1DegreeN

I don't know if this was or still is true but when I got my kindle a few years ago I read that, because kindle books have country specific licensing, you need to be e.g. a UK resident to purchase kindle books from Amazon UK. If Amazon discovered you were not in fact UK resident (e.g. because you use a non-UK credit card to purchase), they will disable your account and you lose access to all your kindle library. Could be an urban myth.

It may not help the OP but I can share my experience to add to the mix. Five years ago when I renewed my 2 yr licence to a 5 yr, Prachinburi immigration did not issue any certificate of residence so I went through the process of getting a yellow tabien baan and DLT accepted that. Last week I went to renew again and this time DLT refused to accept the yellow book and told me to go to immigration to get the letter. At immigration they said sure, no problem, and I got it in 20 minutes for no fee.

You could try SAXO in Singapore. They sometimes hold seminars in Bangkok. I'm a Brit resident here, opened an account with them with no problems.

A few years ago I was fined for not submitting a TM30 after returning (to the same home address) from a few days abroad with re-entry permit on non-O. On my retirement extension they dropped the requirement to submit another TM30 a couple of years ago but this year they have re-instated it. I've been at the same address all that time. Makes no sense but you may want to play safe and submit the TM30.

I think it could be a problem with Chrome's saving credit card details. I had the same problem where the website did not accept the CVC code (which is not saved by Chrome but has to be typed in each time). Eventually I deleted all the saved cards from Chrome and then, after keying in all the credit card details to the website, the payment was accepted. It affected my UK Visa debit card and my BBL cards, nothing to do with OTP. Cached credit card details used to work OK with Chrome, I first noticed problems a month or so ago.

An option to check out may be to use Paypal (probably has to be a Paypal Thailand account) and then pay Paypal with your credit/debit card. I've had problems recently on a couple of sites trying to pay with credit card but it affected my UK card too, not just my BBL card. This was using Google Chrome from a Windows PC and I now believe there is a problem with Chrome's caching of credit card details. This used to work very well but now seems to screw up. I deleted all the saved CC data and was then able to make payment.

My retirement extension last January was the first time my local IO asked for a bank statement covering the period since the previous extension. I've been using the same fixed deposit a/c for the last 5 years and previously the pass book and the bank letter were sufficient. I tried to argue that the pass book, showing no transactions other than annual interest credited and balance update, was proof but of course there's no room for flexibility, procedure must be followed exactly. And then I discovered, as others have related, that Bangkok Bank can only issue statements up to 6 months on the spot at my local branch and have to send off to head office for a 12 month statement which can take 5 working days to get back. So for my next extension I plan to get a 12 month statement from the bank about a month before I apply for the extension and then on the day I will go to the bank for a statement covering the previous 6 months, the bank letter and pass book update. Hopefully that will be sufficient but there always seems to be a new requirement.

If goods are imported via post, e.g. via EMS, then if the total value incl shipping is less than 40,000 baht, and no inspection is required i.e. customs know what the goods are and what tariff is applied, then the Post Office can deliver to you but you still need to pay the import duty and VAT. Otherwise i.e. goods are too high value or need to be inspected, you have to go to the nearest customs house to have the goods inspected and pay the import duties and VAT. For goods purchased from ASEAN countries there is a trade agreement - see https://www.thailandntr.com/en/goods/tariff I've had to go to the customs house 3 times to collect items sent via EMS and each time the customs officers were friendly and polite and I was always charged the correct duty according to the tariff (my stuff was bought from HK). I've had just one experience with DHL which was a few months ago. They had staff shortages due to COVID and it took much longer than it should but they cleared customs on the day of arrival, the import tariff and VAT were the correct rates and their own charges were clearly listed. Yes, they were much more than the 20 baht fee I would pay at the post office but they delivered to my door and I didn't have to drive 2 hours to the customs house and spend half a day there.

Do you still do an annual UK HMRC tax return? I used the annual tax return form as my proof of address for my passport renewal last year, it was the only recent document I had with my address in Thailand written in English.

Yep, me too. Just received the email. May be an IT error, all these emails seem to have been sent at the same time so its not like someone is processing each registration one by one.