onera1961

35 minutes ago, JLCrab said:

How long do you have to stay in US to get that done and do you do it by mail or in person. Please.

I have done only once. In my county, police report is walk in, walk-out. For doctor, you have to make an appointment. May be 7-day. By mail, it is not possible. May be somebody can try it. I will explore it next time around. But I like going to the USA once a year at least. Border hop is for avoiding reporting your address (with all its nuances for TM30 etc.) every 90-day.

12 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

Add in the cost of health insurance or true self-insuring (minimum 1 million readily accessible if using government hospitals only, 3-5 if using private, and able to replenish these amounts when/as used) and most people will find they do in fact need not much less than 65K/month.

People can go back to their country of origin for medical treatment. I am not sure about other countries, but for an US citizen can get medicare after 65 and for any major operation they can leave Thailand and go to USA. My philosophy is to keep a small house in the USA (you can buy for 50K now in most rural university towns) and never burn the  bridge to your passport country. Honestly speaking, one only need 30K single or 40 K (with a partner to live comfortably in Thailand). 

1 hour ago, bluebluewater said:

The heck of it is that I have several million dollars in brokerage accts in the States.  

Go for an O-A visa every two years and border hop every three months to avoid reporting 90-day stay. I am also against putting 800K in a bank of a police state. Just curious, what are you going to do with your millions if you're living modestly. All for your estate and for your children? They will win the genetic lottery ????

38 minutes ago, rhodie said:

If you go back home every 2 years for an OA Visa, you would be fine as you can show the money you have there. Need medical and police clearance, but with a border hop can last 2 years

You still need to do one border hop at the end of the first year on an O-A to get the additional year. I am on an O-A visa. I think I will continue border hop every three months (to avoid reporting my addressees and succumb to Thai immigration's police state rules). I will never deposit 800K in a Thai bank. I will get my O-A from USA with police certificate (does not cost me anything) and a health certificate (doctor's charge $175) and visa fee ($200).

All the posting in this forum about this topics are old (circa 2012/13). What is the current situation about Fibre Optics and other high Speed  (Cable or ADSL) broadband in Jomiten area. When I say High Speed, it must at least 50MB download and 15 MB upload. Most providers in Thailand will give you 15 upload and 2 download that will crawl to 0.5 most often. While upload is not important for streaming but it is very important for smooth audio calls. 

On 10/15/2018 at 10:28 PM, wolf81 said:

Whenever you stay anywhere (be it at a hotel, a person's home, etc…) the owners of the place have to report you to immigration within the first 24 hours

I have stayed in umpteen number of road side co called resorts in Issan but never my passport was scanned or I was registered. I was always with my GF though. One time my passport was stolen and I even reported to police to get a police report for a new passport. Police never questioned me for TM30 or other such nonsense. Of course, that was may be 2011/12. 

As it stands now, I will be staying for 90-day this time. Plan to visit USA in January and come back in March before my O-A expires to get an extra year from the O-A visa. So it seems, I have to file a Notification of staying.  As UKrules mentioned, anybody can file a TM30. Can I file it myself or ask my girl friend to file one for me even though she does not live with me? I would ask the condo management first if they have already filed it or not before doing it myself. 

With all the horror stories of people being denied entry, random passport check (followed by urine tests) on the streets, people being fined, blacklisted, etc. I want to make everything legit to avoid future issues. 

OMG, what happened to my Thailand of early 2000s when I could spend all night in a Sukumvit road side bar and listen to music, never carried passport with me, or worried about TM30. 

Most of the time the immigration crowd is OK. At most 15 minutes to clear the immigration. However, on a few occasions I noticed it gets very crowded, specially when a few large Chinese airlines land from Beijing and Sanghai. Chinese people have a habit of making multiple lines where one is expected and friends and family members will queue up in multiple lines and then keep changing from line to line. One time I got so annoyed that I have to tell them not to change from line to line because it is not family festival. They apparently got annoyed and looked at me as if I have done some grave mistakes. However, they were not frightening and let me go ahead in the queue. 

On 3/1/2017 at 1:11 AM, humbleguy said:

paid 10,000 to 20,000 baht,but I refused to do that,because there is no point to bribe to anyone,my visa still valid,I am legal,  i am not criminal.

Very unfortunate incident and I sympathize with you. However, I think if every thing was all right and you're completely legit, you should have called your consulate. Should not one call their consulate if police arrests you when you're completely legit?

Does it work with perpetual tourists and people who are in and out of the country on tourist visas? If so, not a bad idea to avoid IO questioning.

10 hours ago, Vacuum said:

EU has several of those countries, you even don't have to be in possession of a passport to enter the country.

Can you name a few countries like that? As far as I know all EU countries enforce three months permission to stay in rules Schengen area strictly (for US passport holders)

12 hours ago, lkv said:

But obviously, the Chinese are not scrutinised since they are the "golden goose".

It is not that they are not scrutinized but they don't stay in Thailand. They don't have multiple entry stamps in Thailand in their PP. They come as tourist and go to their country and wait for one more year before returning if they want to visit Thailand again as genuine tourist. As many posters said here often, by the time they ask for 20K, they have already decided to reject you and trying to find a valid cause. Chinese tourists are every where. From Zurich airports to Rio. The rich are buying PPs from Singapore or Hong Kong and the upper middle class is buying from the USA, Malta, Portugal, etc. 

Here is a funny story. I have an O-A visa from the US. My today's entry is the 9th entry this year into Thailand using O-A visa.  Maximum stay was for two months and minimum for 7-day. At passport control, the IO checked all my/arrival departure stamps and asked my how long do you want to stay? I said for one year. Then he said but you never stay in Thailand why do you come to Thailand often and what do you do here? I said I am retired and spend my time all around the world. Then he asked me something in Thai I said sorry I don't understand Thai. He asked why? I said sorry I did not have the time to learn (though my passport shows I had an ED visa in 2011-2012). May be I will enroll in a language school this time. He then stamped one year permission to stay. I thought with an O-A visa it would be easy with no questions asked but apparently not so. 

5 hours ago, Just1Voice said:

But 2 years, with no early release, would be fine.

Even two years is too much for their false sense of privilege to do so. They should be canned, deported,  and blacklisted for five years

Could not be better. Let them arrest all overstayers. What I don't like is the urine test they do to catch users of Marijuana (and other drugs) after they verify your passport and immigration status. Once, I just arrived from Amsterdam and caught up in this stupid raid. And guess what happened? Why do a urine test? I think it is a violation of privacy and my American friend thinks it is OK. He has been living in Thailand for a longtime and lost all sense of privacy I think. ????

10 hours ago, ukrules said:

Are you staying for more than 90 days this time ?

I am not sure. The lease of the condo is for one year. So next time I enter Thailand, I will be reporting the condo address in my arrival card. If I stay for 90-day, I will be reporting my TM47 at Pattaya. And there is the issue of extension of stay after March, 2020. Just wanted to make sure that everything is done properly prior to that. 

I have an O-A visa from Washington DC. My visa will expire next year in March 29, 2019 (not extension). I have entered Thailand in 2018 a total of eight times. I always book a few days in a Bangkok hotel before arriving in Thailand. I am right now in Lisbon and will be arriving in Thailand on 21st (coming Sunday). I have already booked a hotel in Bangkok for one week. All my prior arrival cards have hotel addresses. I have never stayed more than 90 days (maximum two months), so I have never reported my addresses to the immigration (TM 47). 

Now my girl friend who lives in Pattaya has rented a condo in Jomiten for me and insist I stay in Pattaya (she already has a house in Bang Lamung but I won't be staying with her). I will sign the lease for the condo on 30th of this month. Do I have to submit TM 30 within 24 hours? What I tell the agent (I think she talked to the agent not the owner) regarding TM 30 when I sign the lease and how do I make sure she submits a TM 30? 

1 hour ago, PoorSucker said:

There is a clause for retired people being supported by their Thai children, no need to show any amount of money. 

At least Thai immigration is doing a good thing. 

2 hours ago, DILLIGAD said:

But if your continuously on O-A visa’s you have to do border-runs every 90 days that some might find onerous &/or a cost consideration.

No border run for O-A. Cons of getting O-A visa: Need to do a border run a few days before the visa expires. (once a year). Have to go back to the home country once every two years. Must maintain a house in the USA (cost only $50K and may be can do a reverse mortgage if paid up. I plan to do that. That will generate a few hundred bucks. For people who are using agent services for 20K, this may not be a bad idea. I am only on my first year of O-A visa. So I cannot predict what will happen in the next few years. I can sell my house in the US for 70K (fully paid) and put the money in Thai bank or do a reverse mortgage. Keeping a house in the US is not bad idea. It gives me a permanent address in the US (to collect junk mail :)), driver's license, and a place to stay in the US when I go there.

20 hours ago, steve73 said:

even simply drawing down their own savings or selling some investments, which could be based anywhere.

If people have savings, why not get an O-A visa from home country every two years? What are the benefits of O-A visa compared to visa extension? No need to deal with Thai immigration, archaic Thai bank book update, Thai bank letter, embassy income letter, TM 30, etc, etc. So, far my plan is to get O-A every two years. I am on my first O-A now. After getting a few O-A, I can definitely tell you the efficacy of the process. 

34 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

I had to go to a branch and get a printout of the transfers to figure out how many "cents" the trial-deposits were. 

What branch and what printout? NY branch Bangkok bank rejects the trial deposit with a comment that the ACH transfer is not in international format. It never goes into my Thai Bangkok bank. 

They have started rejecting US ACH transaction for trial deposit and all accounts set up earlier will stop accepting US ACH transaction from April 1, 2019. 

• With effective from April 1, 2019, New York branch only process ACH with appropriate IAT format and all non-IAT transactions will be returned.       

15 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

affidavit of his Bangkok Thai Address - not US-Address - to use at the bank.

Thai address is already verified by lease document. Bangkok bank wants verification of US address to comply with FATCA. My affidavit from US embassy is for US address only. Bangkok Bank will not accept State Driver's license. I try to convince the Manager to accept my US address in State Driver's license but she refused to accept it. For countries other than US, I don't know what they want (I talked to the Manager and she told me for US citizens, they have to comply with FATCA). For Indian nationals they want to sell an insurance and if you buy the insurance, you can open an account without any embassy letter. 

4 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

One can also transfer it by ACH to the BKB branch in NY.

I have difficulties transferring it using Bangkok bank ACH. Trial deposits from my Citi Bank, Ally bank, Capital One bank, and chase bank were all rejected by Bangkok bank. They said it is not in International ACH format. If you know any US bank that uses international ACH format, please let me know. 

16 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

LMAO. I'm in Pattaya and the resteraunts and bars are 99 % full of OLD white men

May be when these old men will leave the country, genuine tourist will start going to the bars just like any other countries. Many people don't like to go to a bar where mostly old people ogling young girls over a bottle of beer.