gearbox

Just extended for one more year, no changes. The same lady in the immigration, Bangkok bank 6 months statement, Thai international medical certificate still 250 baht, copy of the yellow book. There were heaps of Russians/Ukrainians when I submitted the application, around 1.5 hours waiting time.

Aussies are squeezed by high cost of living and high mortgage repayments. The best destination is the nearby council park.

Where is Kho Tow? I've been to most of the Thai Islands but never heard of this one.

You can call them with Skype credit, use their Australian phone, not 1300, the charges are around 3.2 cents a minute. I spend sometimes up to an hour on call with the banks.

Get an Oz SIM, life would be easier, the Aldi sim can be maintained for as little as $15 per year.

With CBA at least you need to get a SMS confirmation to do a first transfer to an account. If Wise changes their Oz account (they have done it before) my Wise transfers would be stuffed up without an Oz SIM.

Sorry OP I didn't read your posts very well. I thought you have an Aussie SIM which is on roaming via AIS, seems that you have an AIS local Thai number. No idea why this wouldn't be working, I would never use a setup like this.

I got an Aussie number and I'm getting SMS messages from at least 20 organisations, including CBA, NAB, Macquarie bank, Citibank, ING, Qantas, ATO, PayPal AU and others without any problems. I'm with Aldi Mobile which I believe uses the Telstra network. I think the only country where my roaming and SMS were not working was Albania. Which one is your Oz provider? You need to check with them. I used to have a hardware token with Citibank, but had issues all the time, and the batteries are not replaceable - so it would die somewhere and leave me without access. The only token I have now is with Rabobank, they don't use SMS as 2fa and their tokens last 6-7 years.

There is a way to avoid overcharging - don't throw rocks and bicycles at houses.

According to a BAC calculator a female weighting 80kg and drinking 8 beers in 4 hours would have around 0.16 BAC. Almost double the amount of beers to get to 0.35. The insurers most likely have enough evidence to reject the claim.

Another day, another GoFundMe...this time an Aussie for a change. The alcohol level of 0.19 exclusion is pretty common in the policies, and requires some serious drinking to be exceeded. To deny it without a blood test implies she is way above that. The private hospitals probably don't do alcohol tests as they know the claim could be rejected.

OP don't overthink it, just come with whatever visa you want, open your laptop and do whatever you want, nobody is going to stay behind your back. For that matter it would be the same in most of the countries in the world. Don't let the clients pay you in Thai bank accounts and generally avoid workspaces, there is good 5G and fibre broadband Internet here.

And the third, most important reason - they have no ways to catch them working remotely.

Working well into my seventies...what a bright future! Looks like I still have more than 10 years working life left. However in 10 years maybe working until mid eighties may become popular, so who knows.

Sorry to hear you got slurred as a "Chink" but can assure you this happens fairly rare in cosmopolitan cities like Sydney or Melbourne. Probably very rare compared to Pattaya. In Australia there are 1.4 million people from Chinese descent, including my daughter in law. That's higher proportion per capita compared to the number quoted above. The main "fault" of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and the Jews is that they value highly education and hard work, and slowly manage to move up the ladder in most countries they migrate to. The Chinese in Australia are 5.5% of the population, but probably 25-30% of the graduating doctors and engineers these days are from Chinese background. This doesn't go well with the low class which feels falling behind. Especially age 60+ which are living in the fifties of the last century. Somehow low class taxi driver or bricklayer thinks they stay above a PhD from Chinese background. Here comes the yellow peril. The young generation 35 and younger are much more tolerant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westie_(person)

Chinks and Lebs terms are often used by the Westies.

Are you certain that this is going to happen in any branch/any place in Thailand?

The corruption proceedings are probably split between the agent and the bank officer. In many countries it is a criminal offence to offer or receive a bribe.

In theory it is an account forever, but I don't know what happens when your debit card expires...I don't think they mail cards here so you may have to turn up in a branch, and they may check your visa. However if you don't need the card you can operate it remotely as long as you have Thai Sim card. Or a mobile app. But rules change all the time wrt AML/KYC, so they may need to verify you every X years, if they can't reach you they may freeze your account. CBA in Australia told me every 2 years although they admitted they may skip it, esp for retail customers. With another bank my business account was blocked because they wanted to refresh the KYC data and they couldn't reach me, again in Australia.

5 years ago all the branches I visited refused to open an account although I had O-A visa, residence certificate and 12 months lease. Then I brought my gf which deals with them very often and the staff became very friendly. I opened accounts with Krungsri and Bangkok bank. Didn't have to pay anything or buy insurances. At that time I didn't really care too much, as with O-A one doesn't really need bank account at all, but later when I converted tourist visa to Non-O retirement they came very handy. Later I got a credit card with Bangkok bank, no issues at all as I had an account already. As this is Thailand, it would vary between the various provinces and branches. For Samui I would recommend Krungsri at Central, upper floor. I had to visit the branch a few times last 2 weeks, every time there were some Russians (or Ukrainians?) opening accounts.

They will gladly sell you at the normal price if you tell them "no coupons for me"

Pork products are now prohibited item, 200k baht fine and up to 2 years in prison. This was valid last year, not sure what's the situation now. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3639027

No they won't fine you as you submitted documents and you are "under consideration". I was in the same boat a few years ago. Came with 2 months tourist visa after my O-A visa expired and proceeded to do visa change from tourist visa to Non-O retirement. "No possible mister!" It took me quite a few trips to the immigration office, the last with my gf "to convey the message" as I wasn't sure they understand me completely. In the end after a bit of "tea money" I was OKed, then it took them probably 6-7 weeks, I probably called them more than 10 times as it seemed I overstayed quite a bit my 2 months tourist visa. Since then extended 3 times for 1 year, no problems with the extensions. Needless to say my paperwork was meticulous and everything was done on time, probably the only mistake was that I had twice the required retirement extension amount in the bank book, around 1.6m, and it was early covid times, the hunger times at the Immigration..????

Sure...this is only an option to consider if he goes back. In his current circumstances a corrupt agent would be probably the cheapest way to open an account.