Ken

Just noticed from the same Bangkok Bank link above, the following list of fees for the Transfer. Thus, based on the below fee schedule, the "ING method", while not totally free, does appear to be a good savings as opposed to using SWIFT or ATM withdrawals....at least for me.

Fees

1.Bangkok Bank in New York charges the following fees for funds transfers initiated via the US ACH system:

Transferred Amount Fee

Less than USD 50.00 Free

USD 51.00 - 100.00 USD 3.00

USD 100.01 - 2,000.00 USD 5.00

USD 2,000.01 - 50,000.00 USD 10.00

USD 50,000.01 or more USD 20.00

2.Bangkok Bank in Thailand also charges a fee of 0.25% of the amount in the Baht currency (minimum of THB 200; maximum of THB 500) when the funds are deposited into the recipient's Bangkok Bank account in Thailand.

I'm not trying to be pedantic but I think it's important to understand the mechanisms involved here: SWIFT is the mechanism for world wide interbank transfers whereas ACH is a subset of NACHA which is the association of clearing houses in the US and pertains solely to in-country transactions.

No problem to be "pedantic", but not sure what your point is as to why it's "important to understand the mechanisms". Just wondering if I am missing something that I should know concerning doing ACH transfers.

I think Chiang Mai's point is that they are not ACH transfers if they are USA to Thailand, they are SWIFT transfers. ACH being only intra-USA.

It is similar to the UK where we have BACS for intra-UK and SWIFT for international.

I think he is just helping you to use the correct terminology so you don't look like a bit of a tit ! Afterall, you wouldn't call a BMW a Ford, would you ?

Agreed and well put.

Didn't know that what I posted was making me "look like a bit of a tit". But thanks for the explanation anyway. Indeed, I recognize that I am not doing an ACH transfer to the bank in Thailand, but that it is going to the Bank in New York. From there, I would guess that it is some kind of internal Bangkok Bank transfer to my account in Thailand and not SWIFT (nor ACH), as there does not appear to be any SWIFT kind of charges.

From Bangkok Bank's web site: Bangkok Bank

"Convenient and safe via US ACH system and Bangkok Bank's New York Branch

Holders of US bank accounts can save on fees for international funds transfers by transferring funds from the United States to Thailand via the US Automated Clearing House system (US ACH) and Bangkok Bank's New York branch."

I'm not trying to be pedantic but I think it's important to understand the mechanisms involved here: SWIFT is the mechanism for world wide interbank transfers whereas ACH is a subset of NACHA which is the association of clearing houses in the US and pertains solely to in-country transactions.

No problem to be "pedantic", but not sure what your point is as to why it's "important to understand the mechanisms". Just wondering if I am missing something that I should know concerning doing ACH transfers.

Rich, I don't have an ING account, so I can't speak to the particulars of their process... But I think you might be skipping over a few details...

For example:

BKK Bank and all the other Thai banks charge a commission on all incoming international fund transfers/deposits.... So apart from what happens on the U.S. end, it's not a "free" process.

Maybe you can explain just how ING is routing the funds to Bangkok Bank in your example:

If ING is doing an online initiated international wire transfer, I'm assuming they're charging a fee for that... I've never heard that ING in the U.S. provides free international wire transfers for its regular accounts.

Or, if you're talking about doing an ACH transfer from ING to the New York branch of BKK Bank using their U.S. ABA number, and then the New York branch sending the funds onward to Thailand, the New York branch also charges a small handling fee, in addition to the 0.25% commission BKK Bank in Thailand takes out of the received funds.

I'm not sure why Rich hasn't replied to your questions. At any rate, when I saw his post about ING over a month ago, I thought I would give it a try. Basically, everything he said as far as setting up the account was exactly as described. I have now, just verifed my ING account with the two small ACH transfers that were made (in my case $.13 and $.15). I also just made an ACH transfer of $100 US, and it should appear in my Bangkok Bank next week. I will then post what, if any, fees are charged. For sure, there is no charge by ING. And my thinking is that Bangkok Bank in New York will not be charging any fee as my experience shows that there is never a charge for doing ACH type transfers by the receiving Bank (or for that matter the sending Bank). And while Bangkok Bank in Thailand may charge some commission, I have never "seen" that charge in my account when I've previously done many SWIFT transfers to that account. Of course my USA Bank (not ING account) charges me $40 to do an International Swift transfer. So, no matter what, I believe that using the ING ACH process will be much cheaper than SWIFT, if there is any cost at all.

Ok, went to Korat Immigration yesterday March 9 with my income letter dated January 6. Letter was accepted with no problems.

Thanks for that Tony. No I haven't given up and at some point in time I will take my bike to Laos via another entry than Nong Khai. It was somewhat on a "bet" that I tried the Nong Khai bridge because someone said to me,"how do I know for sure, if I never tried it myself. Just because I read it on the internet, doesn't mean it is sure". So, I said Ok, I'll give it a personal try. Now I know, cannot do the bridge in Nong Khai.

Great pictures. Thanks again.

This past week tried to take my Phantom 200cc across the Nong Khai bridge. Bike is registered in my name. Got the required "passport" at the office in Nong Khai, no problem with that. Cost 25 Baht. Then at the first stop at the bridge filled out the customs papers and they "stamped" me out of Thailand. Then went to "booth 6" and was told "there was no way I could drive the motorcycle across the bridge". They did say I could put it on the back of a pick up truck. What the "hey". So ended up parking the bike and getting in the long queue for a Laos visa. Oh well, now I know.

Well, I don't know about a simple call, but I just called Korat Immigration. And IF (and that is a BIG IF) they understood my question, the answer was the letter must be dated within a week or two from the extension application. Oh well.

So the Official word from Korat Immigration is : "a week or two".

Just yesterday, I phoned US Citizen Services and asked. "about a month" is what they told me.

TIT

Yea, I know TIT. Official word by telephone conversation leaves much to be desired. With Lefty's post above and a report by two other Korat Farang guys, all have indicated using a letter 3+ months old at Korat Immigration with no problems.

So, I'm going to give it a try and let you know how I make out.

Thanks all for your replies. The guy I talked to at immigration did mention the bank letter and I explained (to the best of my ability) that I was not talking about the bank letter, but was talking about the income affadavit.

Anyway, I think I will go ahead and give it a try, meaning get the letter tomorrow, Thursday from the visiting consular section for American Services in Korat. Then around the 8th of March apply for the renewal of my retirement extension and see what happens. Guess, worse case I'm out the 1500 Baht for the embassy letter and will have to make the trip to Bangkok.

Well, I don't know about a simple call, but I just called Korat Immigration. And IF (and that is a BIG IF) they understood my question, the answer was the letter must be dated within a week or two from the extension application. Oh well.

I just did my extension and the letter was dated JULY last year and I had no problem.

This may of course vary from Office to Office and even by the Officer on the day. I would suggest check with the Office concerned to be sure, after all TIT and rarely consistent.

Good luck :jap:

Thanks for your reply. I was kind of looking for someone who might have had direct experience with this at the Korat Office. Though anyone's experience at any of the offices does give me some insight. But yea, believe me I know....TIT.

The Consular section for American citizen services will be in Korat on January 6. I will be needing to renew my retirement extension mid March with the income letter from the Embassy. Does anyone know if I get my income letter from the American Embassy visit in Korat on January 6, will the Korat immigration accept it when I apply mid March, because the letter will be a couple of months "old"?

There is a very good "Chinese" owned hardware, tool, and electrical shop on the main road thru Korat. Unfortuanately I've lost their business card for the exact address but it is fairly easy to find. Coming from Bangkok on the main road, go past The Mall. After the Mall, just past the fist traffic lite and the gas station, the shop is located on the left. The shop is "open to the street" and quite large inside. The "younger" Chinese couple (owners..family business) speak very good English. I have bought many quality tools, hardware, electronic, electrical supplies from them.

Ok. Thanks guys. Putting a copy in the bike now. Just surprising that I had never heard it before, and I do prefer to be prepared.

I was recently informed that at some checkpoints in Korat, the police are demanding to see a copy of the motorcycle registration book and if you don't produce you are fined. In my 20 years of riding here I have never been asked for this. Is this a new law or is it one that has always been there, but not always enforced? Anybody know???

Go to Visa Forum and look at 'extention based on marriage'.

Why don't you just tell me?

What's a kr2?

Or your could switch to IMAP, a protocol specifically designed to acomplish what your trying to do

Checked out the IMAP option. Sadly it appears that Incredimail does not currently support IMAP. Maybe a future release. Oh well. The "recent" option does work, so stuck with that method at the moment.

if you are using gmail try this setting ... its designed to fix exactly the problem you have

If you're accessing Gmail on multiple clients through POP, Gmail's 'recent mode' makes sure that all messages are made available to each client, rather than only to the first client to access new mail.

Recent mode fetches the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether it's been sent to another POP client already.

Setting up 'recent mode'

In your POP client settings, replace '[email protected]' in the 'Username' or 'Email' field with 'recent:[email protected]'

Once you enable recent mode, please be sure to configure your POP client to leave messages on the server according to the instructions below:

• Outlook or Outlook Express: on the Advanced tab, check the box next to 'Leave a copy of messages on the server.'
• Apple Mail: on the Advanced tab, remove the check next to 'Remove copy from server after retrieving a message.'
• Thunderbird: on the Server Settings tab, check the box next to 'Leave messages on server.'

Well thanks for that. I tried it and it seems to work "as advertised". Had never heard of "recent mode", and my previous "googles" didn't come up with it (guess I didn't type in the right key words).

Thanks again.

Thanks for your reply. Weird. I seem to have the same settings as you, but once I download the email to either the laptop or desktop, that's it. Yes the mail is still on the internet account and it remains "unopened". It seems like once the mail is downloaded from gmail (for example), there is some kind of flag set on the internet gmail account, saying that it has already been downloaded to a client server. Now this could be good if I just set up a new client server on another computer and didn't want to download "thousands" of emails on that account. Yes, in gmail I could go in to settings and set it up to download only from this date forward to stop that from happening. At any rate, still can't figure out how to "sync" the gmail account between two computers, which I gather you are able to do.

I am using gmail and hotmail as internet email. I am using incredimail and have tried outlook and outlook express as client servers, but have the same problem. Once the mail is loaded to either the desktop or laptop, it won't also download to the other. I have the options set up to leave a copy of the mail on the gmail or hotmail and it does. It just won't download to both the desktop and laptop, only one or the other.

I "googled" this but couldn't find a solution, other than some saying that by leaving a copy on the internet mail should allow it to be downloaded again to more than one computer, client server. Anybody doing this or know how to do this?

My mistake. I am indeed connected and at the Windows Desktop I can see the files on the Mint laptop. So far so good. Nice to see it is connected. I am not clear at all on how to do or see anything as I sit at the Mint laptop. At the Mint laptop, how do I look at files on the Windows desktop? How do I add the printer to Mint that is connected at the Windows desktop?

My printer is an HP 380 All in one.

Does printing directly from Mint work?

Search in the package manager for "hplip"

on my computer the hplip and hplip-data are installed. That makes my hp 1410 work both print and scan locally from the Ubuntu / Kubuntu...

Martin

I just USB connected the HP Printer directly to the Mint laptop. The Mint successfully "found" the printer and installed the required driver. I then printed a sample test document. So yes, printing directly from the Mint does work.

And yes hplip and hplip-data are installed.

My mistake. I am indeed connected and at the Windows Desktop I can see the files on the Mint laptop. So far so good. Nice to see it is connected. I am not clear at all on how to do or see anything as I sit at the Mint laptop. At the Mint laptop, how do I look at files on the Windows desktop? How do I add the printer to Mint that is connected at the Windows desktop?

My printer is an HP 380 All in one.

Well ... hmm normally you should be able to just share a folder on the Windows box and see it from the Mint box... but this is more complicated as they started with this "home network" thing... That's why I suggested this as a way to get the files over.

I do it that way (My wife still on win7)

The windows world just get more and more odd and absurd... It's definitely outside my range of experience now... or you can revert to XP...

You can... install an ssh server on the Windows machines to get the same but the other way around...But I have done it 6-7 years ago... don't remember how.

Printer sharing... I guess still involves the Samba protocol and Microsofts odd conventions... I just plug in the computer directly to the printer... or pass the files to the box that is connected to the printer and print from there, sharing between the GNU/Linux boxes you can install "cups" if it is not already there...

So I'm afraid I cannot give you a total solution..

I guess we have to ask others in this forum for that.

Martin

Ok. Fair enough. Indeed, at the windows computer I can "see" whatever it is I want to print from the Mint computer, then transfer it to a folder on the Windows computer. From there I can open it on the Windows computer or print it on the printer connected to the Windows computer. Since that ultimately is what I would want to do, this would work.

So, like yourself, I am not sure whether I can get this Windows printer to actually show up on the Mint laptop and print directly to it thru "samba"???

At any rate I appreciate your help on this and you have taught me quite a bit already. Looking forward to learning some more...keeps me busy and sort of out of trouble. Lots to learn.

Thanks again siam (Martin).

Ken

My mistake. I am indeed connected and at the Windows Desktop I can see the files on the Mint laptop. So far so good. Nice to see it is connected. I am not clear at all on how to do or see anything as I sit at the Mint laptop. At the Mint laptop, how do I look at files on the Windows desktop? How do I add the printer to Mint that is connected at the Windows desktop?

My printer is an HP 380 All in one.

Siam:

Well, whoops. I had Ken because I thought the K was capitalized. I just tried ken and it appears to be connected at the Windows desktop. So now I guess I need to figure out what next and how to add the printer to Mint????

Edit: Whoops again. It appears that I am connected to my other laptop with Windows 7 using that ip address. Guess I will have to try again later to determine what the actual address is for the Mint. I'll send another post with the screenshot of where I got the current ip address.

Edit2: Ok here is the screenshot.