dave111223

Not only they have not done anything against flood but higher than 4 floors buildings are built left right and center in BKK this year.

They said it makes the city sink but everyone is after quick cash here ...

If they don't have floods they deserve it

i dont understand this post ,any of it .........

I think what he's saying is:

- They haven't done anything about the floods.

- They are building lots of tall buildings in Bangkok.

- The buildings are heavy.

- The heavy buildings are making Bangkok sink

- People want money.

- They don't deserve to have floods.

Although I'm guessing he got the last sentence wrong.

How would big buildings make the city sink...??

The foundation construction method here is to drive piles down. Even for our 2 story house the piles are 21meters deep! I can only imagine how deep the piles are for a condo building...

None of the weight of the building is supported on the surface land.

It's like saying if too many people jump up and down in the sea they might cause another tsunami....

If you have the kids passport and you both have the same last name try this.

Make up some phoney story and tell it to her father, about wanting to make sure your son is "well cared for" and that you want to put a few million baht in a bank account for your son.

But you just need to meet your wife and son one last time before you leave in order to hand over the money and say goodbye...

At said meeting grab the kid and run.

I search and I buy all my domains at internetbs.net.always good price and very easy to work with the cpanel.

internetbs.net; that is cheap ($8.99 for domain) have you been using them long? They are not one of these companies that gets you in at a low price and then jacks it up to $30 or something right?

I may be in the market for some transfers, as Godaddy seems to have started ratcheting up the prices recently.

I'm not sure where some comments are coming from. They gave me my sq meters, they gave me my condo measurements. There simply isn't any combination of calculating the area that comes out to the area number, so I was trying to get a standardized way to calculate it (which apparently does not exist). I don't really care who owns my hall or anything. But i'll look into this chanote

Sorry I realize it was "Delight" who was debating the area of walls, not you, my mistake.

Just go to Godaddy.com and search for domains, they'll tell you if the domain is available and offer alternatives.

I wouldn't bother trying to buy an existing domain as the squatters (owners) usually want some ridiculous amount of money (ie $10000 etc..)

What is on the chanote is what it is.

Exactly.

The chanote measurement is what you will pay service fees on, the chanote measurement dictates your voting rights, and when you come to sell the condo the chanote measurement is what you will advertise as the size of the condo.

All other measurements are irrelevant.

To the OP...debating who owns the thickness of the hallway wall...really...is your room that small?

After 2 weeks we finally got the account unlocked...of course no restitution for 2 weeks of hell they put our business through.

I cleared the account out to $0 the minute it was unlocked.

I hope they will miss the $1000 a month in fees we used to pay them, as I'll be damned if I ever trust them even 1 baht again (that is of course until 2Checkout tries to pull the same thing, knock on wood )

Bookman Old Style Bold Italic

http://www.ufonts.co...old-italic.html

I accept PayPal payments daily with no problems - I think a very small and vocal percentage of people have problems with PayPal.

Trust me on the day you get your funds frozen for 6 months you'll become vocal too.

I thought I was safe; been using them for 5 years, and thought all the stories about closed accounts were B.S....now I know better.

I would be most critical of your rep. She knows what an important customer you are and needs to figure out who is in charge of calling a business a fraud then sheneeds to take that person and visit your company to look at your goods personally. Make sure that she knows that if she doesn't then you will take action and her job is on the line.

Yes it really shows how pointless and useless the Asia business reps. are...but it's not like we didn't already know that...

For example the Thai rep called us in December (right after the massive flooding shut our shop down for a month) and asked "how come your sales are down"...DUH!

But they don't even have the power to tell us the status of our case, other than "someone's working on it".

The worst part is that I can guarantee if the account gets turned back on the same rep. will be calling us in a month wondering why we aren't processing orders through them anymore

Which also creates another problem, if you sell from Thailand but money goes into USA,1. how do you explain it to IRS , 2. you would be hit with tax there

Note really a problem as it appears most processors just get you to fill out a "W-8Ben" form and this appears to take care of the IRS problem.

One other option is to open business account in Thailand and get a credit card machine.

Build an online processor(secured) and charge cards manually.

The only problem with that is, OP would be open to fraud, BUT the rate bank charges is only something like 2%-3% per transaction so the money OP may loose could be covered by the difference in processing fees

This would be an interesting option, but don't those machine require that you actually have the physically card to swipe? And I'm assuming that when you get this machine you probably have to sign an agreement with the bank that you will only use it for "physical card present" sales (plus signature required)...?

Well here's the status.

PayPal still "reviewing the case"...."need more time"..."it's complicated"...

In the meanwhile I've been going crazy applying for just about every payment processor I could find, and hopefully my experience can help others:

Moneybookers (Skrill):

Signed up for a merchant account took a week for approval and was promising at first, especially as their payment module for osCommerce allows credits to be entered directly on your site (via iframe), and there checkout is no nonsense (just key in your credit card info)....but then it all goes downhill...customers have to key in a password and a moneybookers account is created for them whether they want it or not.

At this point they are locked into moneybookers, if they screwed up the info they entered (such as a mistake in the billing address) they are f***ed and can't use that card anymore) I also had a problem with cards getting declined etc...

I contacted support about it, they have yet to respond for several days...not very hopeful.

The more I read on their website the more I think it's not right for us (hold your account after $1200 in sales to review it etc..)

Paysbuy

Required a lot of documents to get the account upgraded to merchant level (ID cards, bank passbooks, application, utility bills, rent agreement etc..all sent in by mail). But after they received the documents they were very quick to approve the account (1 day).

I started testing their system but was not able to process my credit card; call them and they needed to upgrade our account to accept non-Vbv(?) cards. Ok, went back for more testing...card still not working (different error). Now they tell us that this card is a "business credit card" and they don't accept "business cards"...ok...<deleted>?

I don't really want to receive emails all day from customers "my card won't work"...

I'll keep the account as a backup anyways...but in general Paysbuy seems a bit amateurish, for example they sent full credit card numbers through email to me when I was asking them about the problems (hmm...security?).

Alertpay

Signed up, would not process my credit card to "get verified", then I realized you can't add a Thai bank account to withdraw to...and our application was denied anyways.

Absolutely no good for a Thai business.

Thaiepay

I signed up but never received any emails, and got no login info etc...their website says I'm supposed to send similar documents as with Paysbuy, but they don't answer the phone at their support number, and I can't be bothered to go through the sign up process only to find out they can't process most cards like Paysbuy.

Netnel

Signed up but then realized it is very tricky for customers to pay (customers have to jump from lots of hoops, sign up for accounts, deposit money etc..) good for gambling sites, or if you are doing something pretty dodgy, but not for a regular online retailer.

2Checkout

Required $11 for non-refundable application fee, and $11 per month for account...but I paid the money and applied. Quite a bit of information required to sign up, but no actual documents. The approve process was very quick (same day) and their support system seems pretty quick too. The rates aren't great (4%) and you can only do weekly wire transfer as opposed to withdraw whenever directly to your bank, but their payment system seems pretty easy for customers to use, and I had no problem paying with the same card that Paysbuy had refused.

So as it stands we updated our store to process all orders via 2Checkout and we'll see how it goes. Hopefully once we've done a few months of orders we can negotiate the rates down a bit based on volume.

Sagepay

If 2Checkout goes bad this is my next plan. But Sagepay requires lot of documents (full business accounts etc..) and length application process, plus a lot of costs involved as this is more of a "proper" merchant account; so i don't want to go through all that if I don't have to.

There are a few other payment processors i tried with (worldspay, charge.com, google checkout, etc...) but they don't accept Thai merchants so they were no-starters.

Is the "Seller" the builder? ie you bought from a developer who was building a moo baan, or block of townhouses... if the developer has any kind of reputation (and cares about their reputation) then they'd probably do well to come fix it immediately (might be worth reminding them about their reputation).

Most developments I've been to offered some kind of guarantee (minimum 1 year)

If you bought off a flipper, ie someone bought off a builder, then re-sold it to you...then you have no chance; you were not buying a "new" townhouse at that point you are buying a 2nd hand town house and should have inspected it properly.

P.S. What's up with the "No insulation" pic...? I've never seen a brick wall with "insulation" in Thailand, did you mean "no rendering" or what?

Thanks for the replies. In typical Paypal fashion they shut the account on Friday, then closed for the weekend, and "might be able to get to it on Tuesday"...cheers for the rush, so no news yet.

With regards to the grey market comments, yes this could be the case. But we sell about 10 different brands of products, only 1 brand is "international" (the rest are just Thai brands).

Notes with regards to the "International" brand:

• There are no customs restrictions on the brand; for example Nike and Adidas have customs restrictions, so that you can't even send genuine Nike products to another country without an accompanying authorization letter from Nike. But the brand we sell has no such registered restriction.
  
• No where on the products/invoices/receipts/labels etc... is there any notice such as "Only for sale in Thailand"
  
• We do not have any agreement or contract with the brand telling us where we can sell the products
  
• We do buy "wholesale" (ie get wholesale discount prices, under the assumption that we are going to resell the products)
  
• And as previously stated, the products are irrefutably genuine.
  

So even if, give all these factors, Paypal had called and said "No this is too grey for us" we could have easily stopped the sale of this brand, as we sell many other items, this brand is not a major % of our sales. And discussed the matter further while continuing our business; that would have seemed the normal thing for any reasonable company to do?

Thank you for the other suggestions on payment processors. I'm most interested in Moneybookers, which should integrated fairly easily with our cart. Neteller is bit too Seller-sided (not sure that too many customers would go for it). But i've learned my lesson and I think it's time to diversity and have a few merchant accounts (ie Moneybookers, Paysbuy, Thaiepay etc..).

This has happened to loads of people. all you had to do was google paypal before you started your business, and you would have realised that paypal is not an option for serious businesses - you should have gone with a merchant account to process credit card payments. A small number have sued paypal, but most have gotten nowhere because paypal basically states in their user agreement they can close your account for whatever reason they want. Even if you are successful, the process is so drawn out, that your business is probably down the tubes. What you should do is immediately find another payment processor. Go through all the hoops that paypal want you to jump though, and after 6 months, you may get the funds in your account back.

I'm in the process of sending the documents for Paysbuy and Thaiepay accounts, but these seem to be pretty much the same as Paypal. Hopefully they treat customers better?

Which payment processor would you suggest?

We have a sporting goods company in Thailand, and have been in business for about 5 years with Paypal as the primary payment processor.

We do any where from $10,000 - $40,000 USD per month through them, probably averages about $20K. We even have a Paypal Thai sales rep. that calls us from time to time and says how happy they are to be in business with us, and how can they "help us grow" etc..

Then out of the blue we get a 1 page form letter email that basically says "Your account is closed, your money is frozen, remove any reference to Paypal from your website". The account had about $5000 in it at the time of freeze (luckily is wasn't more as we have been foolish enough to leave up to $15K stilling in there sometimes).

We finally manage to get a hold of our Thai rep. person and they tell us the account is closed, because "they [Paypal reviews department in China] think the products are fake" and their reason for this assumption is "Your prices seem too cheap"! That's is, they did no other research, they did not contact the brand in question to validate their assumption, and certainly didn't contact us with their concerns.

We have now sent them purchase invoices showing that the products were purchased from t6he officially licensed distibutor in Thailand (absolutely showing they are not fake)...and they are "reviewing the account".

Whether the account is unfrozen or not I'm exploring the options of taken legal account against them. To recover frozen funds, lost sales, damaged business image etc...

Is it even possible to sue an international company from within Thailand?

I'd be interested to know if anyone can suggest a lawyer in Thailand that might handle these kind of claims. And what the costs involved might be.

It's easy to find lots of information about sueing Paypal in the US, but nothing when it comes to Thailand.

I think it's worth considering as this is not a small dispute; with the frozen money, lost sales etc...it could easily justify a claim of over 1Miilion THB

Sure they have a "Policy" which basically says "We can kill you, burn you, and then piss on your corpse if we want", but I've read a lot of cases of people (all be it in the US) having legal success against Paypal.

It also annoys me when I am walking on Jomtien beach road and I am approached by a Russian tout offering me a tour. I bet that it annoys the legitimate Thais more than me or the OP.

Why does it annoy you more if the tout is Russian? Russian tout, Thai tout, Nigerian tout...makes no difference to me...

Because I came to Thailand to live with Thais not Russians. All the signs, menu's and even TV channels showing are now in Russian. If I had have wanted this I would have moved to Moscow. Russian is not the world language.

LOL, surely you can see the absolute hypocrisy in your statement? So it's OK for you, a non-Thai, to be in Thailand and have everything written in English for you, but you want to keep everyone else out, especially foreign languages...except English of course...

Maybe the Russians don't want you around? Maybe they moved here to be with Thais...maybe they don't want to see menus in English, if they'd wanted that they would have moved to London...

It also annoys me when I am walking on Jomtien beach road and I am approached by a Russian tout offering me a tour. I bet that it annoys the legitimate Thais more than me or the OP.

Why does it annoy you more if the tout is Russian? Russian tout, Thai tout, Nigerian tout...makes no difference to me...

Its terrible to think because I have an opinion about something I should get back on the plane and go home. Are opinions not allowed in LOS or on the forum??????

I'm just saying you might enjoy it more in a country where you can spend all day grassing your neighbors in for not paying their TV license.

No need to be so flippant. The guy has a point the Russians are running ragged the immigration and business laws. I see it daily in Pattaya, but nothing will happen because as we all know. Money talks!

He's not just "pointing it out", he's stating that it "annoys him"...and I'm saying that how someone else conducts their own personal matters, which have absolutely no affect on the OP, are none of his business and certainly nothing for him to be "annoyed" about.

I wrote my option on it here:

Months ago, when everyone was raving about Harry Redknapp being the next England manager, I predicted that the FA would hire Roy Hodgson. My reasoning was that the FA needs a scapegoat....

http://blog.soccershirtsonline.com/a-scapegoat-is-born/

stick with the brio/march. Good little cheap cars that can fit between the cracks of crashing cars to avoid death

I really hate the Brio; looks terrible and way overpriced (over 500K for an automatic). Compared to 460K for Nissan March or Mitsu Mirage

I don't even understand how they were able to call it a "Brio" surely this name is already copyrighted? I remember playing with Brio train sets when i was a kid: http://www.brio.net/