Inspector 2211

There is no interest. In the US all major credit card issuers are offering 0% for one year and many with no transaction fees. For instance in January I opened a Chase card and paid off another credit card with the Chase. My Chase balance is at 0% till next January. I've not paid Chase one dime to date.

I believe this scheme could work - the only (minor) problem I see is that you need to maintain a U.S. address and need someone in the U.S. who actually does all these transactions for you (assuming you are staying in Thailand).

Also, if you have no income other than from this scheme, you'd either need to inflate your yearly income on the credit card applications , or apply for a heck of a lot of cards, because with a low income the card limit will be quite low, too.

Also, keep in mind that the cash advance limit is substantially lower than the limit for purchases, usually it is only about 20% of the limit for purchases. Thus, even if you get enough cards that the combined purchase limit is 200 grand (achievable by applying for all cards at the same time, I think), the cash advance would be only about 40 grand, and the yearly interest from that a mere 2 grand. Hardly enough to finance a permanent stay in Thailand (well, maybe in Isaan ).

I personally have three Chase cards and several other cards, but do not use them for cash advances, rather for business startup expenses, in a "laddered" fashion to avoid interest charges.

I.e. the cash flow that the business generates pays off the "oldest" card while new purchases are charged to the "newest" card.

Oh, by the way, there are these rumors about people who apply for lots of cards in the U.S. and then move to Thailand, abandoning their debt in the U.S.

Once I read that credit card companies will simply walk away from any debt less than 10 grand, because the cost of debt collection would exceed the debt itself.

Did anybody on this board do that?

What's your experience with that, so far?

(I have no intention of doing that but am curious anyway.)

What immediately comes to mind:

(Note: In order not to run afoul of forum rules, I'll describe this in very general terms)

A subscription-based website that features locally produced pictures and/or videos of a xyz nature.

Or a pay-by-the-minute live webcam service of the very same xyz nature.

By xyz, I am referring to "playing chess", of course.

Chess aficionados will pay top dollar to watch a riveting game of chess performed by young local professional chess players.

I don't believe you will find "foreign" wire transfers free at any bank.

It says it right here: Free outgoing wire transfers (foreign and domestic)

Washington Mutual Free checking terms & conditions

OK?

I just renewed my passport a few months ago and got a new 5 year visa which is now valid until 2011.

Thanks for clarifying that the 5 year visa is, in fact, renewable with the Thailand Elite card.

There was some doubt about it, I think.

This is very important for people who are significantly under 45, like me. (I'm 41.)

If one's main reason for getting the Elite card is the visa, this also allows you to amortize the cost of the card over more years (9 in my case) and not just 5.

I'm considering the Thailand Elite card as an alternative to the 3 million Baht investor visa.

The 3 million baht investor visa is, on the surface, the better deal, however the risk of devaluation over the course of 9 years is significant. (For starters, I don't see the Thai economy taking off like China's economy.)

Comparatively, the Thailand Elite card costs 1 million Baht and that money is gone, but your loss is capped at 1 million baht and you can keep your entire net worth offshore.

what's a swift cost?

FYI:

Washington Mutual has TV commercials which state that outgoing wire transfers are FREE.

for slightly more on this....see report in TheSun...www.thesun.co.uk..

which states that the brits are members of a bikers mafia group...

more speculation............

Here's the link to the article, which features pictures of two of the suspects:

The article in the British tabloid "The SUN"

He is Austrian, not Aussie...

Yes, but after being discredited in Austria some 25 or 30 years ago, he moved to the U.S., was stripped of his medical license in one state, moved to another state, was stripped of his medical license there, too, moved to Australia, had to flee Australia because of criminal charges, moved to Thailand.

So yes, he is an Austrian, but will be tried and incarcerated in Australia.

How about servers?

I own about a hundred servers here in the U.S. and have this idea of shipping them to Thailand (C.M.? Bangkok?) when I move to Thailand, putting them into a colocation center and renting them out (as dedicated root servers, virtual root servers, virtual servers).

Is there a fiber optic data cable that connects C.M. to the rest of the world?

If yes, WHERE does it terminate? (Street address?)

Or do I have to do this in Bangkok? (I prefer C.M. to Bangkok, personally.)

-Harry C.

I think you have to pay a lot to get those servers into the country. And you will find that you can probably only get a tenth from customers here compared to what you get in US.

So why don't you let the servers stay in US and just take the monthly income from there to Thailand?

Or is it the work you like and not the money?

With ADSL you can take care of the business from here.

Just my idea.

>a tenth from customers here compared what you get in US

200 Baht per month for a dedicated root server?

You gotta be kidding.

Please provide a link to a Thai hosting provider with such prices.

Right now, I rent out dedicated root servers starting at $45 p.M.

>why don't you let the servers stay in US

Two reasons:

- once in a while you gotta swap out a harddisk or motherboard, are you suggesting

I should fly from Thailand to the US to swap out a harddisk?

- if the servers stay in the US, the soon-to-be-ex-wife will be able to get her

greedy fingers on them...

>Or is it the work you like and not the money?

Not a lot of work involved, not a lot of money either, but my point is:

In Thailand you don't need a lot of money (compared to California).

I figure, roughly, living expenses in C.M. would be about a tenth (give or take) of the living

expenses in an urban area of California (L.A., S.F., S.D., S.J. to name a few).

Don't harp on the "tenth", could be a nineth or an eighth. But you get the idea.

So, is there a fiber optic backbone running into C.M. or not?

Chanchao?

-Harry C.

Well getting back to the original post, there are many business ventures that could be sucessful.

Here's just a few:

Relaible & Quality Internet Service Provider (who also lays the infrastucture for MODERN communication)

...

How about servers?

I own about a hundred servers here in the U.S. and have this idea of shipping them to Thailand (C.M.? Bangkok?) when I move to Thailand, putting them into a colocation center and renting them out (as dedicated root servers, virtual root servers, virtual servers).

Is there a fiber optic data cable that connects C.M. to the rest of the world?

If yes, WHERE does it terminate? (Street address?)

Or do I have to do this in Bangkok? (I prefer C.M. to Bangkok, personally.)

-Harry C.

Copy&paste from the Thorntree Thailand forum:

The HOT news from a contact at Government House:

There's been another letter sent out from the Interior Ministry to all provincial governors: "Ignore the previous letter and carry on as before"

Toxin was apparently purple with rage during a meeting with major Thai-Chinese developers/investors today.

Lots of junior clerks are in the toilet scraping their underwear as we speak and a couple of assistant permanent heads of department are about to have the word "permanent" erased from their job titles - in addition to being sent to the Ministry of Inactive Posts, Mukdahan branch office, to live out their lives. TIT!

It took 6 days to fix. It might take a little longer to undo the damage and the scaremongering and hysteria stirred up by the likes of Emperor Tud and the Bangkok Post.

The more I despair of Thailand the more I have confidence in knowing that what is f****d today will be fixed tomorrow. Trouble is, the reverse happens all too often. Surely it's not too hard to learn the old maxim - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

If you keep beating your wife/girlfriend then this might happend to you.

My Chinese wife came after me with a hammer five months ago.

And I've never beaten her.

That fateful day, she came back from a family get-together with her parents and siblings, and had gotten herself all riled up telling them what an <deleted> loser I am (making only 6 figures in California when everybody and his dog is making 7, 8 and 9 figures, right?).

She came home in a bad mood, shouted "I'm gonna divorce you!" whereupon I calmly said "OK, if you file for divorce, I'm just gonna move to Thailand and will find a nice gal HALF your age."

Then my 41-year old wife yelled "If you do that, I'm gonna track you down and kill you!" to which I calmly retorted "Thailand has 69 million inhabitants, you're never gonna find me!"

That's when she totally snapped, screamed "I'm gonna do it right now, I'm going to kill you!!!"

I locked myself into the master bedroom, thinking she would grab a knife, but she surprised me by finding a hammer and starting to break down the bedroom door.

I called 911, four squad cars pulled up after what seemed an eternity.

Seeing the squad cars arrive, my wife calmed down and opened the door for the cops.

She got booked on two charges ("criminal threat" and "brandishing a weapon") and got released on $20,000 bail the next day.

She hired an expensive attorney and the case got plea-bargained down to "misdemeanor vandalism". She got sentenced to "time served", a 20 hour anger management course and got put on 3 years of probation.

In spite of all that, she's still (again?) very bitchy and has already thrown a full shopping bag at me, in clear violation of her probation. I will install some video surveillance equipment, tape her doing her "rage" thing and will then send her to jail where she belongs.

This crime sends a chill down my spine.

Why?

Because my wife (not Thai, but Chinese) attacked me with a hammer just a few days after this murder.

(We are both in our early 40s and live in California.)

What happened was, a "normal" marital spat (which, as usual, my wife had started - I think the topic was fear of our financial future) got more and more heated until my wife proclaimed (not for the first time in our marriage):

W (screaming): "I'm gonna divorce you!!!"

I (calm): "OK, I'm just gonna move to Thailand, and will find someone HALF your age!"

W (screaming): "If you do that, I'm gonna track you down and kill you!!!"

I (very calm): "Well, Thailand has 70 million inhabitants and you're never gonna find me!"

W (screaming): "I'm not gonna wait, I'm going to do it right now, I'm going to kill you!"

At this point I locked myself into the master bedroom, fearing she would grab a knife as she had done before (once). I was alarmed but not panicking - yet.

The next thing I hear, she is trying to break down the bedroom door with a hammer.

Whereupon my heart tries to jump out of my chest and I call 911. (I have a Springfield .45 in a safe in the master bedroom, but if I shoot her through the door I'm the one who's in a lot of trouble and I never seriously consider doing that.)

The dispatcher hears the hammer blows against the door (and they are now also on tape), probably also the death threats.

After what seems like an eternity the cops arrive. (As I find out later, 4 squad cars had responded, but as my wife had by then ceased her attack and opened the door for the first 2 cops, the other 2 squad cars were sent away quickly.)

She gets taken to jail on two counts "brandishing a weapon" and "making a terrorist threat", posts $20,000 bail, finds an expensive lawyer, plea-bargains the whole thing down to a single misdemeanor (vandalism, of all things) and will have to attend an anger-management course and won't have to do any time.

We are still living together, for the time being.

But now she has a conviction on her record.

Asian women.

Can't live with them, can't live without them.

In a few years, I'll probably dump her and retire to Thailand and will hopefully find someone a little bit calmer and a little bit happier.

Right now is not the time. Not enough savings, still making a lot of money in the software industry.

-Harry