caughtintheact

I have a couple of related questions. I submitted my 90 day report by postal mail on 22 March 2021 with an EMS return envelope.  The deadline was 5 April 2021. Today is 19 April and I have not received the receipt.  I have the EMS postal receipt and a printout of the EMS tracking results. My questions are:

1. Is MTT the only office I can go to to get the receipt if it does not arrive by 21 April or are there other options like Suan Plu, Big C Rajburana, etc?

2.  If I am unable to go get the receipt by 21 April, when would penalties kick in?

Shopee may have better prices than Lazada https://shopee.co.th/search?keyword=english mustard

Try "Hardcore Justice", by Howard G. Altermatt.  It is available in Kindle form from Amazon and is.....fiction....well, maybe, maybe not, and is based on real characters in Thailand, whom some of you might have known.

Khun Wuttipong is referring to the technical meanings of good and bad debt as defined in sources like Investopedia.com. He is not talking about good vs. evil.  He said, "More than half of Thailand’s household debt is good debt, as people acquired loans to improve their quality of life. "

Briefly, the definitions are:

• Good debt "... has the potential to increase your net worth or enhance your life in an important way."  For example, loans to increase education, start or improve a business, home improvement etc. 
• "Bad debt involves borrowing money to purchase rapidly depreciating assets or only for the purpose of consumption." Examples are auto loans (because the car value depreciates), 

7 hours ago, bluesofa said:

Which one is this: ThaiChana, MorChana, or maybe both?

I'll regret this, why is a bank building these apps, not a government department?

 

Krung Thai Bank (KTB) , although listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand as KRUNG THAI BANK PUBLIC COMPANY LIMITED is 55.xx% controlled by a government institution, i.e., The Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF), part of the Bank of Thailand (BOT).  Its main focus is on government customers and support of relevant government policies and programs. The bank has experience in app development, which is probably why they were selected for this task, but it could have been for other reasons.

Disclaimer: I am not promoting the bank. I do not work with, for or in cooperation with the bank.

The OP might want to consider taking the pills to a pharmacist or to a doctor who specializes in stomach ailments to see if the diagnosis is consistent with the medicine.  Might  be helpful in convincing the man to get  a second opinion.

In Firefox go to View > Text Encoding and change the encoding to Unicode if it hows something else. This might be a message about a planned outage.

2 hours ago, narisarasgroove said:

I did my last 90 day report in person at the new temporary place away from Chang Wattana (I know it is spelled incorrectly but I think you know where I mean) and my next report is due next month.

I normally do this by post but it suddenly occurred to me that it may not be to the same postal address as before. Does anybody know for sure or have recent experience of successful posting?

I tried looking at the Immigration Division 1 web site for info but all I get is that the site cannot be reached. 

 

On 6 Oct 2020 I submitted my 90 day report to the usual Chaengwattana address and got the receipt back on 17 October.  90 Days Report Section  Immigration Division 1 , Immigration Bureau, Chalermprakiat Government Complex B Building 120 Moo 3 , Chaengwattana Rd., Soi 7, Toongsonghong, Laksi, Bangkok. 10210

43 minutes ago, Pib said:

What Monday and Friday (i.e., specific date) are you talking about....are you talking 12 Oct Monday and 9 Oct Friday or some other date?  I expect not based on the exchange rate/amounts you talked.

 

 

 

 

 

2 and 5 October

I also use a USA credit union with Kbank in Thailand.  My last SWIFT was for $4000. I paid the credit union US$25 and Kbank deposited 125,203 into my account on a Monday (the money was in my account as soon as the bank opened the day after the credit union called me to confirm).  The XE conversion rate on that day was 31.29 but the amount deposited was equal to an exchange rate of 31.3, but I do not know what rate Kbank was using, but it seems to be a better deal than I would get with transferwise.  The rate for the previous Friday was 31.56 baht to the dollar which would have made the deposit amount 126,240, so Kbank charged me about B1000 or about $31, so I paid about $56 for the fee and the forex.

19 hours ago, Pib said:

In many cases depending on the exchange rate and currency pairs involved you can be better off using SWIFT than using Transferwise.   Although Transferwise has a better exchange rate that higher rate can not always offset the impact of their fees which increase for higher amount sent.   You need to do a cost analysis which includes exchange rate and fees.

 

Whereas with a SWIFT transfer direct from your bank the sending fee is the same for a small or large amount and on the Thailand receiving end the fee is going to usually fall within Bt200 minimum to Bt500 maximum.

 

If you use Transferwise.  And below snapshot does not reflect the Wire fee from your US bank to Transferwise to fund the transfer.  So be sure to include that fee in your cost analysis (i.e., a correction factor) by substracting that fee (you said $25 which is around Bt781 using the Transferwise exchange rate) from the bottom line baht figure below and you end up with Bt1,520,298.

 

 

If you use SWIFT from your US bank to your Thai bank...and let's say your sending it to Bangkok Bank.  The Bangkok Bank TT Buying Rate used for incoming international SWIFT/ACH transfers is 31.05 right now in comparison to Transferwise's 31.23 above.  And lets just assume these two rates stay pretty stable over next few days.   $49,000 times 31.05 equals Bt1,521,450.  For that amount the receiving Thai bank will apply a Bt500 receiving fee so you are now down to Bt1.520,950. And lets apply a correction factor for the $25 SWIFT Wire fee...$25 is approx Bt776 using the Bangkok Bank exchange rate...which means you end up with Bt1,520,174 which is only Bt124 less than the Transferwise amount, but without the extra hassle of using Transferwise as a middleman.    Now, your US bank may end up having to use an intermediary bank which may result in another $20 or so being sliced off as it flows to the Thai bank....you just don't know if that will occur or not until completing the transfer...or having experience from previous like transfers.

 

Bottomline is you need to do a cost analysis that considers "both exchange rate and fees"....not just fees only...not just exchange rate only.   Then make your decision.

 

Personally, I would just use SWIFT direct from your US bank to your Thai bank...not use Transferwise as a middle man in this case.  Using a middle man to save Bt124 wouldn't be worth it to me....just one less issue to worry about.

The way I read it, transferwise charges a fee of US$288.94, but I don't see it in your calculations. What am I missing?

12 hours ago, Joinaman said:

Farmers Bank would be good, due to the farmers and older folks getting their money each month, plus the annual payments

You might try talking to your customers to find out where they bank as they might feel most comfortable using an ATM of their bank. Many of them might use BAAC (Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives) or Krung Thai Bank. There is no guarantee that transaction fees will remain at today's levels either.  And if you haven't already, you might also want to prepare yourself for no cash transactions.

The OP said, "A lawyer cousin seems to think that they have a case." Why is that? And if they do have a case does that mean your wife doesn't and needs to pay them? One place to start looking for more information is https://www.tilleke.com/resources/thailand-new-law-interest-overcharging

There is a good article on one man's experience in  applying for an ATM in front of his shop at https://www.niwat.blog/ติดต่อขอ-atm-วางหน้าร้าน/

It is in Thai and Google does a fair job of translation. Although the article is about 10 years old, many of the points are still valid.   To find out what the banks require you might try calling a few banks and applying to more than one to get the best deal.

13 hours ago, John Drake said:

Don't worry. Next year they'll be harping on the fact that you dared to fill them out while not doing so in their presence and issue you with new blank ones to fill out while you sit there.

Bring copies of both.

5 minutes ago, Kalasin Jo said:

Is it the same for extending on a non O multiple entry based on marriage? I thought only 2 months of 40k needs be shown.

 

That non O had expired and of course I've been unable to leave to get a new one.

 

I've already taken the 60 day extension, so it's extend for a year or leave at the end of the amnesty. I cant show at least 40k each month for a year, although the total if averaged is.  I can only show at least 40k each month from January of this year. I was only in Thailand for a total of 4 months last year, not at all August through December, 

Sorry, all I know is what I was told for a retirement extension.  Someone else will have to answer your questions.

For what it's worth, I recently did an extension of a non-IMM O for the purposes of retirement.  Although my bank statement clearly showed the code for foreign transactions, and I had international wire xfer advisories,  the IO said that I must use credit advice letters (different banks have different names for this document), which are letters from the local bank certifying that the funds were received from a foreign source, and that I needed to show one year of proof of funds documents (in the past I only needed to show the last 3 months before the visa expired). The IO said that the 1 year proof of foreign currency is a  new requirement (at least for me). The bank issued me 3 months of the credit advice letter with no charge, but for months prior charged me a fee for each letter, and I should be able to finish the process when I get the additional letters in a few days. I will not name the bank, but their very courteous reps who even spoke to the IO (unsuccessfully) told me that in the future I should get the credit advice letters every three months or monthly and there would be no fee. The IO said I have until the end of July to present the credit advice letters as a result of the amnesty.

25 minutes ago, cormanr7 said:

Correct, there are far fewer people now. However, the pace of retirement extensions is unpredictable: when I was there (end of April), only 50 applications were handled between 08.30 and 12.00. However, the next 30 after the break took only 1.5 h.

Thank you. Appreciate the feedback.

2 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

I have seen reports of it being much shorter now since there are no tourists doing extensions now.

Many thanks. That is what I was hoping to hear.

18 minutes ago, ThaidDown said:

Did my retirement extension  (+90 Day) at Rayong this week. Very few people.

 

Time taken 15 minutes.

 

Thanks, but I am trying to find the waiting time at Chaeng Wattana

Does anyone have a handle on what the queues are like at CW these days, i.e., waiting times?

2 hours ago, madmen said:

Did mine a few days back, immigration was deserted.  Much easier than worrying if the IO I get after amnesty is having a bad hair day 

Where did you do it?

It is likely that the reason she spells her nickname as Bum (pronounced Boom บุ๋ม)  is to differentiate herself from another doctor, Pannada Wongphudee (PhD in Business Administration) whose nickname is Boom. Dr. Pannada is also a former Miss Thailand from 2000.