phirho

Yes, you can add your FCD account to your iBanking and transfer online from your FCD account to your Thai baht account. (Transfers -> New FCD Transfer menu)

Yeah in my wifes name. Money went to her account and Kbank pretty much told as it's happening more and more with the 'money on hold' situation lately. It's the gov not the bank itself.

Just trying to understand at what point the govt gets involved... Do all transfers above certain amount have to get approval from AMLO (or w/e) before they are credited to the recipient account? Or does the supposed check happen AFTER the transfer is complete so your account may be silently flagged and you don't know it until you try to withdraw the monies?

NewInPatts, was your account balance showing the car dealer's payment before you attempted to withdraw it? Did you receive the SMS alert about the incoming payment?

Does anyone have any experience with exporting funds if the money is held in an FCD account?

e.g. the Bangkok Bank website plainly states "When withdrawing or transferring in a foreign currency: No documents required" and the same page also says that FCD account can be funded by up to $50,000 without supporting documentation.

Is it really possible to fund your FCD account with 1.8 million baht and send them abroad on the following day without providing tax returns etc.??

For Thai banks foreign currency means any currency that is not Thai baht. So no, you can not fund a FCD account with baht.

You could exchange the baht for foreign currency first though and then deposit it.

Yes, that's what I meant, buying foreign currency with Thai baht (no documentation required up to $50,000 as per the Bangkok Bank website) and transferring it away (no documentation required either)

Does anyone have any experience with exporting funds if the money is held in an FCD account?

e.g. the Bangkok Bank website plainly states "When withdrawing or transferring in a foreign currency: No documents required" and the same page also says that FCD account can be funded by up to $50,000 without supporting documentation.

Is it really possible to fund your FCD account with 1.8 million baht and send them abroad on the following day without providing tax returns etc.??

How long does it take from going into the office and leaving? Is it something that is done in a day? Thanks for answering my questions!

Took me a couple weeks from emailing them to getting the visa

OK, great - cheers! One last question, is leaving the country COMPULSORY? Would be great if I could just pop up to Bangkok to get everything sorted.

Yes, the entire process can be done in Bangkok, leaving the country is not necessary. The PE visa and the 1-year stamp will issued in the Chaengwattana immigration.

Member since last July, still running smoothly. The PE visa you get is valid for the entire 5 years. Presumably even if the government stops the program (which has been running since 2003 through five different governments and two military coups), they won't go so far as to cancel the issued visas.

Has an actual TE Member done this already at their 5 year point?

I believe you get 1-year entry stamp only with the "new style" PE visa that was introduced sometime in late 2013 or early 2014, which means no member had a chance to do this yet.

Before that time, the visa was called Special Entry and only gave a 3 month permission to stay at each entry.

anyone got a rough estimate of how long it actually takes the average person (in hours) to learn Thai and at what point an individual should just give up if they are not getting anywhere - there's bound to be a limit of what is acceptable

 

You can't keep going to classes for months/years and still only spurt out sabai dee mai

Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State has released data on how difficult it is to learn different languages for native English speakers: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers

Thai language belongs to Category 2 and requires on average 1100 class hours to achieve General Professional Proficiency in Speaking (S3) and General Professional Proficiency in Reading (S3)

A person at this level is described as follows:

• able to speak the language with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate effectively in most conversations on practical, social, and professional topics
• can discuss particular interests and special fields of competence with reasonable ease
• has comprehension which is quite complete for a normal rate of speech
• has a general vocabulary which is broad enough that he or she rarely has to grope for a word
• has an accent which may be obviously foreign; has a good control of grammar; and whose errors virtually never interfere with understanding and rarely disturb the native speaker.

Also note that contrary to some people claiming that this visa is intended for "businessmen doing short visits to Thailand", there is nothing of the sort in the order:

• there are no limitations on the number of visits or total length of stay; the order says unlimited 1-year entries and 1-year extensions
• there are no restrictions on the purpose of visit (i.e. it is not limited to tourism or short trips)

Thus, according to the law, this visa is perfectly suitable for people staying in Thailand long term provided they don't need to work to support themselves.

So where does the Thailand Elite Visa fit into this scenario, the normal Tourist visa in section 2.4 does not cover this and there is no separate section mentioning a 5 year visa renewed automatically every 12 months.

I would have expected this to be covered as this list of visa types is newer than the changes and release of the new TE visa

The Privilege Entry visa which is given to Thailand Elite members is governed by a separate Ministry of Interior order. Thai text here: http://www.matichon.co.th/news_detail.php?newsid=1363262247

They do send your documents to the immigration to obtain permission before your application is approved, so maybe they are also checking your name against interpol database or whatever 

A tourist visa allows you to enter and remain in the kingdom for up to 60 days, with the ability to extend that entry up to an additional 30 days at Immigration's discretion.

 

 

 

You have the ability to get two, sometimes three entries, for a total of up to 269 days on one triple-entry tourist visa.

 

There are no other legal provisions preventing you from using the visa in this way, beyond having funds to support yourself and not engaging in any kind of work while there.

 

No, the law explicitly states that tourist visas (and visa exempt entries) are for tourism purpose only. This legal provision is exactly what is used in the current crackdown against border runners and back to back tourist visas.

This is in stark contrast to e.g. NON-O, which does not have the same limitation.

The problem is that tourism is a vague term with many corner cases open to discretion of each immigration officer.

I wish they dropped the "Elite" thing out of it and just sold it for what it is, a long-term visa. It just sounds too snobby.

In their last press release a couple weeks ago they did mention a plan to rename Thailand Elite to Thailand Privilege

Were you getting visa for studying in a language school? Kuala Lumpur have been refusing such visas for months

It's nothing even close to being denied entry, although it can be a little unnerving. 

According to another thread, it might indeed be very close to being denied: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/747622-refused-entry-ed-visa/

because what is stopping the next incarnation of "democracy" from just saying that the elite cards will no longer be honored.

You mean they will go through the trouble of specifically revoking already issued visas (which will require special police orders etc.) just to prevent 2000-odd elite card holders (who are likely bigger spenders than your average tourist and much less likely to be working here illegally) from entering the country?

I'm not saying this is impossible, but before this happens they will purge every other foreigner from the country first.

For what it's worth, the program has been around for 11 years, and survived 5 different prime ministers and 2 military coups.

Thanks for this report. This is now a third mention on TVF of someone having problems with NON-ED in the past two days. I guess the crackdown on NON-ED is officially starting

 

I don't think they are doing this for fun. So not long. In 2007 I was travelling in a bus to Isaan a couple of times and got stopped by the Army a few times while in transit. That time it looked like they were looking for illegals, didn't ask for my passport (I think I was the only farang in the bus in all of the trips). It's easy enough to see something like this being resumed in an effort to purge all overstayers and illegals from Thailand.

 

It does look like a clear course of action to purge undesirables:

1. Prevent people from staying indefinitely on visa exempt entries and tourist visas
2. But what's the point of doing the above if people can just overstay as much as they want for a maximum 20k fine? So the next logical move is increasing penalties for overstay.
3. But how are you actually going to catch those overstaying? By checking passports and introducing toughened address reporting requirements.

This will undoubtedly affect genuine tourists and law-abiding expats, so hopefully those draconian measures are temporary and will be abolished in the future. Meanwhile, prepare for a bumpy ride ahead.

Why were they denied entry?

 

 

It has to be for solid reasons just not being students at a school. Perhaps their extensions had been canceled in their absence which would make their re-entry permits invalid.

More information is needed.

 

One of the reports did mention the immigration officer saying their visa was "invalid". Now I wonder if it could be caused by the school reporting the student as absent? Especially, in the light of recent news that schools are being visited by government officials, attendance records checked etc.

 

A friend of mine re-entered a few weeks ago, he's from the UK, he had an ED visa and had gone back to the UK on a re-entry permit. On the way back in he was stopped and grilled for 10 minutes as to whether he was actually studying Thai and made to write some simple Thai.

This is interesting, so it's probably not just Russians after all. All people re-entering on NON-ED visas should be careful now.