Mike Teavee

What a wonderful quote...

I get SMS messages for every outgoing transaction (including withdrawals) from my BKB account no matter how small... Obvious questions but have you changed your mobile number recently & are you able to receive SMS from other sources (could be a problem with your phone/carrier rather than the Bank).

Are you able to use card less withdrawals at other banks ATMs? My nearest Bangkok Bank ATM is 10-15mins away but have Krungsri & TTB ATMs a couple of minutes away so would be nice to be able to use those cardlessly

Have never heard of them but a couple of friends have used https://onwardticket.com/ with no problems & have recommended the service to others.

Am guessing he's turned right at the Corner of the new Space Hotel (Naklua 20 Alley) & instead of going all the way across the oncoming lanes to the correct lanes, has tried to "Filter" into it ploughing into the 2 German gents on the way. Terrible driving as there didn't seem to be anything stopping him from driving all the way across to the correct lanes, just impatient & a complete lack of awareness of anything else on the road.

It won't put off long haul travelers (an extra < 1% isn't going to stop me from visiting family) but it might put off people travelling from Malaysia / Singapore etc... where it could be an extra 10-20% on top of however much flight prices have gone up already (My UK flights were 46% more expensive than the ones I bought pre-Covid). A departure Tax of 750B is already included in the flight prices so I am guessing they will increase this to 1,750B. But if they really want to shoot themselves in the foot they could make it a pay-2-exit & make the proposed 300B a pay-2-enter and watch the airport grind to a halt (as if it doesn't at times anyway).

Have you watched the Video? You can see clearly that the car is on the wrong side of the middle lines when it hits them. The driver pulled over to the correct side of the road after the accident.

That road has 2 lanes on either side & to me it looks like the driver is in the outside lane of the oncoming traffic so is on the wrong side of the road.

I wouldn’t say the Germans were extremely careful but they stopped (in the middle of the road) whilst crossing so the driver should have seen them. They certainly didn’t step out in front of the driver from behind a parked car or anything.

RIP Joe & thanks again for guiding me (& many others) through the Thailand Non-Imm O minefield. Condolences to his family, I hope they find some comfort in the fact that he was well loved amongst his fellows here on AN & will be sorely missed by everybody that he's helped over many years. Legend of ThaiVisa/AseanNow will never be forgotten...

Lol, Flicking through new Netflix movies & “Barbie Spy Movie” came up so I asked the GF if she knew what Barbie was… Didn’t have a clue. Maybe knowledge about the rest of the world is overrated at times ????

It's the latter of when you move overseas OR receive your 1st Pension, so if (Like me) you're not yet at State Pension age but have declared yourself as living in Thailand then your pension will continue to increase until you're eligible to receive it at which point (assuming still living in Thailand) it will be frozen. Fun fact, yesterday I cancelled my monthly AVC subscription as by my calculations I've paid the full amount (40 years, I was "Contracted Out" for most of it) that their State Pension calculators site says I need to pay. Am visiting UK from 15th May so will call them to make sure.

As I've posted previously it was Barclays that moved me overseas & I became Non-Resident for Tax when I moved to work for Barclays Singapore PTE so they know full well that I'm not in the UK but there are no problems trading online or over the phone, however as non-UK Resident for Tax you cannot invest any new monies into ISAs. I do approx. 6 trades per year which is made up of manual re-investing of dividend income twice per year + I keep a "Punt Fund" for shares that I think have been oversold which I Buy & then sell when they hit my target gain (which is usually 10%). Again, no problems in trading & my accountant doesn't ask me for any CGT information when completing my return as I've been non-UK Resident (For Tax) for 15 years

I can only say that prior to becoming Non-UK Resident for Tax (in 2008) when I had an income that put me in the Higher Rate Earnings bracket I had to pay additional tax on my UK Dividends & since then I haven't BUT since then I also haven't been earning a UK Salary so my UK passive income has been around the 25-30K per year mark. As I used to own my own LTD company (One man band IT Consultancy) the Tax firm that used to file my company accounts files my personal returns so have to confess I don't 100% understand the dividend income rules since they introduced the "Dividend Allowance" & researching online brings mixed opinions about whether Non-UK residents (for Tax) are liable for more tax or not so I might be wrong & might find myself with an unexpected Tax Bill this year as Dividends have been very good ????

Nope, no crosswalk there…

Yep, GF buys all hers online for 80b & apparently the guy doesn't take any commission from winnings. Of course when I want her to buy me a ticket it's 100b - "Business is Business"

As well as the increase in fares I've noticed a lot more drivers cancelling (or not responding to) the booking, had 5 in a row when I wanted to go into town the other day & 2 drivers cancelled on route to pick us up from Makro (One was 1 minute away when he cancelled). Oh & a Taxi (booked via Bolt) kicked us out yesterday when he found out that we wanted to go from Wongamat to view some houses at Patta Element (approx 30 min drive) fortunately we managed to book an "Economy" car which turned up 2 minutes later & the driver was a really nice guy who waited 40 minutes for us & brought us back so we gave him 500b (IIRC the fare was listed as 161b one-way). All in all I still love the service (I don't have my own transport so wouldn't live out in Wongamat without it) but I am starting to look at Grab more when we can't get a Bolt. Airport runs I always use Nam or Cherry's taxi.

Spent 3 years at Ideo Verve On Nut (Not luxury) which is right opposite On Nut BTS Station & on Sukhumvit Road but because we had a Unit at the rear corner there was no noise from Traffic from the road. We were on floor 12A (floor 13 really but apparently they're superstitious there so the floors went 10, 11, 12, 12A, 14, 15 etc...) so not really a high floor.

And that's why I asked if he'd made a typo & lent her $12,000 OR if she'd paid it back at $10,000 pm. Not that it's any of my business so will leave it at that ????

It's like Citibank Gold where some branches have a dedicated desk/manager so you don't need to queue up. In EQ there's a dedicated Bualuang Office but my mate uses them all the time & I know he's not BE (Though he does park in the reserved BE spaces at some shopping malls as I give him the car park pass they give me every 2 years). Criteria is > 4Million Baht in Assets with them https://www.bangkokbank.com/en/Personal/Bualuang-Exclusive Not really worth having but membership is free & if you can find a Branch that has a BE desk, it can save a lot of queueing.

Sorry I don't understand your maths, did you loan her $12,000 or did she pay the loan back at $10,000 pm? In August 2021 I loaned my GF 1Million Baht to buy some land & told her she can pay me back at 10k pm (+ I knock off 20K as 1/2 of her Xmas/Birthday presents so she's paying it back at 160K pa), I didn't feel like a loan contract was needed as we'd been together for 2/1 years already & besides, if she ran away with the money it would save me a fortune in the long run!

Yep, last Wednesday I got a text from Bangkok Bank saying I had to go in to do Facial Biometrics so popped into the Jomtien Branch whilst I was at the Tax Office & it was full of Farangs who obviously got the same text. I got queue number #19, sat there for 10 minutes & the screen didn't move from #7 so gave it up as a bad joke & will go back in a few weeks once the initial rush has calmed down. On a semi-related note, does anybody know of any of the Bangkok Bank Branches in Pattaya that have Bualang Exclusive service? In Bangkok I would go to the BE branch in Emporium to avoid queuing but I can't seem to find a branch in Pattaya that has a BE desk/office.

I don’t know if it makes a difference (it obviously hasn’t in the past) but I do mine the other way around with 285 being the building number (I know this as all the mailboxes start with 285) & 866 is my condo.

Submitted at 7:09am & received the approval email 08:25am (My Immigration Office is Jomtien). Definitely worth submitting yours again to see if it’s approved on the 2nd try.

BahtNet is an internal (Thai Bank - Thai Bank) Transfer coding so I wouldn't have thought it would be acceptable to Immigration as they want to see the money coming in from Overseas (for Bangkok Bank these would be shown as "FTT"). You might be able to overcome this by showing 12 month statements of your pensions being paid from the UK to Bangkok Bank but I'd recommend having your pensions paid into a UK Bank account then use Wise & the "Reason" for Transfer "Funds for Long Term Living in Thailand" to ensure it shows up as an International Transfer. One other thing to note is that if you're bringing your pension into Thailand in the same calendar year it was earned then (technically) you are liable for Tax on it here (Double Taxation Agreements may mean you don't need to pay any but why take the risk).