KhnomKhnom

USUALLY, once your debt is sold to a collection agency, the bank then has no more to do with the debt....... the debt is moved on to another owner. Usually, bank CAN NOT help you due to not owning the debt anymore.

You likely will never hear the end of this... ten yrs or more. Unlikely that you can buy yourself out by drip feed... so offer ten cents on dollar for immediate total cash payout.

Think like an agency.

If you are "movement impaired" the new bus may be nice, but the sidewalks are not. No curb breaks, none on purpose that is, wheel chair impossible, cane or walker not advised. Stay home, sadly, only choice.

While I am sick of all the "arm chair freedom fighters" typing on Internet, I see the deeply endemic cultural accepted practice of patronage. The royal model (before constitutional monarchy) governs in any nation via patronage. That practice is very old here. The slight change from that model to Machine Politics patronage is easily accomplished. This was the Thaksins genius, to see that the adoption of a political machine within a fledgling democracy would be easy given patronage being already the Thai way. Political machines operate on "gifts" of money and plum govt jobs to their cronies. Soon, the cronies get cronies and the machine power grows and democracy slides away.

In Thailand, the Thaksins' political machine, almost as good as Richard Daley's in Chicago, was very near to full control--with tentacles in police, Ministries, and public works bureaucracies--that insured continued flow of money and plum jobs to the cronies. The Thaksins took off the top at a new extreme level and passed the crumbs to the cronies. The Thaksins invented schemes that made it look good to the poor and those also were mostly designed for maximum skimming or return to their machine. An example is the loan of Thai tax money to Burma and then Burma bought stuff from Thaksins' companies with that money. Unfortunately, many of those invented schemes were not thought through to their longer term consequences (attempt to corner rice market via only Thailand is good example of dumb thinking). The schemes did produce short term popularity.

The Thaksins were reported to be on the brink of filling the place of an expiring royal personage or, if that did not develop, could have had a personal cadre of a paid, armed goon army that could move to destabilize the nation. This situation, if reported correctly, could have had very dire results for all of us in Thailand, citizen and guest alike. Then, thanks to the Army for stopping that reported possibility.

Reform--toward democracy-- after the demise of the Thaksins Political Machine, now being dismantled, is very difficult in Thailand because it sorely lacks a well-paid, well-educated, honest and dedicated bureaucrats corp. A student of modern America knows that politicians come and go of both Parties, but the govt keeps running much like a democracy because of on-the-line bureaucrats continuing to turn the govt wheels deep inside the govt. Good bureaucrats mean that an American can go to a govt office (like SS), get professional courteous and correct service, and no Black Labels change hands. Sure, there is corruption and patronage in USA, too, but there is a difference and that difference is the USA bureaucrats.

Given a Thailand where the ACCEPTED AND EXPECTED system is patronage, from cookies to the postman to billions to PMs, exists, it is probably impossible to do anything except corral in the exaggerated political skimmer levels and get a lid on the size of political machines. That effort will not please "arm chair self-appointed foreign 'freedom fighters'" here and abroad, but it looks like the only choice. If the ruling families here can keep that lid on, Thailand will lurch along for twenty more years....... until the effects of AESAN become very real and very clear to everyone. Then, who knows!!??!!

During a fairly egregious traffic stop, I was guilty and also put my audio recording function ON in my mobile telephone on the seat beside me.

Officer saw it was on and after warning me,in Thai I guess, waved me onward with no fine, no money changing hands.

Better would be a video recorder on. Recommended guilty or not.

I favor giving a bonus to productive law-enforcing police, like this plan. It sends a very clear chilling message to all to keep it clean. A great first step.

I say again.........

to obtain any effective surge protection to phones or AC lines, your "surge protector" must be connected to ground/earth/dirt on the THIRD pin of the protector.... usually a strip line of sockets with a short power cord to plug in to the wall. If the third pin of this strip socket does not connect to ground, you have no effective surge protection..... NONE.

The same fact is true with UPS battery back-up devices that may have a surge protection built in........ no ground, no protection.

Why is this such a difficult concept?

they forgot to add the visa crackdown for long term tourists ...which is one of the reasons like it or not

OMG, Thailand will go bankrupt without the pitances these foreigners spend here ... these visa runners are law dodgers living on the margin and thus not really what the nation will benefit from having. Get more Thai Elite Card members and sweep the other trash on out.

Only do this if you can think of it as a hobby, nothing something rational to do.

Many problems are coming to you. Why not just buy a different car?

Sounds like he wanted to practice his Engrish and you obliged.

The correct action would have been to ask, "Am I being detain or arrested, officer? If not, am I free to go?"

As far as having been in Thailand for five years without learning any Thai passed hello and thank you -- yes, they are right it is an outrage.

Would it be OK for a Mexican to move to your hometown in New York and not learn any English? Wait...don't answer that...

Grumpy comment.... likely police were on lookout for criminal who worked for Motorola. This was a perfectly appropriate stop and questioning, and nicely English provided. You got away with two infractions not ticketed, lucky.

I am glad to read this detailed report which shows Thai police are on the job.

I see three or more pages of responses to many topics. I wonder who ...beyond the site moderators for whom it must be a full time job.... reads these responses. I had time to do that and read every comment for several topics but found the general tenor was dominated by either grumpy insulting rants or boring "me too" stuff. I got the idea and stopped reading any except those that asked for specific information that I may have, such as electrical.

Who reads, regularly, all the responses on any or all topics?

If no one reads past the first few or first page, then writing a response at the bottom of page three or more is reduced to just the venting or ego pleasure of the typist.... if no readers get that far. Who ever reads all that to check for bad messages is the saint of patience or glutton for punishment. I dont think there is any incentive in the world that would get me to read all the blather on every topic.

The evil devil says keep drinking for early death. We need to clean out the alcoholic Brits and other Westerners from Thailand.

A drunk driver should be treated by police and courts as an attempted murderer. No exceptions.

There is no money to be made by Thai from Russians nor the former soviet countries. Stop their 30 day free entry. This trash has blanketed America with wide range of upper talent type robberies and extortions. They have an open season in more free nations like Thailand.

ASEAN is the ticking bomb for Thailand. Already good Thai nurses are fearful for their Thailand jobs when cheaper Phil. show up with more skills and ENGLISH, too. Thailand does not know what is gonna hit it !

Protectionism will clamp down and ASEAN ideals will shrink.

Can Harry Reid have reconciliation with the Koch Bros ?

Can Thailand see a reconciliation of the Thaksins with honest government, no political machine, and no aspirations to be tyrant new royalty?

Can Thailand reconcile with criminals, mafia dons, and on-the-take cronies?

A sane society does not seek reconciliation with criminals and thieves.

She is old enuf, employed enuf, has ties to Thailand to return to, and has you as a guide.

BUT, you two are not married so she can still appear to USA Visa dept as going with you just to get inside USA and then disappear. You have no legal relationship with her, yes???

Your absolute best bet is to take your papers and her to USA Embassy, on appointment as now needed, and try to talk a nice AMERICAN employee to look at your papers before applying formally. The Thai nationals employed there will not help you in this regard.

Long ago a very nice American woman did that for me and my girl prior to her becoming my FINANCEE fiancee at that time. I told the kind employee lady I did not know her and would swear to never having seen her before, as a joke, but meant it.

I got a preview that had no binding strength but reassured me I was on the right track and had right papers.

You DEFINITELY do not want a visa REFUSAL stamp in her passport.... that is the end of that because no one wants to countermand a previous decision. Do anything to keep that stamp out.

Be super humble and polite, beg, grovel, and dress nice too.

Anyone with open eyes working within Mahidol U Salaya could see the inappropriateness of that Rector remaining on campus. The corruption seen by some there shows that moving on to a political post will have "someone" fit right in to the new job.

There are honorable people employed by MU, but they may be outnumbered.

The arm chair defenders of democracy are out in force on this topic. This is over sensationalized nonsense at its low point.

I say, like the parachutists, show me a good democracy and I will jump into it. No need to strap on the gear yet.

When will you grumpy nitwits get it thru your bone heads that Thailand was on the brink of armed insurrection which the Army has stopped but which still is bubbling as long as the man in Dubai funds it. Lots of cronies have lost jobs and even fear prosecution and when the big money stops flowing through the Thaksins political machine, there will be people who resent it, to speak mildly.

You typists would, by now, either be in a detention camp or having had to flee the country for your safety if the Army had not stepped in.

Say Thank You and cool the inflated rhetoric.

Dear reader of the electrical info on thaivisa........

There is so much wrong, contradictory, and confused and confusing information here that if you read it all, as I have, you will have no guidance about which writing to obey. I recommend that you do not use this site for solid info about electrical wiring, etc., in Thailand.

All the info a normal homeowner needs is not all in one place and what is there is either in EMQTC non-world standard abbreviations over blown gobbly goop or does not apply to your situation totally.

I can say one thing for certain... do not yourself connect Thai two-wire electric supply wires, the incoming power wires, to earth/ground/dirt.

Do not connect any ground to your neutral wire, usually white and do not connect the other wire, hot/black, to any ground.

I should write the homeowners guide to grounding in layman's terms but not on thaivisa because it will just be contradicted by the local guess specialists.

We welcome your 'homeowners guide' to grounding in layman's terms, and wait for your reply. Hopefully you have read the documents posted, and realize that we NOT guess specialists.

This is one of the main reasons that I have left this sticky open for debate!

Best not to ground the neutral wire at the home because it can become the best ground on your side of the local transformer, even better than the hoped for one at the transformer, because then your home ground will serve as ground for your whole neighborhood that are on your side of the transformer. That puts your system in danger of overload. I do not know if it makes your meter spin faster or not.

I would look at the girl anytime I see her. Fact of life for fathers for daughters, leering men. Count me in all the time.

For a cheap skate Brit, typical, pay the ONE DOLLAR US AND TWENTY THREE CENTS and have a nice late night.

Whenever will foreigners learn they are not at home under those rules. TIT ... foolish to argue over a dollar??????????

Anyone being attacked....... scratch the attacker anywhere to get his DNA under your fingernails. Very tough to deny how DNA got there.

to help with different countries using different terms............. These two device categories are talking about the same function:

A residual-current device (RCD), or residual-current circuit breaker (RCCB) is an electrical wiring device that disconnects a circuit whenever it detects that the electric current is not balanced between the energized conductor and the return neutral conductor.

In the United States and Canada, a residual-current device is most commonly known as a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter(GFCI), Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI) or an Appliance Leakage Current Interrupter (ALCI).

OK, first install an RCD (Safe-T-Cut) if you don't already have one. This will mean that you can get away with a relatively poor ground on your shower without increasing the hazard to life.

Do you have any accessible building steel that you can connect to, even a balcony railing will provide enough of a ground to trip the RCD.

Let's move this to 'lectrical where the sparkies live

A residual-current device (RCD), or residual-current circuit breaker (RCCB) is an electrical wiring device that disconnects a circuit whenever it detects that the electric current is not balanced between the energized conductor and the return neutral conductor.

In the United States and Canada, a residual-current device is most commonly known as a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI), Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI) or an Appliance Leakage Current Interrupter (ALCI).