digbeth

On 9/3/2023 at 9:03 PM, DonniePeverley said:

I am aware you get the obligatory 'landlord wants to know what job you do' question when you look at a condo. 

 

Yet today, i have been asked "what job do you do", "owners wants to know what business you have in the UK", "owner wants to know income", "owner wants to know address in the UK", "owner wants to see this and that" etc 

 

I am almost laughed in disbelief. Despite the fact they don't even verify anything and i could say anything, i just find it all rather disgusting and a complete invasion of privacy.. 

 

I know the answer - walk away. But i just find it all rather frustrating, after agreeing price and preparing ourselves mentally to take the property on (which has been empty for a long time). 

If you've ever rented in the UK, the endless application forms filling for credit check and reference person (from work) is required, and yes they want to see your income that you can afford to rent the place, absolute invasion of privacy there

22 hours ago, Jingthing said:

I've got an unusual situation. 
Living in a high rise condo I've haven't tipped the office staff, security staff, maintenance staff, gardeners, etc. etc.

I realize if I lived in New York extortionate tips would be required for door people at least. But this isn't New York.

I kind of wish the condo management organized a formal tipping jar for New Years that would be shared with all staff in which case I would throw something in, but they haven't.

I have tipped maintenance staff when they do a service for me in my condo at the time of service, but that's different.

Well now I have one specific door/security staff person that has consistently given me ridiculously good service over a long period of time. From little touches to somewhat bigger things. I don't really need anything that he's done, but it's really been charming and I certainly wouldn't be so rude as to tell him to stop it.

One example of how unusual this is. If I'm loaded holding shopping he enters the elevator and pushes my floor. It goes on and on. It's a little bit of entertainment to see what uncalled for service he will do next.

So obviously he well deserves tipping. But it gets tricky. Do I tip a little bit for every little thing or do I give him a very big tip for the New Year? If I only tip him and no other service staff isn't that kind of rude? I'm also a tiny bit concerned that it would "corrupt" the situation as I really don't know if he's some kind of freak that just loves doing that sort of thing and it would be insulting to tip suggesting he was doing it for that. He keeps doing it, never hints in any way that I should tip, and I don't expect he would stop if I never tipped.

Not sure at this point.

There are time and place for condo staff, at my condo we have Christmas/New Years party for the staff and residents bring in gift in boxes for the raffles, 

At Chinese New Year, you can give envelope full of money like 500-1000 baht too

If I go to the airport and they help with the luggage into taxi, of course

Most residents just bring the security guards of cleaners foods when they come in after shopping, I order them pizzas or KFCs during Songkran or New Year when their usual food vendor aren't around,

first get the credit report, see if the cause of rejection was if she has no credit history or had a bad loan she defaulted on in the past, 

what kind of accountant don't even know what credit score is? even motorcycle or mobile phone shops knows how to run credit score before any lease or hire purchase, their keyword is 'Credit Bureau' maybe pronounced in Thai accent and you'll get there

in most banking app there are option to request credit score for a fee, or you can visit KTB bank (they're government bank) or the credit bureau in Bangkok has a few physical location you can walk up to get your credit score

Typical path for Thais with no previous credit history is starting on cash advance cards, some cards can be used to buy things on credit, maybe 0% for 10 months, easy and cheap way to build history

She's unlikely to be granted a credit card in her own name,

If you have a lump sum you can help her with, have her open a bonded credit card, say 100,000 baht in an account the bank will use as collateral to give her a credit, any credit accrued won't be taken out off this amount automatically like a debit card be she has to pay either the whole amount or the minimum plus interest just like real credit card, this will show on her credit report, and if she keeps up the repayment and don't have overdues bigger loans can be granted 

Also don't run her credit report too often, this will show up as 'tracing' and is red flag looking like someone trying to game the system or shopping around for loans, 

Kbank require connection over sim card with the same number you registered with as to have the packet header they see match your number they have on file, so you can't connect using wifi or use the app on any other phone, I think afterwards you can toggle it to be able to connects over wifi

If you want to be isolated in a quiet town, there are plenty of smaller town south of Prachuab all the way to Chumporn like Baan Krud or Thap Sakae and Bang Saphan that to an expat functionally similar: no night life, small community of expat, but without the busy streets of the capital town with government canters and businesses, and they all have better beaches 

There are more homeless than usual this past couple of weeks due to prisoners being pardoned on the big birthdays, there was of course end of July and Middle of this month, 

On 8/19/2014 at 2:27 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

They were mainly on 1 ( The Grace ) and 3. Few ventured onto 5. I never saw a burqua in Foodlands till this visit ( I'm not saying they never went there- just not when I was, and I ate there all the time ).

They have been in 5 since the late 2000s, only the past couple of years during the Covid reprieve that they disappeared and maybe you thought that was the norm
Same with the African drug dealers, I remembered sitting in Took Lae Dee watching coppers chase them down the soi

Since the office block upstairs was converted to hotel and mall it has always been intended to serve Arab clientele, that hotel and renovation was a decade ago
 

You'd have to go back to the 90s to see that Foodland be frequented by more civic 'international' crowds from wireless road.

29 minutes ago, wwest5829 said:

I am only mildly curious to learn if it was primarily Christian Missionary pressure, as is documented in so many other cultures, or if it was a Thai motivated change primarily to be seen as an advancing country.

Modernize or be colonized was the fear that the 'west' was going to use the barbarism as excuse to colonize Siam then

even in Pattaya the wife beater crowds knows to put one on before entering malls,

if you remotely look like a tourist, getting taxi from the bus terminal to the BTS is going to be a rip-off 

8 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

Yeah, that's what I want to know from my bank. "Cannot transfer to own account overseas", the error message says. I hope it is just a software bug.

As far as the bank is concerned, it's not 'own account' you are transferring overseas to another bank, the bank would consider this 'others account' even if you have accounts from multiple bank, transferring between them is done under 'other accounts' in most banking apps, if there are options for you to select as 'own accounts' it would be in error if you're transferring to another bank or country even

50 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

Here is a banking question: As a foreigner working in Thailand, I can "repatriate earnings", i.e. send (part of) my salary back to my own account in my home country. Once I get Thai citizenship, how would I transfer money out?

How are Thai citizen barred from transferring money overseas? 

If your insurer has provided you one but it was lost in the post
just buy another one, at 600 baht a year it's hardly the end of the world if you've lost yours

to be reissued one, the insurer might ask that you make a police report that it was lost, another trip to police and DLT, how much is that in wasted time

If someone to rent the condo from you, you can certainly write them a letter confirming them that you, the owner, with a copy of your chanote, indeed rent to this certain someone your condo and they now resides here

Given how much flight Chiang Mai sees from Thai holidaymaker alone everyday, the market is there, if the flights can be cheap and regular enough, anything sure beats the traffic and roadworks on Rama2 road, Huahin has been quiet the past few Thai long weekends and the bad traffic and potential accidents on Rama 2 road sure put people off coming

they were doing everything righ to the 'until death do us part' pact

15 minutes ago, Crossy said:

There is no reason that you can't switch languages whilst typing so you can get a ฿ in with your English.

if someone hasn't typed in Thai or other languages before, they won't know how to switch keyboard layouts, it all sounds very complicated

other issue is fonts, if you're typing in something like word the ฿ glyph is not available in western font and might look different to the rest of the text  

On 8/4/2023 at 3:47 PM, Cake Monster said:

There is ab excellent Car AC Service Center on the main Sukhumvit Road about 100 Meters back from the Na Klua Lights heading toward Sriracha ( North bound )

Seri Air, next door north of the Esso station in Naklua, look for the Denso sign is excellent, fixed many problem other cowboy garages causes for me 

the squiggles are Thai language, same with the Baht sign, only available when you change the keyboard language to Thai

The 'English' Spelling on Thai ID card is usually transliterated from the Thai spelling, depending on the officers in charge

there is a system they adhere to, you have to insist on spelling it 'your way'

hence the mismatch, better check that her Thai spelling is how it should sounds too

instructions for glyphosate for killing trees are to drill into the bark, then pour the glyphosate mixed with motor oil into it, supposed to rot away the stump too