ramr

11 hours ago, Ryan754326 said:

Faroe Islands leads the world in per-capita testing with 175,061 per-million inhabitants. They have performed 8554 total tests so far, out of a population of slightly under 50,000 people.
By definition, any country who tests their entire population, would have tested one million people per-million, even if their population was only 100 people. 
The USA has 330 million people to potentially be tested. No country in Europe, besides Russia, has more than 100 million. 
Does this metric seem like an honest way of measuring who “leads” the world in testing? 
 

The fact stands that the USA has tested almost twice as many people as Russia, and more than three times as many as Germany, who hold second and third place. If that’s not leading the world in testing, then I don’t know what is.

 

 

 

News flash: you don't know what is.  And your first paragraph is nonsense.

The large, diverse population of the US and the federal/state logistics are a handicap for testing in the US, and should be considered in addition to its per capita testing numbers.  But per capita testing numbers are where the conversation should begin.  And it's not like we haven't had time already; if we had been testing at anything approaching the rate of a S. Korea, we would have tested far, far more total in the past couple MONTHS.

Our testing performance can be up for debate, but it clearly doesn't merit printing up a Charlie Sheen-style "Winning!" banner and hanging it up at a presidential press conference.

Mirror-world NCC wants to boldly come where many have come before?  

Check him for a goatee.

3 hours ago, DavisH said:

If you get paid for 12 months, I would assume that you will be paid every month - we are going to need to teach in the weeks we normally get as holidays to make up the time. This would apply to continuing teachers, not new teachers. I highly doubt agency teachers would be paid if they are not teaching. 

Exactly this.  At least for continuing teachers with a 12-month contract.

My friend and I were just discussing this and reached the same conclusion.  We look at it this way: the current revised school year plan takes our October 2020 and April 2021 vacations (+ partial Mar & May for some) and moves that paid time off into into June and July 2020.  We're effectively borrowing vacation time from the future, BUT for a typical May 1 - April 30 contract (i.e. one that follows the "normal" school year), a teacher will still be getting the same total amount of paid vacation and teaching the same total number of weeks.

So based on all this, one would assume the pattern of pay should remain uninterrupted and unreduced, no?  Under normal circumstances, yes, but we're clearly not in Kansas anymore.  For one, this will delay tuition payments for most schools, hence little to no money for paying salaries.  For another, July 1 is a working date, but not a hard date; a lot could happen between now and then to change that, which makes financial planning for the schools even more uncertain.  Still, teaching English is a moneyspinner here and they know they have to do SOMETHING to keep the foreign teachers from wandering off, either because they can't afford to stay or because they're not allowed to without a teaching visa.

https://brslawyers.com/news/coronavirus-covid-19-update-for-employers-in-thailand/

Reading the helpful information on this webpage (especially point 4) points to most teachers getting 50% pay for May and June, but it's complicated and evolving, and looks like case-by-case and school-by-school.

Points that will make a difference:

1.  Whether the school has been participating/contributing to Social Security ... apparently this is optional for some types of schools. 
2.  12-month contracts that don't follow the school year, as e.g. my own contract that runs mid-Aug to mid-Aug.
3.  Teachers who knew they were returning (handshake deal with school) but haven't officially signed the 2020-2021 contract yet.
4.  New teachers who haven't officially signed a contract yet.

Strap in, it's going to get interesting, and not just for teachers.


 

2 minutes ago, justin case said:

they keep on repeating this mantra and waiting for weeks and the result is: more paperwork...

 

hope they include non-o 90 day runners...

Yeah, me too, though I was lucky enough to have done my last hop right before all this fustercluckery started.

Ubunjoe and Tanoshi,

Thanks for the info.  I'd already checked out the agent website you sent and one other.  4500 and 10000 baht are pricey indeed for the amount of work they actually do, but doubtlessly useful in some situations for some people.

I'll see if any first-hand recent reports show up in this thread, and take it from there.  Thanks again.

41 minutes ago, Tanoshi said:

I don't get any malware warnings using 'Edge'.

Try a different browser.

A bit like blowing into a different breathalyzer until you get the result you want, but OK.  ????

Hi, all.

I'll be going to get a B visa through a school and was wondering if I could canvass for RECENT (past month or so) experiences in Savannakhet re: the police clearance certificate.

Another teacher at the same school got his visa through Savannakhet sometime last year coz he didn't want to hassle with a Bangkok trip and suggested I do the same.

To recap, I'm looking to hear anyone's experiences about needing a police clearance certificate:

- at the Savannakhet embassy

- for a non-B (K-12) teaching visa

- in the past month or two (there are TV threads from last year saying it was no problem, but that's a long time, given the tensions in this country recently)

The police certificate I have is expired, so if I don't go to Savannakhet, I would need to go to Bangkok and get a new one--which is fine--but that brings me to my next problem:

For the usual Royal Thai Police site that everyone posts "helpful" links to  ( http://www.pcscenter.sb.police.go.th/ ), Google Chrome puts up a big red warning page stating the webpage contains MALWARE.  This wasn't the case a couple years ago when I did my last certificate.  As things change quickly and arbitrarily, if anyone has an updated link or info, I would be grateful.  Like I said, I did this maybe 2-3 years ago and only remember that it was a disorganized, poorly-documented pain in the ass, even taking into account TIT.  Whereas Savannakhet is always a smooth ride in every respect and, if they don't need a police certificate, it would require only one trip and one night's stay total to get my visa.

Thanks, everyone!

 

100 baht here, 100 baht there.  More wacky hijinx from our pals in the NK office.  

That said, a result's a result.  Congrats!

Just got back from transferring my visa and stamps from old to new passport at NK immigration.

As if to prove my previous assertions about the NK immigration office, they charged me 100 baht to do it.  Obviously the money is absolutely trivial, but it is telling that I had to apparently contribute to the office pizza party fund for a service that has no fees posted for it anywhere and is uniformly understood on multiple websites and TVF forums to be a free service.  Chiang Rai immigration didn't charge for the same service when I did it a few years ago.

Not worth starting a new thread, but if I'm wrong and there is an official fee documented somewhere, I would be curious to hear about it from others.  

Once again, my condolences and good luck wishes to the OP for having to go through this particular office.

On 4/17/2019 at 6:53 PM, khastan said:

You are all more than welcome. My main reason for the original post was to prevent others from facing the same dire situation.. I have printed the rules out and when I go tomorrow I will asked her if these rules made in January 2019 are no longer applicable now. Maybe I am to sensitive but I left Nong Khai Immigration feeling like I had been treated like something brown you scrape off the bottom of your shoe..

A familiar feeling for those of us unfortunate enough to need to deal with NK immigration, I'm afraid.  I always knew they were rude and clearly relished lording it over Westerners.  Now we know they're incompetent and obfuscatory...likely willfully so until you either make a bunch of attempts and they decide you've had enough or you give up and go through an agent.

They are especially bad news.  Steel yourself, plaster on a bland smile and your best fake politeness, ignore the frequent justified urges to strangle and defenestrate, and resign yourself to more nitpicking on their end and running around pointlessly on yours.  Sorry.

19 hours ago, gamini said:

The reason they make it hard for marriage visa extensions is that the system is very much abused. Many marriages are just to get a Visa.  

You'd have a point if you were talking about ED visas or endless VOA's, both of which have been seriously tightened up in the past couple years anyway.

But widespread marriage visa fraud?  Pull the other one, and then try reading Jack Thompson's response to your assertion.  No need for me to reinvent the wheel.

1 hour ago, KhunFred said:

That's because, in the west, attempting to bribe an official puts you on the fast-track to jail. Someone ought to publish something on how to "properly" bribe an official. Brown envelope or pink with hand-drawn hearts?? ????

Well, I think his original comment left it a bit ambiguous as to what he meant by "discreetly" tipping an official.  Still unsure whether he was implying the use of an agent by this or if he meant some other little-known secret procedure that he and a few others are the guardians of. 

On the one hand, I chuckle a little about his "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you" silence, on the other hand I can understand the reticence.  Especially nowadays.

Also, it seems to me you'd need to be a freakin' magician to discreetly tip just one individual in any office smaller than Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Korat, Pattaya, etc.

On 1/7/2019 at 1:15 PM, BritTim said:

In many cases, you could discreetly "tip" the official yourself to avoid the imposed hassles, but westerners rarely know how to do this.

I myself wouldn't have the guts to; even if I knew how to do it, I wouldn't know the when...as in "when would the tip actually be accepted vs. when would they threaten to throw you in jail or deport you for trying."

The reasons you gave--desire for money, personal hunger for power/domination/face, and xenophobia--are things I just consider the baseline for Thailand, so I still wonder what else could account for some offices just being unusually horrible.

The only other things I can brainstorm are: apparent lack of IO accountability to a central Immigration authority and desire of some officers (offices as well?) to climb the ladder by catching one of the "bad guys"...or at least the fear of being held responsible if they let someone through who turns out later to be an (especially high profile) "bad guy."

Any additional thoughts from anybody?  I'll shut up after this, I promise... ????

12 hours ago, JackThompson said:

Only a few bad offices / IOs have been reported as using the wording this way - so far at least.  I applied at a nightmare desk, and even they didn't try that excuse (blocked me using impossible landlord-docs, instead).

 

Heh, asking for impossible docs.  Seen that trick before in the past, lucky I don't live there anymore, but my friends there still tell me stories about their latest trip to that IO.  Off-topic, but what do you think are some of the reasons that some offices just become total nightmares?

16 hours ago, NanLaew said:

 

 

With regard to that old chestnut about the lump sum and fear of exchange rates, unless you are drawing down on it for actual living expenses and need to top it up, the 400k once in the Thai account, stays at 400k regardless of what other countries coin is doing on the forex.

 

Good luck.

I've always been aware of this fact, but if I'm to be honest with myself, the past year or so I have been keeping one eye on Thailand and one eye on returning to my home country or moving to a different country anyway.  Not immediately, but within the next couple of years if it does happen.  And any immigration/bureacratic annoyances here would only be a smaller part of the whole picture: there are many other different factors in play here for me and my wife that would affect that decision, but they're too personal and too boring to go into.  In the back of my mind, I guess my concern would be converting all my (theoretical) money to THB, seeing it fall appreciably, and then having to change it back to my home currency if returning home.  

And, as stated in the original post, I don't have the money anyway.  

Btw, big thanks for all the detailed info you posted.

2 hours ago, moontang said:

The go to girl at BBL, across the street from the IO indicated people were getting leveraged to use agents, however, if it is all legit, then it seems like an excellent office to work with....so much that they are on the lookout for those who are jurisdiction shopping and don't really live there...some Jomtien rejects have been known to surface at UTH IO.  According to Udonmap..NK IO insisted on deposits, and refused letters (at least for some).  Otherwise, NK is a pretty cool small Thai town.

Interesting to know, thanks.  There's a brand-new thread at  https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/1076642-thai-immigration-reveals-new-requirements-for-retirement-marriage-extensions-visas/  about new O visa financial requirements, wherein some are speculating that the new rules are there to also leverage more and more people towards agents.

15 minutes ago, Just Weird said:

 

So nothing at all in your experience, specific or tangible, then and certainly no "obvious reasons"?

Since we're talking about an issue tangential to my original post topic, I have better things to do than write a dissertation for you about my personal past specific experiences with businesses in Thailand.  But--as evidenced by you posting only to snipe at periphery of the topic and not offer anything actually useful--I'll just go ahead and give you what you want: mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I'm keeping up with this thread because I'm trying to solve an issue that is directly affecting me, and secondarily trying to make my experience at least informative and useful for others who might read the post and about my experiences.

Why are you still posting?  Self-aggrandizement?  A need to feel superior?

Said it before, and I'll say it again: there's always one or two in every thread on TV.

41 minutes ago, Nong Khai Man said:

 

Sounds like Nong Khai Man didn't need one at the NK amphur office when he did it,.....What's a COR ?? Please Enlighten Me.....Thanks..

Certificate of Residence... Same thing we've been talking about all along.

14 hours ago, JackThompson said:

So, the border-crossing to Vientiane, on the edge of Nong Khai, is one of the friendliest in the country, yet that immigration-office sounds like one of the worst.  I suppose the office and the border-crossing are independent fiefdoms, run by different bosses, with different agendas.

 

Bizarre.  Most Issan officials tend to be more supportive of those of us up here supporting Thai families, as compared to the attitudes one might find in Bangkok suburb offices, for example.  Maybe the boss of that office had a "bad farang" in the family, or something.

Quite right.  Never had a hassle at the NK border crossing.  

I honestly have no idea what's up their butt at the NK immigration office, as they did add a little extra helping of snideness and officiousness on top of just doing their professional duty.  But they weren't downright nasty and obstructive, as has been the case with another immigration office I won't name and shame here.

13 hours ago, moontang said:

Agreed.  Ironic how the banking experts seem to be the ones with visa/immigration/financial problems, yet they can talk about Bitcoin and AAPL with a straight face.  And let's not forget the almighty GBP...could lose 20% in a day....again.  

 

 

Never claimed to be an expert on banking, but feel free to pile on regardless.  There are always one or two in every Thaivisa thread.

It somehow seems apt that I thanked people for their constructive posts before this one.  ????

13 hours ago, moontang said:

BTW, COR was the first item on the list for my Yellowbook.    

 

Sounds like Nong Khai Man didn't need one at the NK amphur office when he did it, though most amphur offices seem to require one.  Obviously a total crapshoot if I try to do the same; in Thailand, every government office and department is their own little fiefdom. 

13 hours ago, moontang said:

Also heard Nong Khai has been tough on income verification for years.

 

Would have been great for me to know this several months ago, but all I had to go on at the time were rumors from friends and some vague and somewhat conflicting pronouncements on old Thaivisa threads that Nong Khai was a little strict.

Everything's fine, that's life, move on and lessons learned.  I do, however, hope that this becomes a cautionary tale for anyone else as regards the limits of the multiple-entry Savannakhet visa AND the NK immigration office.

18 hours ago, Just Weird said:

Exactly what would those "obvious reasons" be, then?  Please enlighten those of us (99.9%+ perhaps?) who have kept money in Thai banks for decades with no problems.

Mainly exchange rate concerns over the next few years, which might be especially turbulent for the country.  Or not.  Admittedly, it's not exactly a crippling fear for me, but experience has taught me--in terms of consumer rights, information security, and stability--not to trust any Thai business (even banks) to the extent I would trust a business back home.  Especially when they are dealing with a farang. 

This may seem superstitious and paranoid to many, but there it is...

I'll qualify my answer though by asking and answering another question:  would I feel more confident after a couple more years of seeing what direction this country seems to be taking, post-election?  Probably.  Timing, as they say, is everything.  

Epilogue:  after going to immigration, it's exactly as I feared.  To get a residence certificate, they'd need me to convert to a full-year visa and show financials.  That's life!  They weren't exactly rude, but weren't exactly friendly, either.  I mentioned politely that I wasn't trying to put one on over on them, it's just that it never occurred to me that this would be a problem since the provinces my friends with multi-entry O visas are in are not so strict.  I said, "Clearly Nong Khai immigration is different, I get it, thank you for the clarification."  As soon as I said the word "different" in Thai, the officer said something along the lines of "You got that right, son!"

I'm just lucky that I don't desperately *need* the license, as I ride my bicycle most everywhere and don't own a car.

I might try the yellow book route since it goes through the amphur office and not immigration, as I had remembered incorrectly earlier.

Just want to thank all the constructive posters on this thread for all the suggestions and info!

20 hours ago, Russell17au said:

There are several mistakes that you have made. You sent your landlord to immigration to ask about a residence certificate for you instead of you going with your wife and asking about it yourself.

Yup, wife was out of town and I wanted an answer sooner rather than later.  Landlord's responsibility to file TM30, she was happy to go, so I thought I'd save myself a trip and have her ask the question while she was already there.  Live and learn.  

20 hours ago, Russell17au said:

Another mistake is that you bypassed your own immigration office and went to Savannakhet and got a marriage visa there because you did not meet the financials for your own immigration office and the immigration offices are not stupid and they know why you bypassed them.

A "mistake" none of my friends in different provinces on a multi-entry Savannakhet O visa have paid for, so I didn't consider it a possibility.  To my mind, my greatest mistake was living in the Nong Khai office's jurisdiction.  ????   

Things are (have been, really) definitely shifting from "spirit of law" interpretations to "letter of law" for farangs as the years pass...

6 minutes ago, jackdd said:

You have to do 90 day reporting if you stay in the country for more than 90 days, if he gets the extension to visit his wife he has to make a 90 day report

Ok, well, I'll have to check into that, since the two of you don't have a consensus on this. 

6 minutes ago, jackdd said:

 

This doesn't matter for anything

Perhaps for now.  Then again, a few short years ago neither did people staying here for years with a zillion back-to-back visa exempt runs or tourists visas...or any number of other things they're clamping down on...both for tourists and long-termers.

If needs must, then I might have to consider the Udon option, but I'm really not comfortable with it.  Still, I'm happy for any and all ideas brainstormed in this thread.  Thanks.