sikishrory

This stems from a ฿2.2 billion scam covered by multiple outlets: 15 Chinese nationals entered Thailand on Mar 9, left Mar 13 Assisted by 4 Thai bank staff (including a branch manager) in Pattaya 209 bank accounts opened with forged documents ฿118M deposited, ฿91M withdrawn before fleeing Accounts linked to 106 fraud cases and 462 mule accounts Total damages: ฿2.2 billion Can't open an account on a tourist visa. Fair enough. But it’s not just Bangkok Bank — reports mention Kasikorn accounts being frozen too. SCB seems unaffected so far, but if you’ve got serious money in any Thai bank, it’s worth being cautious. What if you opened an account years ago on a non-immigrant visa but now hold a DTV (which is classified as tourist)? I see secondhand claims of BKK Bank freezing these, but nothing firsthand. So I called both SCB and Kasikorn today: Kasikorn: spoke for a couple of minutes but in a nutshell said nothing to worry about. SCB: More detailed: “It doesn’t have a problem as you used the correct visa in the first moment.” “We don’t update visa type, only passport or phone number. Visa is only needed to open the account.” “You can still ask at a branch — they may have more specific info.” Also worth noting: SCB now requires face scanning for app access (as of June 5). Without it, you’re limited to 50,000 THB per transfer, though the agent said multiple back-to-back transfers are fine. Other thoughts: How will this affect the long-term visa market: need a Thai bank to get a such and such visa, but need a visa to get a Thai bank. How will this affect the condo market: yes, you can transfer directly to a developer, but if you don’t use your own Thai bank account, you won’t get a credit advice document — required to move money back out of Thailand later. No control if there’s a transfer issue, either. The situation feels messy and opaque. Could definitely be handled better.

They get the money out first or?

Maybe some guard rails or something for these canals and 1-2 metre gutters would help too? Eg. Patong hill has been probably the most notorious and reported patch of road on the island for decades but parts of it on the patong side still have a 1 metre deep ditch centimetres away from the road.

"I'll miss you baby"

I would estimate at least what? 30%? Of foreigners with hospitality and other business here are using fake nominees and dodgy company structures to fully control their business. If Thailand shuttered them all what effect would it have on tourism and the quality of hospitality etc I wonder? Im thinking it would be half as dismal as business during covid. Good luck finding your acai bowl, full english and gourmet burgers. 30% is being quite conservative as well.

The duck is hands down the best but always gives me the runs as it's always served at room temp. I didn't see it included in the article though. Its the only thing mk has going for it imo

So same boiled crap you get at any other suki place for 100 baht or so less...

English tourist. Cannabis smuggling. A new trend emerges.

The thing is though I am never "surprised" as the majority of places do it so I expect it. However if you're new to Thailand or a tourist I can totally understand feeling a bit cheated with what seems like sneaky pricing. That being said I think service charge is bs. Particularly when there is no "service" or the service is poor. I had a delivery once which had a delivery fee and a service charge and the vat added on which I questioned and they just said it is policy. I'm also aware it means a lot to the staff and can be an incentive to perform or work at a place. My missus makes a salary of 12,000 at a hotel. Low season service charge around 12,000 but high season service charge adds 30,000 baht to her salary. Employees often try to work at places like this. Where places like small cafes struggle to get staff as they have to compete with these large hotels and their considerable service charges. This doesn't change the fact it is basically a forced tip. I also remember reading a few years back that technically you are not legally required to pay the service charge. I can't be bothered to find the story and lots of these local news stories seem to be 404 after a couple of years anyway. So I agree it's all a load of rubbish but surprised I am not.

Look into creating an "alias" address. Particularly if it is an old "Hotmail" account which means >12 years old. Check for any logins in the security settings that aren't you. Check https://haveibeenpwned.com/ for data breaches your address was involved in. Creating an alias means adding a second email address to your existing account. It uses the same inbox, settings, and login.

A fraudster with an infection living on the street that doesn't want help. Let nature take it's course then.

I can attest to this. Denied in Savannakhet then approved in HCM with the exact same documents. A lot of wasted money and seems it has gotten worse since. They release a vague infographic that looks like it was made for a school project and then leave everyone to figure out the actual details using online groups and giving embassies lots of room to interpret and make up things as they please.

Maybe time Patong considered adding a public toilet to the area. Crazy idea though I guess.

To be more specific the issue (perhaps different to yours) I refer to was me being unable to extend a marriage visa at jomtien based on the condo being registered to company ownership in the tabian bahn. However, other posters at the time (this is a years old post) told me it was notriously difficult to get marriage non-o extensions at jomtien.

People suggesting storing the files in the cloud - Personal preference I suppose but files in gmail are already in the cloud using your google storage quota. So storing them in google drive you are essentially just saving them twice. I used to do it myself but decided to rrach out to google one support which confirmed they use the same memory. Regarding this all I can think is they were accidently removed or a new extension or something ran a cleanup script targeting archive. Or an actual google error. This was happening to acounts a few months ago.

Someones had a spillage

That would be commonsense. Commonsense unfortunately isn't so common around here.

Savannakhet. Close enough to count.

The destruction of Phuket.

Same guy who owns bkk hospital. Total greed.

It reads as: No he might be dressed as a monk and living at the temple but he aint one of us. All good. Nothing to see here. Face saved.

Thailand seems to enjoy reporting it is considering hosting the F1 rather than actually hosting the F1. Been reading this for years.

Bank to bank is safest.

society slowly embracing democratic values Overwhelmingly actually

That's basically it. They come here thinking there is a bit of room for chest puffing and smack talk and realise in about 1.5 seconds that Thais don't talk crap like that.