doctormann

57 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Your non-UK resident status should have no effect on a Barclays, Isle of Man, off-shore bank account.

I certainly hope so as it would make a bit of a nonsense of having an international account in that case.

I just hope that they don't start to demand some silly amount of deposit to keep the account open.  At present, it only requires the account to have a two-month average of at least 2k GBP but there is a monthly fee of 40 GBP when the balance is that low.  If I transfer my current on-shore account and have my pensions paid into that account there will be a substantial amount in there - but I doubt if maintaining the account will be free.

If a UK passport be very careful as the UK passport office will be on strike for several weeks so the chances of replacing a damaged passport are slim to none!

I think that this is not a problem so long as they don't staple the data pages.  However, your passport will rapidly get a bit ragged anyway if a lot of staples are added and then removed.

Since we have had on-line 90-day reports this has been less of a problem.  I always used to ask the IO to not use a staple to attach the latest 90-day receipt to the passport - sometimes worked!  I keep my passport in a cover anyway - this has pockets so I keep TM6, TM30 and 90-day receipts in those.

13 minutes ago, chickenslegs said:

I've been a Barclay's customer since I was 18 (so, 48 years) and I have had a Thailand address for the past 17 years.

A few weeks ago I got a letter to say that they require me to close my account before August 2023, or they will close it. They say that non-UK residents cannot hold an account for legal reasons.

My account is active - pensions being paid in every month, so it's not a question of a dormant account.

I have a Wise account and arranged for my pensions to be paid into it. Then I will transfer the money into my Thai account.

Same here.  I've had Barclays current and savings accounts for 60 years and both will be closed at the end of August.  I'm currently trying to find out if they will let me keep my IoM international account - if so, I shall probably use this for pension payments and transfers to one of my Thai accounts.  This is not ideal though as the international accounts is not cheap to run.  I may have to think about opening a Wise multi-currency account - with the associated problems of proving international transfers to keep Immigration happy.

Jomtien still have their cataract surgery package running.  https://www.jomtienhospital.com/en/phacoemulsification.html

This is the procedure that I had done on both my eyes, just about a year ago now.  Single vision intra-ocular replacement lenses so I need glasses for close work.  Not a problem for me - been wearing glasses for a very long time anyway.

The cost was indeed 39,000 Baht per eye with with very little in the way of extra payments.  I was delighted by  the results.

20 hours ago, JustThisOnePostOnly said:

 

 

Also I think the site would benefit from having a dark mode.

Try using Brave with the Dark Reader extension.

3 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Cataracts removed some years ago and use dark mode whenever possible (huge improvement) and have eyes checked every six months as have glaucoma and take drops to keep pressures within range.

It may be that you have degradation of the lens capsules.  This can happen some time after the lenses have been replaced - months, years, never.  There is a laser treatment for this - opens up a hole in the capsule.  Quick and easy procedure - or so I'm told.

On many websites I prefer to use dark mode anyway - just easier on the eyes.

Anyway, better stop going off topic as we are supposed to be talking about the 90-day Immigration app.

20 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

Was quite sure I was reading/entering correctly - but they kept popping up another.  Have seen some that can not believe anyone could read.  But find those multi picture types often even more of a challenge.  Eyesight not the best and have to use high contrast mode to read most text so they are starting to bite.

I used to have this problem with captchas and text - had to resort to 'dark mode' most of the time - but since getting my cataracts sorted out things are a lot better.  i recommend that you get your eyes checked.

11 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

They only want residents of Jersey or obscenely rich people with private islands in the Caribbean who own their own airline as a customer. Same goes for Isle of Man.

We'll see what happens with my IoM account.  The letter that I received from Barclays specifically stated that on-shore accounts had to be closed for non-residents but that other services were not affected.  Of course, this doesn't mean that the situation will stay that way.

I'm trying to get my pension payments paid into my IoM account, effective 01 April.  If this succeeds then I will transfer my existing funds to that account and then close my on-shore current and savings accounts.  If it doesn't work then I'll have to look at Wise, I suppose, but I am reluctant to use them as many people - on this forum - have reported problems with getting payments recognized as international transfers.  Seems to depend on which Thai bank you use - some seem better than others but none seem 100% reliable, resulting in the need for a paper chase.  I can do without that!

35 minutes ago, LivinLOS said:

Which 'international' do you have ?? 

About 5 years ago I got a 'cease and desist' from Barclays Jersey after banking with them my entire adult life, thier grounds were having a Thai address and did the same for my brother and father who had Thai and N African addresses. Very little notice and a major disruption.

I have since had HSBC, and now CitiGold accounts (with a HUGE amount demanded on deposit) and I just heard this week Citi are closing those sometime this year also. No great loss as I have found Citi to be massively non user friendly, hard to make transfers, repeated blocks an mystery stops and holds on card spends, outbound transfers, etc etc. 

My international account is with Barclays Isle of Man.

I am surprised that Barclays Jersey have given you the elbow.  After all, what is the point in having an international account if you have to be resident in the UK?  Makes no sense.

1 hour ago, hotandsticky said:

No it doesn’t. Thousands of expats in Thailand (like me) use the monthly income option for extensions - and use WISE. 

The problem seems to arise when the intermediary bank that Wise pays into registers the payment as local, rather than international.  This is unacceptable to Immigration so the payee gets involved in a paper chase, trying to prove that the payments were international.  This may not be a problem with all banks but it certainly does happen.  Many reports of difficulties have been reported on this forum.

Which bank do you use?  I am with TTB - used to be TMB until they merged with Thanachart.  Not the best but all I could get at the time (2004) as others that I tried wanted a work permit and as a retiree I didn't have one, of course!!

40 minutes ago, hotandsticky said:

I did !

I took a look on the First Direct website - clearly say UK residents only so maybe not possible to do any longer.

26 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Why should that be an issue when you have 16 weeks to return the completed Life Cert?  I posted mine by registered mail on the 2nd February and it was delivered to the IPC/DWP on the 13th...that's 11 days, at least 13 weeks leeway.

It becomes an issue when the documents take two months to get to me.  This is partially caused by the postal service in my area being absolutely appalling.  We see the postie maybe once a month, if we are lucky, and items arrive that are often months old.

OK, in the current case I should have plenty of time to return the documents BUT I have known registered mail to the UK to take several weeks - usually gets stuck in the Heathrow Langley sorting office.  EMS at least ensures that the item gets on the first available flight out of Suvarnabhumi, whereas registered mail can wait around for a while, until the mail container is sufficiently full to warrant dispatch.  Registered mail is not guaranteed to be any faster than unregistered - but at least you can track it.

14 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

My small PPF (Pension Protection Fund) pension uses an App "mypensionID" which is a piece of cake once set up. They just send me an email each year and the app takes a selfie and another where I blink (to show I'm alive I assume). Easy peasy ????

 

I cant' see UK Gov ever being so logical and sensible.  Bureaucracy rules!!

Just now, phetphet said:

Would you still be charged if you transferred the money from your international account to Wise, and then did the transfer from there?

No idea.  I've never really considered Wise - seems to give problems with proving that transfers are international.

35 minutes ago, hotandsticky said:

 

I have just 'switched' my Barclays account to First Direct. I only had 2 small insurance direct debits on the account (from a much earlier switching exercise).

 

Piece of cake online.........and they gave me GBP 175 ????

Interesting - but is it possible to do this without being a UK resident?

11 minutes ago, phetphet said:

Don't those accounts charge the Earth to maintain?

Depends on what balance you keep in the account.  If you are relatively wealthy it costs you nothing.  I'm not, so I have to pay a 40 quid a month fee, which I am not happy about.  Additionally, every transfer of funds into my Thai bank costs 15 quid.  Transfers from the on-shore account are free - but the account will soon be closed.

Going back to 2004, when I moved out here, Barclays told me that I needed an international account in order to make transfers to Thailand.  I suspect that they lied as I have never needed to use it and have just transferred from the on-shore account with zero issues.  I seriously considered closing the international account but couldn't get a straight answer from Barclays as to if I actually needed it.  Maybe, seeing what has happened now, it's a good job that I kept it open.

Well, just to put the icing on the cake, UK International Pensions now want a life certificate from me!

Ah well, been there and done that before.

Of course, as per usual, the documents were sent out by snail mail so they will need to be returned by EMS to stand a chance of arriving on time.  Why they cannot set up a secure email system just defeats me.  How hard can it be!

I've just been checking with the UK gov International Pensions site on how to change my banking details.  Can't do it by email  - as usual - so it's either by 'phone or by snail mail.  I can imagine just how frustrating a phone call is likely to be - but I will try it, once the UK wakes up - so I'll probably do it via EMS, which should work.

My occupational pension provider's web site is also unhelpful as there is no option there to change banking details.  At least, they do reply to emails so I've asked them what I need to do.  Probably will require snail mail again but we'll see.

Crossy, did you have to provide proof of address as far as using your parents' address was concerned - like a Council Tax bill or something like that?  When my Barclaycard account got closed it wasn't enough to just give an address - you actually needed proof that you lived there and a Council Tax bill seemed to be the only thing that was acceptable.

13 minutes ago, treetops said:

I'm planning cataract surgery (one eye only) soon and recently noted this pricing in a thread in the Chiang Mai subforum.

Another option I've seen mentioned is Jomtien Hospital offering a special deal of ~40,000 baht.

I had both eyes done at Jomtien, last year.  I don't know if the 'special offer' is still running but it would be worthwhile finding out.  I have been very pleased with the result.

Update:

I think that I have sorted it.  Looks like a Brave Shields / Cookie problem.

I lowered the shields for the Immigration site - perhaps they don't like not being able to track me - and deleted the saved cookie.  Logged back on, saved a new cookie and now it seems to work OK.

I'm having a strange thing happening with the online TM47 report.

I have a laptop PC running Linux Mint 19.3 and a desktop running Linux Mint 20.3.  Both machines run the Brave browser.  On the laptop I have no issues with the online method - it works flawlessly.  On the desktop logging onto the site in the usual way - email address and password - seems a bit slow but gets there eventually and says 'success'.  However, when I then try to either check my report status or initiate a new report, a red box pops up that says 'unauthorized access'.

Very odd - if I'm not authorized then why can I login in the first place?  The only difference between the machines is the version of the OS but I don't see that this should make any difference.  Using Firefox both machines give no problems.

Any thoughts?

40 minutes ago, Aussieroaming said:

How can frost possibly appear at 4C, when it doesn't form until 0 CELSIUS.

Air temperature vs ground temperature, maybe?

1 hour ago, blackshadow said:

HOW MUCH DO THEY CHARGE???

Depends on what you need.  You'll have to ask.