I mean silly me for not seeking govt issued approval but even now you can Google "Bangkok Sandbox" and you'll get pages of what look like perfectly legitimate results and hotels offering the program. It's easy to get duped, it looked to me at the time that there was a Bangkok Sandbox.
Jared Jernegan to clarify: a lot of hotels advertised on booking.com and agoda etc and other places that they offered a bangkok sandbox program. The screenshot below is the receipt from my booking. Each displayed all the relevant badges and certificates and multiple websites had links to lists of Bangkok sandbox hotels. There may not have been a bangkok sandbox but a very convincing bangkok sandbox program was sold to many people on very legitimate sites. I had no reason to doubt mine until just a couple of days ago.
to clarify: a lot of hotels advertised on booking.com and agoda etc and other places that they offered a bangkok sandbox program. The screenshot below is the receipt from my booking. Each displayed all the relevant badges and certificates and multiple websites had links to lists of Bangkok sandbox hotels. There may not have been a bangkok sandbox but a very convincing bangkok sandbox program was sold to many people on very legitimate sites. I had no reason to doubt mine until just a couple of days ago.
People do ask repetitive questions, I am one of them but let's face it - where else are you supposed to get any kind of realistic or useable advice about coming, especially now, away from groups like this?