Arkady

We can't complain about Immigration deciding to enforce the Immigration Act which its purpose in life and foreigners overstay at their own peril.  Questions it raises are: 1) will they really crack down on foreign criminals like boiler rooms that are often left alone as long as they only target foreigners; 2) how will this affect the labour situation, since Thailand is now dependent on foreign labour but the difficulty and expense of getting them documented means that many Thai businesses rely on undocumented foreign labour.

I am not sure that Thailand is place where it is difficult to gain weight. Look at what Thai office girls eat. Day starts with one of those donut thingies or a white bread sandwich with sugar spread on it. Eat several sweet and fatty snacks during the day washed down with those few of those "supersize me" cold coffees with full fat milk and 8 spoonfuls of sugar in the form of syrup. Lunch is noodles with sugar sprinkled on the top. Have dinner with more sugar added to the food with coke or sprite and finish with a sweet Thai desert. Type 2 diabetes is an added bonus.

19 hours ago, Luckysilk said:

I bet the rest will follow, this is most likely a request by the Thais to scrutinize the monthly income.

 

Knowing a few Brits who did the two bank money transfer scam - transfer funds from bank A to bank b account or from the wife's account monthly and showing the Embassy they have the "income".

 

From what I recall from threads a few years ago it seems that Immigration figured out that the British Embassy was not asking to see evidence of pension and simply allowed pensioners to make a statory declaration of their pension income. Then they asked to see a pension letter. I guess that Immigration has now pressured them to certify that the pension really exists, rather than certify that the pensioner has declared it exists. HMG will not do this. So I guess the embassy has thrown in the towel and all the others, save perhaps the North Korean and Nigerian Embassies that still need the income will follow suit.

In recent years the British Consular Service has narrowed down the list of things it will certify from anything that looked reasonable to a few clearly defined items. Soon it will be down to certified copies of passports that it will probably outsource ask you wait 3 weeks for and return courier fees for.

No longer accepting cash tips from arriving tourists. Does he mean that tourists are in the habit of offering tips to immigration officers or that his men have been demanding bribes?

5 hours ago, Mikeasq60 said:

I see the weapon was an AK 47, not easily concealed. How on earth did he get to a well traveled area and the RTP not noticing?

With folding stock or stock completely removed and magazine removed it would easily fit into a medium sized back pack. The barrel is 16 inches long but could be cut down further.

19 minutes ago, The Deerhunter said:

 

Why, indeed?  Glad you asked. Probably 95% (if not 99%) of the rifles in the world shooting 7.62x39 cartridges these days are AK47 type rifles.  20 years ago you could still have included the Simonov SKS rifle as used in Vienam war but thy are rarely used these days.   "AK 47" has become a generic term for any rifle following the Avtomat Kalashnikova AK47 design of 1947, regardless of which country or arsenal it was made. I could confuse it further by mentioning AK74's and AKM's and the various 5.56 Nato and Russian variants, but lets not go there.  We are talking about empty 7.72 by 39 brass.  A small (very small) percentage of AK47 design rifles even shoot 12ga, .410ga, 7.62x54, even 7.62x51 (.308 Winchester) and a few other cartridges.   But rule of thumb would be "Find a fired 7.62x39 fired case and look first for an AK47 type rifle."  

The SKS was used by by the sniper who holed up in a parking garage in Dallas picking off cops in 2016 before they blew him up with a robotic device. But, yes, it is now obsolete as a military weapon as it offers no advantages over the AK47 or the AK74. The Chinese PLA used to issue it to troops alongside the full auto AK47 in the belief that its longer 20 inch barrel and its semi-auto action provided more accuracy than the 16 inch AK47 for longer range shots to compensate for its smaller capacity.  After the 1979 war vs Vietnam they found its accuracy disappointing and issued everyone with AK47s. The problem is the relatively low velocity ammo which doesn't do well at long range regardless of barrel length. But back on topic we are dealing with gangland soi shootings here and the round it is deadly at close range.

15 minutes ago, samran said:

Purely guessing here, but I suspect she was fined for overstay, using the foreign passport to enter Thailand.

That seems a likely explanation. I can’t think of any other way you could be fined at the airport in relation to having two passports. But the fine would be for overstaying as a foreigner, not for having two passports.

1 hour ago, Neeranam said:

Interesting.

I'm thinking of getting two passports with different names.

I believe I can do this for 10 years, then when I renee my UK passport, I'll have to change my name so that they are the same.

 

I've a friend who lives in the US and was fined for having two passports at suwanapoom airport.

Why was he fined?  There is no Thai law against having two passports.  Many Thai VIPs are given second and third Thai passports by the Foreign Ministry.

On 9/27/2018 at 5:35 PM, ukrules said:

100 people per year per country.

 

The foreign office in the UK should institute a reciprocal agreement which matches this.

There is no point for the British Government to waste energy on this because there have never been as many as 100 Brits applying in any one year.  Normally there are no more than 40 British applicants with Americans applying in similar number and other Western nationalities much less.

The quota when it was introduced in the early 50s was intended to stem Chinese immigration, since there was a terror that China was sending in a fifth column of communist agents after the communist takeover.  PR was in those days the only type of visa you could get for more than 3 months and it was originally given to any migrant who could show he had an occupation and could support himself in the Kingdom (work permits came much later - in the early 70s). At the same time the government increased the fees fourfold to filter out Chinese applicants further. 

The quota still only really applies to Chinese who include Taiwanese and Hong Kong applicants in the eyes of the Thai government. They are the only nationality that regularly hit the quota.  Indians have very occasionally hit and to the best of my knowledge are the only other nationality that has ever hit it.  There is presumably some elbowing amongst the Chinese to ensure they are selected for the 100 quota.  Now doubt Immigration has a transparent and fair system to deal with this.

It would be better to lobby the British government to ask for reciprocal agreements over things like land ownership, which was the case until the early 70s when the treaty with the UK that covered this was scrapped.  Giving Thai companies and individuals that they will have to dispose of property in the UK by a certain date would likely start some lobbying activity by affected persons to persuade the Thai government to agree to a reciprocal agreement that could include things like owning businesses, as does the US treaty.  

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

 

 

It's standard to paste a new photo into the next 5 years block box on the appropriate page of the police book and the dates every time the standard 5 year update is done.

 

They did it without a photo?

 

I was asked for a new photograph when endorsing the alien book after 10 years. After 5 years and 15 years they didn’t ask for one. 

20 hours ago, hobz said:

Good point. The Chinese might be known for being rude. But China has highest average iq in the world and the younger ones are social media savvy etc... Problem is that Thais are pretty bad at fixing obvious problems so this will simply deter the higher level Chinese and leave only the china trash horses left...zero baht bus tours etc..looks good for numbers but horrible for Thailand.

The higher level Chinese are already venturing to more up market destinations like Japan, Europe and the US and the more adventurous are visiting more exotic destinations.  On a recent trip to Cuba I found Havana absolutely crammed with young Chinese tourists, both groups and independent travellers, and they were probably touring the Caribbean, the US and Caribbean or Latin America and the Caribbean which is an expensive trip from China. 

Thailand already has a reputation as a low end destination in China and most of the Chinese tourists that visit are on their first overseas trip.  When they have more money most go somewhere else that is more prestigious to tell their friends about.

Welcome to Chiang Mai indeed.  I guess the Thai authorities feel that there are so many millions of Chinese that they will keep on coming regardless of what happens to them in Thailand.  But the Chinese government uses its tourist dollars to its advantage and redirects tours elsewhere, if it is dissatisfied with a particular country.

An investigation will surely reveal that no bribe was demanded. But Chinese social media will not believe that and will keep showing the clip with the security officer taking the swing at the Chubese tourist and pushing him in the chest without any provocation from the tourist visible on the clip, even if he actually started the aggression.

The GBP100k costs refer to the cost of being medevaced back to the UK but he has unpaid hospital bills apart from that and has been recommended to have an operation that would cost GBP3,500. It seems like the crowd funding could pay his outstanding bills. Maybe his condition could stabilize enough to return on a normal flight. I hope so. Otherwise his best chance might be to transfer to a government hospital and try to raise enough for the medevac flight home. Back in the UK he could also face a bill, if the NHS is aware he has been residing overseas for 4 years and has not re-established 6 months residence.

Obviously he could not have bought continuous travel insurance that would provided emergency medevac for 4 years. Medical insurance bought in Thailand or in the UK would not have covered an existing condition, cancer, assuming he could have found any company that would cover him.

He has been in news doing Immigration work a lot recently as well as Anti-Tourist Police work dismissing rape allegations by a tourist.  Not sure who was doing his Tourist Police work while he was AWOL.

Have sometimes been tempted to build a nice house on a big spread upcountry where we own land and the missus would love it. But at the end of the day it is safest to stay in Bangkok where our modest house is dwarfed by the palaces erected by Sino Thai businessmen, politicians and army and police generals in our neighborhood. I am the one feeling envious but I am not going to the owns with a spanner in a bid to redistribute their wealth more equitably.

If I recall correctly Sonthaya was replaced as mayor in 2016 by an Article 44 order after his elected term expired and the NCPO didn’t want to permit new mayoral elections and didn’t want to leave a politician in an influential job. Now he would appear to have enough bargaining power again in the run up to elections to demand his job back. The Kuenlpums  usually manage to control a few seats in the lower house under varying party banners.

Even if someone choose not to take advantage of the married discount and applied as working only, they would still scrutinize your marriage ( and kids, if any) when they saw you had a Thai  spouse. The humanitarian category is a bit of a misnomer, since you still have to be working and meet the same disclosed criteria as someone not married to a Thai. As far as I have ever been able to figure out, the “humanitarian” aspect is the discount which is certainly a decent concession. So many Indians and Chinese, who have spouses from their own country get PR (and citizenship) that it is obvious that they don’t have a problem with applicants who are not married to Thais. Conversely they are will not pass someone who is married to a Thai but doesn’t meet their disclosed and undisclosed qualifications, particularly considering they would only be earning half the fee and might even be exposed to accusations of taking a bribe.

15 hours ago, elviajero said:

You could get your extension of stay cancelled at Chaengwattana, but you cannot, as a rule, get your entry as a Brit voided -- which is what you are trying to achieve.

 

You will need to leave the country as a Brit and re-enter as a Thai. That's easily done by air, but not so easy by land. However, as you are Thai it is possible by land if the IO is prepared to stamp you leaving in both your British and Thai passports. That clears your stay as a Brit, and enables you to enter and exit the neighboring country as a Thai.

May as well get yourself a cheap flight to a neighboring country and be sure. Also save a sore rear end from a long and possibly fruitless overland trip.