Jonathan Swift

I find that everything seen here needs to be fact checked, which is not difficult if you've got time to make some calls or pay a visit to the appropriate agency. Like, for instance, go to a hospital and ask etc.

This is what happens when people with no education in science or medicine, and lacking basic common sense, start making decisions. But we know that, right? This too shall pass

I had that as a kid. It's by Napoleon the Fourteenth. Yep, they came and took me to the funny farm, aka Thailand. Better here than the US though

Those Thunderbird Y block engines were a scourge, among the very worst designs. I have a Corvette 350 cu engine with Turbo 700R4 Tranny in my '57 T-Bird, courtesy of a very smart previous owner.

I wanted to expand on what Paypal is useful for. Using Paypal for purchases gives you up to 6 months of buyer protection during which if any issues arise about what you bought, warranty, refunds, misrepresentation, etc. they will go to bat for you through an established and effective dispute procedure. Some credit cards will give you very limited protection, but nowhere near to the extent that Paypal does. Additionally, where credit cards and credit card numbers can be stolen and used, Paypal is much less risky and vulnerable to such things since you never actually submit your information to a merchant directly. But as I've said, Paypal is merely one option out of many, but there is good reason why it is popular and has become a universally accepted method of payment for most merchants. In Thailand I haven't needed to use my Thai Paypal account in a long time, but I use it in the US all the time.

Everybody’s tired. But most of us understand that this is and has been an unprecedented world wide health crisis, and are not whining about it. Most of us also understand that this crisis is and has been in a constant state of change even on a daily basis, and do not expect the government to turn on a dime every time the wind shifts, nor do we expect perfect consistency or even what we might regard as logic. They think the way they think for their own reasons, nothing we can do about it but be realistic in our expectations. Nothing is predictable. So you and the other whiners might want to take a step back, accept reality, and stop making yourselves and those around miserable by complaining. Nobody’s forcing you to stay here. I’ve been here 9 years and am happy just to be here rather than my home country. I’m particularly glad that Thailand, in spite of its missteps, has done exponentially better than the US, which has been the biggest abject miserable failure in the free western world. In the US there are people of power in gov’t who are telling people to refuse masks, to refuse vaccines, and to take untested unproven drugs. There are governors passing laws forbidding schools from requiring masks of students. They are convincing people that it’s an issue of freedom and rights rather than the truth of it being a public health issue. This has caused a health and vaccination crisis literally caused by corrupt idiots and the accompanying right wing media who amplify the false information and deliberate lies. It may be true that Thai gov’t may have its share of fools and corruption, but overall nowhere near the ineptness and insanity of the US and many other places. No sir, you won’t hear me whining or throwing the tantrums seen in the US population.

Paypal accounts from your own country will not function except for buying and selling outside of Thailand, in your home country or from international sellers. That's why Paypal began operating a separate Thailand subsidiary for activity using funds within Thailand. I set up my Thailand paypal at first, tied to my Bangkok Bank debit/credit card for payments, so that I could transfer my own funds here in an emergency, but that was before I started using Wise, which is lightning fast most of the time. I only used paypal Thailand a few times, but not in almost 2 years. I have never had my VPN cause me trouble, I switch it on if I'm browsing in the US or if I want my pages in English. If you have trouble just switch it off. The only important thing for Paypal is your ID and password. If you want to use Paypal to make purchases in Thailand then you need Paypal Thailand. If you have income that needs to come to a Paypal account you need to take the necessary steps as a business. Like many people have stated, Paypal has very limited usefulness in Thailand anyway. There are so many other options. Good luck

As I've said elsewhere, Paypal will allow you to keep your account to make purchases or send money without registering as a business. You simply have to sign the new user agreement and then follow and other necessary steps. Most of us know that Wise® is a money transfer service, one of very few who can bring your money into your Thai bank at a reasonable rate. That is its sole function. Most any bank in Thailand easily allows direct ACH transfers for free within Thailand, I use that to pay my rent and I used it to pay my quarantine deposit. I use direct transfers for deposits on reservations if need be, but I also have two Thai bank debit/VISA/Mastercards.

Try contacting them through their ordinary help and contact links right on your account page. If you need to update your account, there should be messages on your account page in an icon at the top. Or you can just google search your question, how can I close my Paypal account.

People who have bad experiences with Paypal usually have only themselves to blame for failing to understand the rules and how it works. I've been using it for 17 years, I had my headaches in the beginning, but one of the advantages is that if you buy something like a plane ticket and the airline tries to avoid giving you a refund which you're entitled to, Paypal will protect your purchase and allow you to contest any transaction. But you have to know the system and how it works. So if anyone is a relic of history it's the people who never learned to navigate it, and perhaps you are among them. BTW this story is false. It seems even Thai journalists have failed to understand the basics of Paypal and its relaunch here. I was notified to review and agree to the new Paypal agreement which most CERTAINLY is not cancelling personal accounts. It is merely requiring that you register as a business in Thailand if you are to receive funds into your account. As such it is also renaming itself Paypal Thailand. If you do not need to do that, you can just use it to make payments. Paypal is merely one of many options for these kinds of services. It's not for everyone or everything. Since there is no Ebay for Thailand, and since I don't sell things when I'm here, there is little or no use to me for importing funds to a paypal account. In the US I sell a lot of stuff on Ebay, antiques and collectibles, and musical instruments from my collection, where it's practical and expeditious.

I think it just boils down to none of those people from the PM downward is qualified for their jobs, they are clueless as to any rational and organized approach to these problems which are probably way over the heads of even a lot of educated people, and they're just making it up as they go along. Then, how would any qualified individuals ever work their way into the government in ways that might help? Locked in and locked out.

Yes. Next question?

That’s why one needs to read and choose carefully one’s policy. For my past 2 trips here I had great coverage which even covered emergency repatriation flights

Your utter lack of compassion is stunning. No one knows how he contracted this, he could still contract it even if vaccinated, it’s quite common. If he abided by the rules his insurance should cover covid up to $100,000 according to immigration. Perhaps he has the insurance, or else why would they have let him in? But if not, I would gladly contribute to a go fund me effort on his behalf. Because unlike you, I have compassion and am a human being.

False positives are also possible.

Thailand requires a $100,000 US Covid insurance policy for entry. That’s 3,300,000 baht. Did this guy screw up big time?

Common sense is much too difficult for these geniuses. It's all about the money, always all about the money, especially imaginary money, and that means bringing in what they don't already have. Those endless zeroes. Those who currently live here are of no concern, because, well, you're already here right? And none of us are multimillionaires. Common sense and basic math would suggest that a broad and comprehensive welcome for all contributors to the economy would be a substantially larger potential revenue stream, and that preserving what already exists as well as attracting large numbers of average wealth new immigrants would all be positive, and would all be a win/win situation. But we have classic political tunnel vision, playing to public image and press the way they think it looks and sounds best. Sad, really

As well as their repetitive ineptness

Sorry to rain on the parade of those who love to complain, but they managed to greatly improve and streamline the existing COE process over the past year, improving the online upload process. It was much easier this time around, I expect this will also improve with time. As I've said before, a lot of problems occur because people make mistakes in their applications, then they blame the system. I can't see how anyone could reasonably expect something like this to get off the ground without some bugs. The USA is a god awful bloody mess of whiners who don't want to wear masks or get vaxxed, in spite of 725,000 dead. If anyone knows where that perfect world exists against which you measure Thailand and that you are using to base your complaints on, please post directions. But hey, I understand that taking potshots at the shortcomings of Thailand is a sport for most of you, which, if taken away, would leave a great vacuum in your lives. So, carry on, while the rest of us chuckle to ourselves at your curmudgeonly absurdity.

No he can't, because it's not true. When people are denied entry it's for very clear reasons. The only problem is travelers not having done their homework and not having everything in order. And if they don't understand what happened then they assign random blame on immigration. The airport has dozens of supplemental employees meeting arrivals and going over their documents before you enter the immigration queue, and are helping rather than hindering entry. No one has any motive or reason to "make up" reasons to deny entry. I've made the trip 3 times since covid. How many times do you think he has?

Why, they will arrive on the wings of angels, naturally

I think it's obvious that these "announcements" are designed to encourage optimism, but are couched in certain assumptions, as such they are more like conditional scenarios with the possibility of being revoked if things go south again. I agree that the rules that remain will still discourage tourism, but I also agree they they should not rush things. In the bigger picture these "dubious" announcements show that the intent is there, a step in a longer arc which if nothing comes up to prevent it, the restrictions will end and tourists will be once again free to come. I think anyone who has been paying attention knows full well that any serious outbreak will reverse policy as has happened many times. I don't have any problem understanding the position and rationale of the government, I understand the public relations aspect of these announcements, they have a right to be cautious, and I personally have all the patience necessary to endure more of the restrictions in exchange for a safer place. The disappointingly slow rollout of vaccines was obviously a mitigating factor, which is slowly improving. but it IS improving. That is probably the most significant progress, something you can bank on. What I can't figure out is why the US is listed among the favored countries, when in fact it has been and remains dangerously high in Covid cases, there is still a shortage of intensive care beds, all because politicians are stirring up the ignorant by telling them they have the "right" to walk around maskless and to refuse vaccines. So in typical culturally violent fashion we have idiots assaulting and shooting each other over mask mandates. I kid you not, there have been hundreds of assaults, shootings, and murders over convenience stores and restaurants enforcing mask rules. Meanwhile 725,000 dead in the US from Covid, and all of those tragically unnecessary. What ever you can say about Thailand, at least the general public is not violently insane. Nope, as far as I'm concerned I don't care how silly, illogical, or misguided anyone thinks the Thai government is, I'm vaxxed, did my quarantine (BTW when I got here they had reduced quarantine to 7 days for vaxxed immigrants, so I got a few hundred dollars refunded. Is that NOT progress?) I'm here in Bangkok and so much better off than in the US in so many ways, so I will NOT complain. I happen to enjoy the deserted beaches, so beautiful and peaceful like my own private beach, and I don't miss the absent hordes of rude Chinese and other annoying tourists.

I can't remember If I posted on this story, so I'll post again to be sure. I must have been lucky in my choice of banks. I use Bangkok Bank and Kasikorn Bank, and one has a Mastercard/debit, the other has a VISA/debit. In the case of both of these banks, each and every log in or transaction generates an instantaneous SMS message to me, and Bangkok Bank emails me instantaneously whenever I sign in online. I'm sure they have other forms of effective security. I use these cards for online purchases from everyone including Ebay, Amazon, all local merchants, Shopee, Lazada, All my bills in the US as I select them, and I don't think anyone using either of those banks needs to worry about these things. I've lived in Bangkok 9 years now. There is also security built into Google Chrome which requires the CVC code with each transaction. All in all, I think this crime was likely a combination of lax security on the part of the merchants, and banks who are not up to speed with their transaction monitoring and notification. I once long ago had an employee at a merchant steal my credit info, but she got caught. But for those of you who are still reticent about online transactions, in the US all banks will without question reimburse any form of fraudulent transactions, so if I were to use my US credit/debit cards I would be doubly secure. So if you need to and can, use a card issued by your home bank. For example, I use my US cards when buying air tickets so that if they play games with cancellations and refunds I can have the bank claw back my money, and I did it a number of times with this covid mess. But there are new and more secure payment methods evolving in today's world which I have not kept up with. I just wanted to weigh in with my experience. I do 95% of all my shopping for merchandise online, and this story does not shake my confidence, largely due to the dependability and track records of my banks. In the case of big C or Homepro you can pay by card at time of delivery - I do that when there is a glitch in paying online. But if you exercise reasonable caution and discretion, there's no need to fear these very few worst case scenarios.

One very workable option if the cause was insufficient funds in the bank is to use the monthly income method of 65,000 baht per month or more. I have been doing that for going on four years now. You just have to be able to produce a one year bank statement showing that income as a direct deposit. I use Transferwise. This would be the surest solution. I don't actually make that much, so every month I tack on an extra $700 US that I then transfer back to the US along with any other funds that need to go back. So in my case there is $700 tied up in order to go round in circles, meanwhile a deposit of 67,000 baht in a lump sum shows up like clockwork in my bank once a month. Kasikorn Bank has a phone app that very easily and cheaply makes international transfers back to your home country within 12 hours, it comes to your bank as a standard ACH deposit and does not trigger any fees at your bank.

Wait, this isn’t the Onion?