ChiangMaiThai

Similar question here. I have searched the UK Gov website but the answer is not clear. My partner is Thai (we are not legally married). I hold a US passport. Our daughter is 10-years old and has both a Thai and US passport. The Mum and Daughter will be going to the UK for 8 days for an event in September. I will not be joining them. Am I required to complete some a letter of consent? If so, does it need to be notarized by a Thai lawyer? Thanks for any information!

Easy tourist visa I believe...

They don't have 20,000 Baht each for overstay. That should make clear their financial situation. And it seems like the majority of people are blind/indifferent to the reality of life for many - maybe most - people in the world. You escape your home country under threat of imminent death for your opinions. You were able to scrounge together enough money for a ticket to Thailand. You then overstay your visa and spend the next 3-4 years living on 6,000 Baht a month or so usually donated by churches. You can't work and if you're caught by immigration police, you're sent to IDC where it is near impossible to complete an asylum application, which requires a full monitor, scanner, printer, Acrobat Pro, Word etc. At the end of it all, you are one of the lucky ones who is accepted into a Western country with a chance at a new life. Thailand says "cool, give us 80,000 Baht or you all go to prison."

When a country like Canada grants a person asylum the tickets are provided.

Nothing unusual. There are currently thousands of people more or less hiding out in Bangkok and surroundings waiting years for asylum applications to be processed by third party countries. If they are caught they are sent to IDC where it is nearly impossible to continue the application process.

I wouldn't expect any outside organization to bypass or overrule Thai law. I would expect there to be an arrangement (especially from developed nations) where the nation state pays the overstay fine of a person to whom they have just granted political asylum. That is logical. However, I am not sure this world operates on logic.

thank you for this

For a few years I have been helping a family of four (non-Thais) apply for asylum in Canada. It looks like their application will soon be approved. Since Thailand has no system to allow refugees to remain in the country legally while their case is being considered, of course they are all on a multi-year overstay. One of them has an expired passport and the home country seems unwilling/unable to provide a new passport. I am wondering if there are any special rules for asylum seekers when it comes time to pay the 20,000 Baht overstay fine? They don't have 80,000 Baht. Surely Thailand doesn't lock up and deport a person to whom the Canadian government has just granted asylum?? Also, unsure of the expired passport. Yes, would be great if I could just email the Canadian embassy, but it is a massive bureaucracy and there is no direct contact email/phone number for anyone dealing with such specific issues. Thank you for any info you may be able to provide!

Alright thanks. There are going to be quite a few disappointed people who have applied in the past few days ????

I know the 90-day STV program ended (or was set to end) on Sep 30 this year. But on https://thaievisa.go.th/ the STV is still an option. Is this just a case of them being slow to amend their website or by any chance has the program been extended? Thanks!

I just went through a horrendous experience with an iPhone I bought in Thailand. For those of you who just want the moral of the story, it's this: If you want to buy an Apple product in Thailand, do so on Apple.co.th. There they have quite a reasonable policy on returns and exchanges. Do not buy from any of the official Apple Retailers (there are no actual Apple Stores in Thailand yet) as they take zero responsibility for what they sell. For those of you who want to have a little read. Here we go: On Dec 23rd, I bought a 128 GB iPhone 7 Plus at Studio 7 Emquartier Branch in Bangkok. It turned on, the camera worked, you could swipe from side to side. Great. On Dec 25th I gave the phone as a gift. On Dec 26th, I set up the phone and noticed that when you plugged the charger into the phone, it made the sound like it was charging, and the lightning bolt icon appeared on the screen, but it wasn’t actually charging. The longer it “charged", the more the battery indicator went down. I changed chargers and wires. I did a hard reset. I restored from a back up. I deleted all content. I turned off. I left plugged in all night. This morning after 'charging' all night, the phone wouldn't turn on at all. Clearly, the product was defective from the beginning. As I am now in Chiang Mai, I visited Studio 7 here. They said that since I didn’t buy the phone at their branch, there is nothing they can do. I called the Studio 7 Emquartier branch where I bought the phone. Unbelievably (to me anyway), I was advised that as a customer I have ONE DAY to exchange a defective product. After that I have to go to Apple iCare. So I just paid 35,500 Baht for a phone that doesn’t work at all, I tell the official reseller about it 4 days later and I'm told ‘it’s not our problem’. I called Apple Thailand. They said that if I had bought from them online they would of course give me a new phone (as any normal company would). But because I bought from Studio 7, there is nothing they can do to help me. My only option was to go to iCare and leave the phone with them. They will now send it to Singapore to try to fix it / replace it. But I have no right to insist on receiving a brand new phone from them. If they can open it up and replace the battery and make it work, I am forced to accept the now refurbished phone. In total it will be 3-4 weeks. I was offered a temporary phone, which was an old iPhone 6, which was kind of funny to me, but they didn't see the irony. To add a little insult to injury, iCare can't accept a phone with a screen protector on it. So they had to take that off and throw it away (and no they don't reimburse you). Everyone I spoke with kept referring to ‘policy’. The policy is completely backwards and customers should be aware of the complete lack of responsibility that Apple resellers take in Thailand. Save yourself the hassle and buy from Apple.co.th. Fully understand that this is a very first world problem and in the end I'll get some kind of working phone, but thought the story should be told. It's been enough to get me thinking about moving over to one of the high end Android phones, which I never thought I would hear myself say! If your customer service is abysmal, your hardware is arguably inferior to that of some of your competitors, and your OS a locked environment, then what is your USP, the logo? Anyway, the old adage 'Buyer Beware' proves once again to be truer than ever in the Land of Smiles.