mfd101

Olive oil (7/8) + balsamic vinegar (1/8).

9 minutes ago, doctormann said:

Is it possible to inform BBC News about this?

It may not be news, as such, yet, but it's surely going to be if ex-pats are going to be forced out of the Country!

 

I already tried penning a message to [email protected] but sending fails as the address is apparently not valid!

 

If anyone knows how to do this please let me know or PM me and I will send you the text.

Sounds like an excellent idea. The more noise you Brits make, including OUTSIDE Thailand, the more both the Brit Embassy AND Thai Immigration will sit up & take notice.

1 hour ago, NCC1701A said:

glad the animals got a reprieve.

 

any word of a flip flop on the UK Embassy income letter debacle?   

Well, it took "ten thousands of people sharing stories and many more commenting on the matter" to turn this one around. Turning round the awesome British ship of state may take quite a few matelots leaning on the wheel.

34 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Yes. Because gay men in general are attracted to people that present as males.

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Yes.

8 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

The $A you used might have me scratching my head. If you wrote AUD it would better since that is the standard abbreviation for it.

But for something like the statutory declaration I think I would write Australian Dollars.

Yes, lesson learned for next year!

The notion that Thai Immigration officers are going to check/verify/prove the income docos in multiple languages is simply laughable.

At Kap Choeng, if you don't speak Thai you need someone along who does. I made the mistake 2 days ago of having my neatly typed (Aussie) statdec with 3 elegant sentences explaining that, as shown on my accompanying superannuation statement for 2018/2019, my fortnightly income is $Ax, which translates into $Ay annually, which translates into $Az monthly. Silly me. Long explanation from my b/f required to explain it all. Fine.

Then it turned out that the boss couldn't work out what '$A' meant - had never seen a dollar sign in his life before! - and wouldn't believe us when we told him!

On 10/9/2018 at 9:45 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

You forgot the option: I am straight and I swear I never did anything with a lady-boy, I still think it was a woman.

On 10/9/2018 at 9:46 PM, Jingthing said:

I feel excluded.  Because I am gay, I certainly haven't done anything with ladyboys, as that's a straight thing.

 

Next … 

I am homosexual and wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

2 minutes ago, allane said:

I have now become aware of someone who left Thailand about a month ago and returned shortly after. About ten days ago, she was in the Surin Immigration office. The reportedly scrutinized every page of her passport, but did not tell her that she had to do a new TM30, or fine her for not having already done one. 

My experience too. Was o/s late June. Did 90-day in late Sept & extension of stay a couple of days ago. Nothing mentioned re TM30.

I did ask them at Kap Choeng a couple of years ago whether they wanted me to do one each time I returned from BKK. They laughed and said: Why would you want to do that?

But that was a couple of years ago ...

1 hour ago, ukrules said:

I can't think of a single scenario where a declaration like this needs to be signed and witnessed for a UK citizen.

 

For legal documents you can have a lawyer witness and countersign a signature like a will or something.

Sure, but where's the lawyer? In Thailand or in Britain? If in Thailand, does the British legal system recognize a Thai lawyer as a nominated person to witness a signature? If not, are there British lawyers in Thailand who can do it? Personally I should have thought the obvious place to look would be the British Embassy but apparently that's a silly idea ...

7 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

The value of THB is determined by demand, demand is found in three significant areas, tourism receipts, exports and capital flows. As already said, one economy watcher is suggesting a 20% fall in export values plus the demand from Chinese tourism has fallen, as has the value of capital flows, significantly I might add. If those three factors don't combine to stunt the growth of THB I don't know what will.

Fine, but there's no predictive value in that. What does 'stunt the growth' mean for, say, the next 12 months? Instead of, say, 10% growth in the Baht's value, it'll grow by only 7%? or 2% or fall by 3%? ...

21 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

Surely ALL embassies should have agreed that they were unable to verify the information provided, and therefore made the same announcement? 

No, not all. Only those Embassies that had hitherto pretended to verify or perhaps in some cases had even indeed verified a citizen's income. In the case of those Embassies that don't do this, there's no change.

27 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

Maybe Brits don't do the 'statdec' as such?

 

Pretty much the same as a Notary Public is a fairly unique American legalization.

Doesn't matter what its NAME is. The concept is the same: A citizen wants to make an important statement that requires his or her signature, and the signature has to be witnessed by a nominated person in authority, which requires the citizen's & the nominated authority figure's physical presence in the same place at the same time.

So the question is: How do Brits manage this when they live in Thailand and their Embassy (apparently) doesn't do the witness bit? Are there Brit Justices of the Peace available here?

26 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

That's not my quote, that's a quote from the Nation.

Sure, but the thread is about the Thai baht. The concept, as I understand it, is that the US/China trade war will damage the Thai economy as collateral damage (much as the Oz economy may suffer).

The question is: How much? Noone knows. And how will this affect the value of the Thai currency? Noone knows.

5 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

A trade war between the two will result in losses for both the US and China". 

And the losses for Thailand will be? ...

1 hour ago, dick dasterdly said:

More than a few of us (I suspect) would find it v. difficult to travel to Bangkok to have our signatures witnessed - making this possible 'solution' far from ideal.  Consequently, I'm going to have to pay an agent to get my passport renewed ☹️.

 

The postal service worked well previously, and the BE stands alone in deciding to stop issuing proof of income letters.

 

 

I wonder how all the elderly Aussies have been coping all this time.

1 hour ago, pontious said:

So what does a British citizen living in Thailand do when, for whatever purpose, he needs to make a statdec for use back in Britain? He has to fly back to UK? Or to Singapore? Or KL? Or Delhi? ... (Surely not!)

31 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Fantastic. Why can't the British embassy do the same?!?

As I have suggested earlier on either this thread or its parallel one, the obvious thing for Brits to do would be to check whether & where their Embassy witnesses signatures on statdecs/affidavits/affirmations or whatever they're called under British law.

Assuming this is not ALSO done by mail (how could it be? given that it NECESSARILY involves the author of the statdec being physically present), then they can simply do what we Aussies do: Make your statement of income as your declaration & get the Embassy to witness your signature on it. This would get round the embassy's problem and, until further notice, Thai Immigration's!!!

I've never done one yet (in 2 years here & 2 in BKK). I don't think they could care less.

However, if you get the boss guy on a bad day (which is just about every day) ...

I attended Kap Choeng office at 0830 this morning for my annual renewal based on retirement (+ 90-day report). Out the door all done at 0930 which, considering that I was 1st up, counts as some kind of success, I guess.

With one exception, everything was as usual - chaos as papers, passports & photocopies shuffled around at snail's pace between half a dozen people. And as usual it felt like time travel back to The Lucky Country 1965. Not helped by the unpleasant individual in charge who seeks to make everything as difficult as possible. My papers were immaculate (I wasn't a bureaucrat for nothing) but he didn't know what "$A" on the statdec meant & didn't agree with us when we told him ... Like last year they weren't interested in my lovely photos of me scowling at the camera near our front gate.

The exception to the usual was that, right at the beginning, as soon as I handed him my wad of docos he demanded to see my bankbook (which of course was irrelevant as I was using the income method). Fortunately, in light of the hysteria on this site over the last 48 hours in relation to The British Problem, I had brought along backup just in case. So I handed over my bank book, which was then photocopied page by page. They appeared not to notice that it currently has only 22000฿ in it and certainly made no connection between that and my more-than-ample monthly income. Which shows what a load of mindless process it all is.

The fact of his asking MAY be a sign of things to come (or he may simply not have noticed first up that I was using the income method). Anyway there'll be plenty of time to find out whether The British Problem is to be generalized or not. Till then I shall let sleeping chihuahuas lie.