nikkoid66

If you analysis the situation, these Retirement fix are NOT ILLEGAL.

If they were, many people would complain, it would be advertised like the Jet Ski scams.

There is a loophole in the Thai immigration and it is very typical of Thai culture. Forget your culture for a moment.

- the law say that you need to have 800.000 bath on a Thai bank account for 3 months.

OR

- 65,000 baht / month pension

OR a mix of the 2.

For example if you have a pension of 40,000 / month you only need to have 320,000 bank on your bank account.

The law does not explain or limit how you can get this money on your bank account. You might loan it to someone, it is legal. It just have to be here 3 months on your bank account.

Now if the money is here for only 2 days, the immigration office should not accept your application.

If it does (whatever the reason, and that's the 'Thai flexibility') you get a real stamp and you are good to go.

There is no forgery, no illegal process, you go with the lawyer at the immigration office and get the stamp.

Once you have been accepted by the immigration office, there is no turning back, investigation or anything that can get you in trouble. You have the papers in due forms and can enjoy 1 year in Thailand.

The only risk you take is before you get approved. The immigration could reject your application. But the lawyers apparently have a way to get through this and again, once the immigration stamp is on your passport, no one can undo this process.

It is not official, but it is generating too much money, no one will touch this loophole as it is too profitable for everyone, and it does not generates any crime or inconvenience for anyone.

So if you have the money, go for it, you are a good person. If you don't have the money it will cost you 20,000 and you will get the same. The lawyer takes the risk for you. If you are rejected, you will not end up in jail as you never did anything wrong, except borrowing the money from the lawyer firm to get accepted... what's wrong with that? And if the immigration officers stamps your password are you responsible of something illegal yourself? He just made a mistake, sorry. It can happen. All the process has been managed by the law office, you did nothing else than giving them the paper they asked and pay them for their advertised service.

Now... it is a good thing to keep this secret and not talk about it widely because the only thing that Thais are not liking is advertising of their Thai culture applied to the law. We call that corruption, they consider that otherwise. Thais always want to arrange people around them so that they are happy and like them... who can complain about that?

Since I am in Pattaya I have seen these Tourist only checkpoints getting more and more absurd. They would try everything to get a bath from you.

As you can see they stop all the tourists, but Thai can do what they want.

500 bath per tourist, can make a lot easy money.

Now that Pattaya have more of them (they doubled the number of road police they say), there are more checkpoints, more controls, and more harassment.

I could go to Central and come back and be checked 3 times. Not only it is annoying, it targets only tourists and farangs, but it makes people loose time.

Meanwhile, if you call the police because you are in danger, or need helps, the majors numbers (including the 1155 for the tourist police) are not working and no one answer.

I think these tourist targeted brigades are similar to the Jet Ski scams. In France I can drive a scooter without a permit. It is legal because I drive a car and a scooter is less then 125 cm2... In Europe it must be the same. But in Thailand, they do not care and will fine you 500 baht even if you show your European driving license.

If you are an expat you can pass the Thai permit (a pain in the ass) but if you are a simple short term tourist and rent a motorbike, you are trapped.

Just happened:

When you damage their jet ski, they ask 100.000 in damage, when they damage your properties, they try to kill you!

This one is very scary! http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2011/12/11/pattaya-jet-ski-operators-detain-tourists/

One day they will do the same to some guy from the Russian mafia and it will end up in a major shooting on the beach... I warn everyone because this will happen one day.

This scam will end up very bad one day... one tourist will come back next day with a gun and shoot 5 of the scammers or something like this. Or the scammers will kill some tourist in plain light in front of the kids and family and it will go viral.

Or maybe the people who read this forum will join together with batons and go KO these ass,holes for good and give them a deserved lesson?

But something will happen someday...

You can find everywhere. All the small buildings that are looking a little bit cheap.

But be careful and ask how much per unit you will pay for electric and water. It is a common scam to put a low price for the rent and then ask 12 bath per unit (when the normal rate is 4 bath).

This way, you will pay 6000 bath per month in electric instead of 2000 and the 4000 will go to the condo owners.

You should not be charged more than 7 baht per unit, if not the case, move somewhere else.

This could happen in Europe too. I had some stories with forged signatures back then... Banks are totally incompetent. They would cash checks without checking anything. Everywhere the same. Now this money is gone somewhere. Some people will have some nightmare to get the money back. Some people will loose their job too. And it will take years in procedure to get something from the bank...

I have seen that many people are selling their condo. Probably very upset and want to leave the place.

I stay here because everytime I move somewhere else, I miss Pattaya and come back...

My understanding is that he is sick, and will get free premium health care...

Anyone can confirm they have Fiber Optics in their condon complex?

it is working (for me at least)

So they start the promotion before having customers? On girl at 3bb Big C Extra told me that soi Bocaow is cabled...

I rather want like to buy magnet and not destroy any HD! Something like 5cm/5cm should be ok. I need 2 of them.

Anyone knows where I could buy neodymium magnets in Pattaya?

Is there a shop close to Pattaya where to buy these?

3BB is doing a great promotion for Fiber Optics plan (1290 baht for 20MB down, 3 MB up)

But there is no where to find a single place where Fiber Optics is installed.

They say that Soi Bocaow is wired, but where exactly?

If your building has Fiber Optics, could you list it in this thread so that we know where to go?

Here is the current promotion: http://www.3bb.co.th/product/product_detail.php?id=2253〈=en

She is not selling counterfeit good, she was just a vendor.

Anyway, if she was, she would not post this video which reveal her identity.

It shows that police don't care about doing their job. You can sell anything including child porn as soon as you pay the police.

So her reaction is to blame the cop for extorting her when she was breaking the law herself, pretty bold

Both of them should be arrested

Sent from my GT-S5660 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

They don't know they are video taped. The lady who video tape is using her phone as if she was talking to someone.

It ask some guts to do it!

I wouldn't say this had anything to do with extortion because:

1. Like most people on here, I don't speak Thai.

2. Would the cops discuss a bribe when they know they are being videoed? Can't see that myself.

I rented at this place several time. Hertz is doing 674 baht/day for 2 weeks rental, they ask me 1100 baht a day. Same car (Viao)...you said cheap?

Also one time I rented a car there that was smelling like vomit and cigarette (of course we didn't realized that before we made 200 km because they put a lot of perfume). Me and the kids had the worse travel with a car ever, driving windows open, you can imagine. I would have returned the car but I had about 800 km to do and have booked for the kids etc...and was already far away.

Forget about these big names with their big prices. In Jontiem on Thrappraya Road @ Thepprasit is 'Expat Car Rental'. Rented from them several times, very friendly and speak English well.

Hi, I love this movie but it is hard to find and was made in French.

Everyone who lived in Thailand can relate to this story...

I have setup a page with both a HD version and a low quality version for streaming. There are English subs so that everyone can appreciate it...

It was made for TV and no available anymore. The translation is good and made from someone from pattaya-addict, credits are included in the movie. I remasterized from a very bad quality version rendered the subtitles.

Here is the link enjoy! http://nikkoid.com/video/ladybar1.php

I am a big fan of this restaurant, because I love maki and futomakis but also because I have been frustrated the last 4 years as an expat to not find any place equivalent to the Sushi bars in SF or Miami.

Search is over, I have found this place named Sushi Train Walking Street (their Facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/SushiTrainWS )

Of course it is fresh and made by order, but it also taste the same the best restaurant in US or Europe and it is cheap. They are not very creative and you will find the common maki, but for 70 a plate, you get a generous size of 5 piece of sashimi! It would cost the double anywhere else in Pattaya and they do it right, remove the fat and the black like we do in Europe and US.

I am very happy about this place and hope their business will do well so that I can still go there to get my sushi patch every week! Spread the word, this place is 10/10 for the price/quality/taste.

I think it is more an incompetency and lazyness case. For new year most Thais were drunk or sleeping, including the Immigration and Police.

The guy just booked a plane and fly away without anyone noticing it because they were too drunk and tired after drinking to check anything.

He got lucky... now if the police do not want to loose the face they need to fix it which could happen. They can issue a warrant and Interpol will catch him wherever he is. Might take some years tho.

Apparently several people took pictures of the UFO... they must all from the same familly?

http://news.mthai.com/hot-news/210161.html