Horace

To address the OP's questions, why don't we just assume he's talking about an American, since Americans have crappy and expensive healthcare for the elderly? 

If your employment contract is with the school and the school is paying you (has this question been answered yet?), I would think your employment relationship is with the school.  I don't see why you need to pay the agent anything or why the school can deduct amounts from your agreed salary to set our in your contract to pay the agent.  Your employment relationship with the school is governed by Thai law on the employment of teachers (which, I was just toldm varies a bit from the Labour Protection Act). Unless I am missing something here, this seems pretty straight forward.

I suggest you talk to three lawyers.  They should be willing to spare a brief period of time free.   You will obviously look at their fee structure, but make sure they understand your problem.  If you read through this thread you can see an on-going argument about your issue.  If you are dealing with non-native English speakers the potential for confusion is even greater, so if you are going to retain a Thai lawyer make sure she or he understands, precisely, the problem.  Also, be wary of lawyers who claim they have "connections" that can use to make the problem go away.  Although it can be hard to judge someone's honesty and integrity in a short meeting, any claims about special "connections" is a dead giveaway that they have neither.

4 minutes ago, skatewash said:

I'm just guessing and I know this doesn't apply to all PE visa holders, but I think part of the problem may be that these people who end up with the PE are used to paying money to have someone else take care of things.  I don't really understand that attitude and thankfully I don't have enough money to indulge in that attitude myself anyway even if I wanted to ?.  I'm one of those people who does my own immigration work, does my own investing, does my own taxes, fix things around the house, all without paying someone else to take care of it for me.  In other words, I'm a Do-It-Yourselfer.  One of the benefits of that approach is that you become familiar with a lot of things (not an expert, by any means) but someone who takes an active interest in how to do things and how things work.  Not everyone is like that, of course.  I've learned over a lifetime that no one is going to have my best interests at heart more than I do ;-).

Hence I think there was a disconnect between the level of service they thought they were purchasing and the level of service they were actually purchasing.  They were still on the hook to leave the country every year or do an extension of stay and they were still on the hook to do the 90 Day Reports.  I'm not sure that got through and I tend to think it wasn't pounded home during the sales pitch because that's against the self-interest of the seller.  Was it included in the documentation?  Yes.  But these people who are willing to pay such a large fee for a service and convenience aren't exactly the same kind of people that would even bother reading that sort of thing.  They paid for convenience and don't feel it's necessary to waste any more of their time on this sort of thing.

So given that was a PE a good deal?  Well it wouldn't be for me because there's no comparison in the cost of the PE and my cost to do my annual retirement extensions (1,900 baht for an extension of stay, 3,800 baht for multiple re-entry permit, 200 baht to my bank for the bank letter and account statement).  Compare that to 100,000 baht, plus 1,900 for an extension of stay (if you don't leave the country at least once a year) and the choice for someone in my position is pretty clear.  5,900 baht or 101,900 baht?  I think I'll take the first one, please.  Now if I weren't 50 years old and didn't have 800,000 baht I can afford to leave in a Thai bank for 3 months every year, then maybe the PE would make sense.

In my opinion, the PE is kind of a kludge.  Instead of changing the applicable laws to allow a no-fuss, no-muss 5 year extension of stay (which appears to be what some PE customers thought they were getting) they got the actual PE which is tortuously constructed to fit into the existing immigration laws.  As a consequence the PE is not nearly as convenient as some may reasonably hope it would be.

Good and insightful post, particularly the part about the type of person who would be inclined to use the PE program.  That was in the back of my mind, but you spelled it out much better than I did.

OK, the stickers are a problem, but its weak beer compared to the larger the heaps of trash that is thrown about all over Thailand.  TAT will spend millions on slick advertising to promote Thailand.  Wouldn't that money be better spent on simply cleaning up the trash?

Remember the Swiss girls that started cleaning up trash on Koh Samui?  Others started joined in when they saw foreigners addressing a Thai problem.  Maybe other foreigners should start doing the same.  And make sure the locals see you cleaning up their trash.  Never underestimate the importance of face here, and this will be an issue of face if foreigners are seen (social media) cleaning up local trash.

I don't understand the obsession with the Shinawatras.  A member of the family is spotted in London, and a picture is featured on the front page of every newpaper, but are they really that important? 

Compare how often you see a picture of a Shiniwatra abroad with how often you see a picture of the Red Bull heir who is alleged to have killed a police officer in a hit and run accident.  Pictures of him abroad are rare in Thailand, while if a Shiniwatra merely goes shopping for groceries there is a front page picture. Yes, they were a powerful political family.  But do they really enjoy that much political power now?   

Is this intentional or just lazy reporting?  

If you have a work permit, I can't think of any legal prohibition on opening a bank account in Thailand.  Banks sometimes have other (internal) requirements on top of the legal requirements.  There are also compliance burdens with citizens of some countries that a Thai bank may want to avoid. 

There is supposedly a Bank of Thailand requirement stating that foreigners must have a valid work permit to open a bank account, but this obviously conflicts with the rules on retirement visas.  Hence, I have been told, some bank branches that are in areas heavily populated with foreigners don't require work permits and the Bank of Thailand looks the other way.  Its a face saving measure to avoid admitting that Thai laws and regulations conflict with each other.

In my experience, foreigners get arrested for work permit violations when someone has an interest in having that foreigner arrested.  Under the old law (more on that later), simply having a business meeting or working on your computer in a hotel constituted "work" under the work permit law.  But you never saw the police inspecting business centers or Starbucks looking for foreigners engaged in work.  At least I never did.  

But you will see arrests of foreigners if there is a dispute with a local business partner, an angry local competitor or - and I saw this - an HR manager of an MNC fly up from Singapore and fire a local Thai employee.  In other words, someone is either angry or has a financial interest in having the foreigner arrested.  And you will read about foreigners who "manage" bars getting arrested, although I have never seen this.

ubonjoe quoted Section 51 of the Alien Workers Act.  That quote was accurate.  But the law was recently changed to relax the penalties on foreigners engaged in work without a work permit and increase the penalties (just a bit) on local companies  that employ foreigners without work permits. 

A few firms have articles on this and I heard AMCHAM will be doing an event on the changes to Thailand's work permit law in July.  I expect other foreign chambers of commerce will also organize events explaining the changes. 

You might check to see if what he considers "work" is still work under the definition of work under the new work permit law.  The earlier definition was extremely vague and narrow, but the definition in the new law is broader, but still (and this is probably unavoidable) somewhat ambiguous.  

This was said several times above, but it can't be repeated enough (since if causes considerable confusion) but the government authorities and laws that handle and govern (a) the right to enter and stay in Thailand (e.g., visas, etc.) and (b) work in Thailand are entirely different.  This is part of Thailand's "charm".