Caldera

Nowadays most landlords probably want the rent to be paid by bank transfer. The initial payment is often in cash when moving in, but with instant bank transfers using an app, that's been shifting towards that option, too. I don't think many landlords would be willing and able to accept credit card payments.

The money doesn't need to be in a Thai bank when you apply for a visa outside Thailand. In Phnom Penh, they will accept bank statements from banks in Cambodia, too. There's no way around the financials when you apply there, no matter if you use an agent or not.

I think you give the police farce WAY too much credit.

Can you point me to ANY recent report supporting your claim? That it's getting harder to use an agent for retirement visas/extensions is news to me, but is it actually true?

Which is why home visits are waived for those using an agent. ???? It's an ineffective tool, as the very IO that accepts the extra would need to schedule the home visit.

A benefit of using Phnom Penh might be that you don't need an appointment and would be able to use an agent there. But you'd need to check if they issue non-immigrant visas to foreigners not resident in Cambodia. Their processing time also tends to be long.

Yeah I kind of understand why they think it's a good idea for marriage visas/extensions, to check if the marriage is "real" by sniffing around the bedroom. But retirement visas/extensions, no idea. Age and financials are what matters for those, verified by other means.

So they'll waste more people's time, for no benefit whatsoever. Great.

An agent might just send your paperwork to another - less busy amd more accommodating - province.

Strangely enough, I've never missed a flight, and I've been on many. More often than not, my "problem" was having too much time to kill - sometimes because of flight delays, sometimes because things just moved faster than usual.

Which part of "immediately used" did you not understand? The immigration office issues you a non-immigrant visa, immediately stamps it "used" and stamps a non-immigrant visa entry stamp into your passport. If you need to leave and re-enter, you need a re-entry permit, and they actually put another stamp in to advise you of that.

There are two different international buses, one to Nong Khai and another one to Udon Thani. The one to Udon Thani uses the bus terminal nearby Central, yes

Good luck with this! Report them and report back here how it goes. Rumor has it that this school has army connections, and they've been around for many years in any case.

You're wrong about that. Immigration does issue a non-immigrant visa, it is stamped into the passport and immediately used for a non-immigrant visa entry. You can't obtain a non-immigrant visa entry without having a non-immigrant visa, neither at a border nor at a local immigration office.

It took them more than 10 years to finalize what looks like a straightforward case? Really?

I don't see that as a real problem in itself, as you can buy cheap throwaway tickets, or tickets that allow changes without charge. It's a nonsensical requirement alright, but there are workarounds.

Yes

Different countries might have different procedures, but I think in most cases an embassy doesn't want an overstayer to become their burden. If they refused to renew an overstayer's passport to enable them to leave Thailand on their own, guess what, eventually one of their consular officials would need to visit that overstayer at the IDC - and that would just complicate matters. I've seen many reports of overstayers obtaining a new passport, but not a single actual report of an overstayer who was refused a new passport just because of being on overstay.

You do need to fill in a TM.6 "arrival card" form, as you'll be entering at a land border, not by air. It would be very unusual to be asked for a flight out at a land border, on the other hand.

You don't need a round-trip ticket, but you do usually need to show travel to Thailand and an outbound ticket. In your case, you might well have a problem, as the consulate in HCMC might advise you to apply for the Thai tourist visa in Malaysia instead, seeing that you'll travel there before traveling to Thailand. Or maybe your ticket to Malaysia will just confuse them. It's usually a good idea to keep things simple. When I applied for a tourist visa in HCMC before, I bought a throwaway round-trip ticket to Bangkok, although my plan was to travel back overland via Cambodia.

My biggest concern is what the immigration police will come up with next, now that they've lost all this extra income. It will need to be replaced, one way or another.

I've never been questioned or searched by Thai customs officers anyway, and they don't exactly look very alert whenever I walk past them in the green lane. Half asleep or playing with their phones, more like.

I don't really see the wisdom in forging a passport in Thailand and using it to exit Thailand. Even with high-quality forgery, the fact that the passport holder's entry to Thailand wasn't recorded in the immigration database surely is bound to sound the alarm, so what are the chances that they just stamp such a person out? Using a passport forged in Thailand to enter another country would be a different story, I guess it could work.

Apparently you tried to leave at a land border, where what you wrote applies. The OP has been advised to fly out.

Many Thai temples have had PromptPay QR codes for donations on display for several years, often on an actual donation box to provide an alternative way to a cash donation. Sure, someone could post their own sticker there instead, but then the recipient shown in the bank app would be "Somchai Whatever" instead of "Wat Whatever", which should look suspicious enough to at least the more alert people.