Freespirit

Hi, just want to share my experience here as I'm going through this with my daughter. She is half Thai with a UK and Thai birth certificate. Firstly i have never had any problem taking her in or out of Thailand on either passport. But my story is very similar to Rolanddrums. We are here on tourist visa's, and she goes to a christian international school. She was taking important tests at school near Christmas so I couldn't take her for her visa extension. No harm I thought, she's under 15, so overstay won't matter. I'll take her for a 30 day visa exempt stamp when i go and clear the 29 day overstay. Yesterday (Monday 23rd January 2017), I went to Mai Sai to test the new visa exempt rules for a 30 day stamp. I took my daughter with me. I walked up to the exit booth presented our passports and declared my daughter had some overstay. I thought simple enough to clear. no fine to pay. WRONG! We were detained at the booth for 2 hours. A calculator was pushed under my nose with 14,500 baht fine to pay for my 13 year old.! I said NO because my daughter is under 15. Despite having her passport open in front of him, he then asked how old is she? I told him 13. He then asked the same question 3 times. My daughter said dad why he keeps asking it says in my passport right? I said yes. we were then told to step aside as this was serious. We were kept waiting while a female officer was brought out to talk with us. She said my daughter can't go school on a tourist visa. I said I was not aware of that.Then the first guy  told us to wait while he called his boss to come. We were kept waiting standing by the booth all this time. My daughter said she was tired standing for so long but nowhere to sit and no privacy. All this time farangs looking on wondering what the big problem was. Anyway the boss comes. A young looking officer, tall about 29 to 30 ish is my guess. he says this is serious. he calls his boss at Chiang Rai  immigration and says he will help us by telling his staff to give us the exit stamps and my daughter the overstay stamp, but we must go to Chiang Rai immigration today (Tuesday) and report to the boss. The first guy then says we are lucky they change the rules so we can get the visa exempt stamp at land borders 92 times only). I said I know. He then says if I let my daughter overstay 90 days she will get banned from Thailand for 10 years! This clearly states on the poster displayed that this does not apply to children under 15 years. They clearly do not have the right training or knowledge of the rules. The whole thing was a very bad experience and my daughter is starting to feel persecuted for being luk krung (half Thai). My daughter is missing more tests this week as  I was told she cannot go school on a tourist visa!  I think it''s all wrong and that we shouldn't have been given such  a hard time at the border. They were very negative and intimidating. My daughter has a Thai birth certificate  and an old expired Thai passport but apparently no rights to stay here without a visa or go school here. i think they are wrong and well out of order. Anyone here who knows the rules 100%? Because from now she has to stay home. Very bad feel for us now. We don't feel welcome in Thailand.

I am also interested in this and want to know, as I plan to try it early week. But it would be handy to know in advance, as i tried it a couple of years back and the immigration staff at the out booth leaving Thailand didn't tell me it wasn't allowed, then when I went to come back in I was stopped and told no you can't come back in! I protested and a dispute followed. I argued the point that their staff were wrong in not telling me before I went through. The lady boss there, then went and grilled her staff at the exit booth and came back and said they were wrong and I was right so stamped me back in, but made a note on the computer to say I must fly out in 30 days. So not wanting this to happen again I would ask first at the exit booth that you will definetely be allowed back in before you go out. It was scary being stuck in no mans land for an hour with no Mynamar visa or any clothes etc to stay there., luckily I was allowed back into Thailand. It's a stupid rule and I would have had to call the British embassy for assistance. This time I will try it again, but ask first and if the answer is "No cannot", I have a back up plan to try the bridge at Chiang Khong. Only downside is it will cost more for the Laos visa and use a full page in my passport.

The big question is will we be allowed to return the same day? (if so which land crossings will allow this?).

I think hes asking will it be OK to get his extension on Monday as immigation are closed on Saturdays and Sundays and his visa expires over the weekend.. So replies suggesting he go early are pointless now.

Ubonjoe,  Can I ask is it possible for me to get a 60 day extension on my tourist visa because i have a Thai child. and do you know what documents will be required for this? 

Thanks for the very helpful advice and information Ubon Joe.

My daughter had a  Thai passport  up till she was 5 years old. Her Thai mother left when she was 1 year old. I have tried to get her a new Thai passport in BKK, but they said no she has to have her mother come and show ID and sign. Her Thai mums wherabouts is unknown, so not much use. What i want to know is can my daughter enter Thailand on her old passport even though it expired a long time ago? She entered la year ago on her British passport but its a pain to keep taking her on visa runs every 3 months and expensive. She has a Thai birth certificate form the British consulate but is not on any house registration book as i rent my house. It  goes without saying that I live with my daughter,  but  not her mother. I used to be able to get an O visa for having a Thai child. But they stopped it about 4 years ago when they saw  the copy of her mothers ID was out of date. Any ideas?

Additional thought to my last post. Not every product in a 7-11 store has the same mark up/profit margin, but they don't throw out the ones will less margin. So  if this descision is based on their ownership of True Corp designed to make AIS customers change to True, they are mistaken. I have been using AIS for 20 years and am quite happy with the excellent service I've had, So will not change. t does not seem a good move on CP's /7-11's part no matter how I look at it.

Unfortunately CP/7-11 are missing the bigger picture and could lose millions of baht on one important factor. For every person that walks in 7-11 to buy an AIS top up card how many would look around and realise they need to buy something else! Lost sales apportunity. Not clever marketing at all. Like many have commented its greed. Acting first and thinking after. Typical trait. Footfall or number of walk in customers reduced, lower sales. I for one visit 7-11 less and go to the AIS shop in Central. Easy and fast service using their top up machine, and if  I need anything else I buy it in Central while I'm there! 7-11 lose, Central win. My advice to CP, think more!

Several years ago  I was stopped while driving my car on the Northbound raised section of the Expressway going out of Bangkok. The officer said i had been speeding and they had camera as proof. I asked to see the camera as evidence, as I knew I had been carefully following the speed limit. He then asked for 1,000 baht or go the police station, as my Thai g/f  was not wearing her seat belt. I did not want to waste hours in the police station as had a long drive to Udon ahead. So I reluctantly paid him. I didnt know the what the real fine with a ticket would have been,. I later happened to get to know one of the ladies who works in the expressway toll booths. I told her I was going to stop using that expressway and advise all farangs to do the same. She was very concerned this would affect the expressways image. She told me the policeman had asked far too much money, and that if it happened again to please note the number on the side of the policeman''s helmet, (yes there s one on all real cops helmets)! Then report the cops number to the police or the expressway authorities.

Since then I have avoided that section of raised expressway to Don Muang above Vipavadee Rangsit road, and I always go underneath, which has obviously reduced their ticket sales a bit. But to get to the point I want to make, if there is no number on the side of the cops helmet he is a fake cop., which looking at the pics seems to be the case. Remember to take a pic of the side of his helmet for the number, usually in large black numbers on the white helmet. The cop in the bus pics doesn't even seem to have a genuine police helmet! He's a fake

Anyone got any updated information on getting the non O for retirement extension, from any nearby countries?

I know that he has reported to the Thai police with his daughter. They are no longer missing. The Thai mother does not live in UK and walked away from her daughter when the baby was 1 year old. He has taken good care of her since. There has been no child abuse. He loves his daughter and she wants to stay in Thailand with her dad. As Rapid Method says is all about an over zealous social worker. He took his daughter to the UK, to get her in school. He was harrassed

and threatened by the SS. They threatened to take her away because she had been home schooled. As there was no court order in place at the time, he decided to save his kid and take her to Thailand. He left before the SS could make a control order, so he has done nothing wrong.

"Miles failed to attend a meeting arranged by Devon council to address concerns about the girl’s welfare. A judge has officially ordered that she be returned to the UK."

A custody battle, no reason to think that Zara is in trouble.

We had to attend several meetings arranged by the Social Services at the local council. If I knew then what I know now, I would have also taken the first plane out the country with my kids before getting inextricably embroiled in the legal process. These meetings are a farce. Parents have absolutely no legal rights and the meetings are basically rubber-stamping decisions already taken by the social workers privately beforehand. The only rights parents have are to be formally informed of the decision: their own input is irrelevant. Usually, the meeting is simply to inform the parent(s) that the child's name is to be placed on the At Risk Register, without any explanation what this means and what the implications are. Well, the implications are dire: officially, the family is entitled to "support" by the various children's services but what happens in practice is that if the parent(s) don't "cooperate" then it is very easy to obtain an order to remove the child, the parent(s) don't need to be present at the court hearing (which basically rubber-stamps the Interim Care Order) and they needn't be informed either until after the fact. An ICO gives the Social Services power over the child for about 2 months, but it is always routinely renewed indefinitely (every two months) by a family court judge. With an ICO, children can be removed and placed in foster care - and if the child is young and cute the standard procedure is to start the process of putting it up for adoption (without requiring the biological parents' consent). Older children's wishes are routinely ignored also (illegally so according to the Voice of the Child). Zara will have no say in who she'd prefer to live with, despite being the legal age of consent, usually around 11 or 12...

It's a grinding, inexorable process that can't be easily stopped once started. Get out while you can! Trevor, you did the right thing.