Tigerfish99

All the talk, the fines, the jail time: HOT AIR ! The hills were on fire all around our area last night! This morning the air quality is appalling ! They burn the jungle to promote the development of some wild herbs and mushroms, that they will later pick and sell on the side of the road.

Apologies, I am referring  to the TM30, the one used to declare your residency. Of which a stub stays in your passport and that I was told at the time I did it, only a few months ago, by my agent and as read on this forum that if you left the country, when you came back, you just needed to re-confirm your same address as previously, within 24 hours, by showing your TM30 stub stapled in the passport. Stub that was used for proof of address at my entrance into the country in CNX on last friday evening.

I just came back from a trip my home country and went to imm. within 24 hrs to reconfirm my adress which is the same as stated on my last TM47 stub that is stappled in my passport. The imm. officer informed me that I needed to present a new TM47 and that that will be the procedure everytime I re-enter the country, that regulations had changed again recently.

Has anyone encountered this situation? Is this correct?

Re: Migrant workers

If anyone reads the Skynews article about the new CCTV footage, it is interesting to note that:

DNA on a cigarette butt had earlier been matched to semen found on Miss Witheridge, and officers say the cigarette was smoked by more than one person.

The cigarettes found yards from the bodies have been identified as a little-known brand apparently favoured by migrant workers in the region.

I sincerely hope they find those responsible for this horrific crime as soon as possible.

It is now official that common sense as prevailed,even to those on this thread who would hide their heads in the sand

And show no compassion to their fellow British citizens who are less fortunate than themselves.

Would once again like to thank the ardent common sense whingers who have campaigned throughout this thread

To change what can only be described as bungling in bulk.

Thank god i am not disabled,but i was so appalled at what was expected of the elderly and disabled British citizens

Who lived in the north or south of Thailand and who needed to renew their passport

I have just received this follow up email from HMPO Newport doing a complete about turn on this stupid rule giving

a British citizen NO OPTION but to possibly undertake a 4,000 kilometre journey to renew their passport

N

[email protected]

to me

17 hours agoDetails

Good Morning Mr M

Thank you for your email of 14 May 2014 about the procedure for elderly or Disabled British Citizens residing in Thailand who have been advised by a doctor that travelling to renew a British Passport would be detrimental to their health.

If a person is unable to apply in person, someone else may go on their behalf. A third party can also go to collect the passport however, they will have to provide evidence of who they are (some form of ID) and provide a letter from the applicant giving permission for the named person to collect the new passport on their behalf.

When the local office contacts the applicant to confirm the new passport is ready to collect, they will need to advise the office that someone else is collecting it and the local office will confirm details of how to do this.

We trust this clarifies the matter.

regards

Carol-Anne Peacock

Customer Contact Support Officer

Swyddog Cymorth Cyswllt Cwsmeriaid

Operations

Gweithrediadau

Her Majesty's Passport Office

Nexus House l Mission Court l Newport l NP20 2DW

Swyddfa Basbort Ei Mawrhydi

Tŷ Nexus l Mission Court l Casnewydd l NP20 2DW

T:+44 (0)1633 473125

[email protected]

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I am glad you got an answer from HMPO complaints office.

However, for this to function with TRENDY (HMPO's Thailand contracted UK passport application reviewer and forwarder) you would need a contact phone number, and staff to be able to communicate in the ENGLISH language. None of these available right now. As amazing as it may seem!

Cloud Cuckoo Land!

The S*** has hit the fan at last over this scandalous neglect of a simple public service that is the right of every British Citizen.

However HMPO is still attempting to reduce the number of applications in transit by lengthening the delay for obtaining an appointment to submit your application and the communication coming out of Trendy is still ridiculous.

We are still awaiting an answer to an email application sent on 30th May and resent on 4th June.

Simple Maths:

HMPO issues 5,5 million passports a year, that is about 25,000 per day.

The prime Minister is clearly lying or is severely misinformed when he says the backlog is only 30,000 in total. The average number of applications daily is 25,000! And the seasonal rush is probably increasing this number by anything up to 50%!

Delaying applications for just a week will push back 125,000 applications plus seasonal effect.

As overseas applications have been taking 10 weeks instead of 6, and extra 4 weeks to process, i would estimate the current jam is of 500,000 to 750,000 passports in backlog, plus another 125-250,000 applications being micro-managed and being delayed through lengthening the lead time for an appointment.

There is an article in the daily Telegraph today that explains the awful problems that expats are facing right now

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10893479/Passport-backlog-British-diplomats-warned-of-crisis-at-high-level-meeting.html

Passport backlog: British diplomats warned of crisis at high-level meeting

Exclusive: Leaked letter reveals head of the Passport Office was confronted about delays while Home Office orders immediate reversal of relaxation on security checks

What an awful mess! And it is far from over!

This is going to be a major political crisis! Heads will roll at the highest level!

Yes, it's a god awful mess........

However, on this thread there have been at least two reports of Trendy offering application appointments within 24 hours of email sending, both within the last week.

But both appointments that came back were 2 weeks in the future.

So I strongly recommend that you send an appointment email again a.s.a.p.. keep it super simple, just 3x dates and times.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice, we will just fly in from CNX and turn up. It's going to be noisy and probably rude also!

The S*** has hit the fan at last over this scandalous neglect of a simple public service that is the right of every British Citizen.

However HMPO is still attempting to reduce the number of applications in transit by lengthening the delay for obtaining an appointment to submit your application and the communication coming out of Trendy is still ridiculous.

We are still awaiting an answer to an email application sent on 30th May and resent on 4th June.

Simple Maths:

HMPO issues 5,5 million passports a year, that is about 25,000 per day.

The prime Minister is clearly lying or is severely misinformed when he says the backlog is only 30,000 in total. The average number of applications daily is 25,000! And the seasonal rush is probably increasing this number by anything up to 50%!

Delaying applications for just a week will push back 125,000 applications plus seasonal effect.
As overseas applications have been taking 10 weeks instead of 6, and extra 4 weeks to process, i would estimate the current jam is of 500,000 to 750,000 passports in backlog, plus another 125-250,000 applications being micro-managed and being delayed through lengthening the lead time for an appointment.

There is an article in the daily Telegraph today that explains the awful problems that expats are facing right now

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10893479/Passport-backlog-British-diplomats-warned-of-crisis-at-high-level-meeting.html

For now, there is still absolutely no notable improvement to the service!

Trendy does not answer emails, there is no other way to contact them apart from email.

I am still awaiting an answer to a request for appointment sent on Friday 30th May and re-sent on Thursday 5th June and I feel simply INSULTED.

(My first email was received and read and a receipt emitted. Strangely for my second email, that was not the case, but then I DID mention I had the read receipt to the complaints office at HMPO at +443002220000! (They were quite surprised and seemed annoyed that i had that!)

Can we sue? For dereliction of duty!

Trendy are just the post box, any problems/enquiries still have to be dealt with directly by HMPO in the UK (Helpline or email), these are the only communication channels available.

The HMPO website still has woefully insufficient information for applicants in Thailand.

Trendy do no reply to emails other than to re-direct to the HMPO channels and they do not have a telephone helpline.

To date, despite assurances from HMPO that this would be fixed a.s.a.p, no one at Trendy can read/write English well enough to respond to detailed enquiries, however until recently they were reasonably good at replying to requests for an appointment.

There has however recently been some significant improvement, in that as of the 4th of June a third party is now allowed to make a passport application on one's behalf at Trendy - for the last 10 weeks one had to appear in person which could have involved up to 2x 2,000 km+ journeys, accommodation, loss of wages, etc. - this in itself is a big improvement - however there is still a long way to go before the service is even half reasonable so we do need to keep pushing them hard.

You have never had to do 2 journey yourself.. You could send somebody else to pick up your passport when it arrives.. I was told this atthe Trendy on April the 10th... The new thing is letting someone go to do it for you..

Sent mine April the 10th.. Still sat here frustrated and angry waiting for mine to arrive

What date did your credit card payment go out ?

Mine was 16th April and I got my passport last week.

Have you emailed Newport ?

The second application email that i sent to Trendy that also contained a complaint about the fact that my first application (acknowledged: received and read) had not been answered was also forwarded to Newport.

I have received no reply and no acknowledgement from Newport that they have received a copy of this complaint.

This is a hell of a way of covering some civil servants backsides by not allowing for the issuing of email acknowledgements.

What proof is there then that there have been complaints?

As I also stated before, the HMPO phone complaint I made, while spending 30mn on the phone with the UK, could not be registered into the system, as "there was a problem with the computer system".

As I have said in other posts: HEADS MUST ROLL! AND LET'S MAKE SURE THEY DO!

I am using Twitter to pressure and lobby. I suggest others do the same. @KentBKK is the British Ambassador in Thailand, @foreignoffice , well we know what that is!

Anyone know the Twitter handle for HM Consul General in BKK?

Don't give up!

This is our birthright.

We have the duty and the right to demand perfect public service from the British Government.

Thanks but as we will be flying in from Chiang Mai, we don't really want to risk being rejected.

Good News:

As of the 4th of June HMPO have moved the goal posts and now allow third parties to make the a UK passport renewal application in BKK.

See the related website page, linked below:

https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports/y/thailand/renewing_new/adult

Note the key paragraph:

You must apply in person. If you’re unable to, someone else can go on your behalf. You must bring photo ID with you.

This is a significant shift in policy and will save many of us a huge amount of inconvenience, as I suspect within 2 weeks there will be agencies offering just such a service at a cost which will out trump the inconvenience/financial damage of personal travel to BKK for most living outside of the capital.

Small comfort for the pioneers who have had to endure the original nightmare personal appearance condition that has been in place for the last 10 weeks.

It also represents a back down from HMPOs original rigid position, as posted below, which was written in reply to any complaints sent in about this unjust process.

HMPO Newport:

'In light of the challenges presented by local Thai law to achieve this applicants for a UK Passport in Thailand are required to travel in person to the office of a HM Passport Office representative, in the case of Thailand our representative is the UK Visa Application Centre in Bangkok, for them to view the original document(s) and verify photocopies as being true replicas as the originals. This allows the customer to continue to meet the legal requirement of keeping their passport with them at all times whilst their application is being processed.'

Just goes to show that whinging about injustices does achieve results, despite what the nay sayers were posting on this forum.......

For now, there is still absolutely no notable improvement to the service!

Trendy does not answer emails, there is no other way to contact them apart from email.

I am still awaiting an answer to a request for appointment sent on Friday 30th May and re-sent on Thursday 5th June and I feel simply INSULTED.

(My first email was received and read and a receipt emitted. Strangely for my second email, that was not the case, but then I DID mention I had the read receipt to the complaints office at HMPO at +443002220000! (They were quite surprised and seemed annoyed that i had that!)

Can we sue? For dereliction of duty!

Good News:

As of the 4th of June HMPO have moved the goal posts and now allow third parties to make the a UK passport renewal application in BKK.

See the related website page, linked below:

https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports/y/thailand/renewing_new/adult

Note the key paragraph:

You must apply in person. If you’re unable to, someone else can go on your behalf. You must bring photo ID with you.

This is a significant shift in policy and will save many of us a huge amount of inconvenience, as I suspect within 2 weeks there will be agencies offering just such a service at a cost which will out trump the inconvenience/financial damage of personal travel to BKK for most living outside of the capital.

Small comfort for the pioneers who have had to endure the original nightmare personal appearance condition that has been in place for the last 10 weeks.

It also represents a back down from HMPOs original rigid position, as posted below, which was written in reply to any complaints sent in about this unjust process.

HMPO Newport:

'In light of the challenges presented by local Thai law to achieve this applicants for a UK Passport in Thailand are required to travel in person to the office of a HM Passport Office representative, in the case of Thailand our representative is the UK Visa Application Centre in Bangkok, for them to view the original document(s) and verify photocopies as being true replicas as the originals. This allows the customer to continue to meet the legal requirement of keeping their passport with them at all times whilst their application is being processed.'

Just goes to show that whinging about injustices does achieve results, despite what the nay sayers were posting on this forum.......

About a year ago, I renewed my passport with the old system by mailing the application to Hong Kong and I did this WITHOUT having to send in my old passport. The above commentary is wrong, previous policy specifically allowed overseas applicants for renewal to keep their old passport. At that time, I got my new passport back within three weeks. Now the system is completely broken.

This HMPO situation is a ABSOLUTE DISGRACE!

Please write to your MP and complain - Heads must roll!

An unacceptable level of public service!

Who represent the British expats living in Thailand?

Is there a Consul in Bangkok?

If so, can anyone give me his name and contact as I clearly need to speak to him,as soon as possible!

The root of the problem is the Conservative obsessions with privatisation and outsourcing - something that really came to the fore with Thatcher (may she rot in peace).

The big outsourcing companies, G4S, Crapita, Serco, Atos are all utterly hopeless. I can't think of a single service that the government has outsourced to them where they have performed at a level above "utterly pathetic". And the Conservatives are unwilling to concede that the outsourcing policy is a failure and change tack. Dogma blinds them to the reality of the multiple messes they have made.

The management of these companies doesn't care about quality of service; it just wants to maximise profits, which means employing the cheapest (ergo least qualified) staff and providing the cheapest, shoddiest of services and to hell with the customer.

Outsourcing to VFS very much falls into the same boat.

I agree with your comments about profits coming before quality of service, but the problem is not with the concept of privatisation. In this case and others where there is in effect a monopoly, time after time it usually goes to the highest bidder, at the cheapest cost. They pay crappy wages, their employees have low morale and customer service suffers as a result.

I wouldn't accept that kind of expectable seasonal rush as any excuse for this managerial disaster.

Anyway I thought an improving economy and demand for foreign holidays was the real reason for the mess at HMPO 555.

Sent from my GT-N5100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

The root of the problem is the Conservative obsessions with privatisation and outsourcing - something that really came to the fore with Thatcher (may she rot in peace).

The big outsourcing companies, G4S, Crapita, Serco, Atos are all utterly hopeless. I can't think of a single service that the government has outsourced to them where they have performed at a level above "utterly pathetic". And the Conservatives are unwilling to concede that the outsourcing policy is a failure and change tack. Dogma blinds them to the reality of the multiple messes they have made.

The management of these companies doesn't care about quality of service; it just wants to maximise profits, which means employing the cheapest (ergo least qualified) staff and providing the cheapest, shoddiest of services and to hell with the customer.

Outsourcing to VFS very much falls into the same boat.

I did manage to extract a phone number for VFS in BKK from the nice lady at the British Consulate whom I was screaming to. Never managed to speak to anyone who could speak the English language, and after my first call they stopped answering the phone.

I called + 44 300 222 00 00 to complain, also a useless service run by nice and patient who just read out what you can find anyway at.gov.uk

I was told to email my complaint to [email protected] (what a geeky mouthful!) and am still awaiting any acknowledgment or reply.

Oh, and the French currently take 12 days for a passport renewal in Bangkok! But then It's Government run!

How old is your stepson?

If he is under the age of 15 he is not liable for overstay fines.

Thanks for the answer. He is over 21.

This is an unbelievable situation! As a British Citizen I also find this totally unacceptable.

The new (and supposingly cheaper) system they were bragging about is broken.

An article published in the Gardian newspaper yesterday shows the extent of the crisis in that even domestic applications are taking over seven weeks to process.

" UK Passport Office fraud staff diverted to deal with applications backlog

The new (and supposingly cheaper) system they were bragging about is broken.

An article published in the Gardian newspaper yesterday shows the extent of the crisis in that even domestic applications are taking over seven weeks to process.

" UK Passport Office fraud staff diverted to deal with applications backlog

"Under interrogation it was established that the suspects were four Norwegians, Mr.Espen Forberg (41), Mr.Sebastian Gjertsen (21), Mr.Martin Gisvold Garathun (21), Mrs.Ida Marie Juhl Falchenberg (20), the other 3 being Swedish, Mr.Ulf Carl Johan Hellbacken (36), Mr.Anders Erik Engzell (30) and Mr.Tommy Viktor Soderlund (26). They were charged with doing business in the kingdom without work permits, which all deny."

These people are involved in fraudulent activites, just a simple google search would reveal this:

http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2011/02/23/call-centre-gang-apprehended/

A Hong Kong company establishing a branch in Chiang Mai is recruiting Two Full Time Graphic Designers (Thai Nationals Only).

Qualifications required:

MAC OS or PC

Advanced use of Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign.

Good English

Creative capacity with proven record in Graphic and/or other Arts

Experience in dealing with the relevant sub-contractors: Printers, media, etc..

Interesting job with plenty of innovative and creative tasks: Catalogues, Packaging, Advertising, Product design, Website design.

Good working conditions: Air conditionned new office, small team, international atmosphere - Salary negociable - 5 day week.

Please send your curriculum and your art book PM stating your salary pretentions.