is right to move over to the new PAL smart cards more rapidly than might currently be planned?

Last week the organisation claimed that by the end of the year 40,000 of the 500,000 valid cards in circulation will be smart cards. One delegate at the conference suggested that it consider switching over immediately, and supply all renewals with a new smart card, even if this means making a small increase to the cost of a new card. This would ensure that by 2019 all valid cards would include the smart card chip.

Sounds like a good idea to us. Hopefully this will be a decision that does not take months or years to make.