clivebaxter

What is the legal situation if positive and you refuse to go to an over priced hospitel? Can you legally refuse to be carted off if you want to quarantine at home? Surely they cannot force you to pay these ridiculous prices if you refuse to do so.

5 hours ago, Sheryl said:

Dr. Varocha Mahathai

That's the one as recommended by your good self to me several years ago, 11.5 k but I expect that has gone up a fair bit

Bangkok Hospital Bkk, they do anesthesia as well, better than gagging all the through it. Forget the Dr name but a women, very good

1 minute ago, userabcd said:

Still a vast difference between 32K and 14K

Not in real terms, most don't need 16 meg of ram and 500 gig SSD. Better get the basic model and external storage SSD

8 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

OP was looking at a machine worth 16,000 baht. The machine you are quoting is over 42,000 baht.

Not 42k mine was 29k with an educational discount, just ask a student. Shop price is 32.400 for the basic model

44 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

ThinkPads, which are part of Lenovo, are still the best notebooks which you can buy.

And many many so called high quality products are produced in China - even if they have an American brand name on them.

Na just got a Macbook air M1, blows anything else away, unless you are 12 years old and want to play shoot the baddie games. Previous ones 30k+ Acer lasted 3 years and HP laptop which lasted 2.5 years. Sound on the Macbook air is the only real stereo on a laptop I have ever heard

17 hours ago, NancyL said:

BTW, Hubby and I each have our own 800,000 baht accounts for our retirement visas, yet we use an visa agent who charges something like 8000 baht, which includes the gov't fee for the extension and a re-entry permit.  Why -- we want to minimize our time at CM Immigration, esp in this time of Covid.  We're in and out in less than 5 minutes.  

 

The IO has a special room to serve agent customers and with my most recent extension, they'd installed a window between that room and the hallway.  So, you don't even have to sit across the desk from the IO, you just look through the window and take off your glasses when he points at the camera.  Easy-peasy.  Don't even have to look 'em in the eye or smell their somtam breath from lunch.

Serve agent customers- queue jumpers in other words forking out 6k to an agent to do just that!

42 minutes ago, hotandsticky said:

 

 

That is a reliable source.

 

 

You have have been around long enough to understand the billions of Baht earned by immigration officers ensures that they will continue this dodgy practice. 

 

You are surely not so naive to think that IO's will not continue to exercise their absolute discretion.

 

Anyone who has paid for a retirement extension via an agent (or direct with IO's in some areas) has nothing to fear about the legality of their extension stamps.

Even though such an extension was obtained with lies and cash payment! Maybe nothing to fear just at the moment, but for how long when some decent force decides to clean the cesspit of corruption up? Amusing how many are against corruption, until they can benefit from it personally.

40 minutes ago, BritTim said:

The stamp is legal. Whether the whole process is legal is more questionable. You paying the agent to deal with the officials on your behalf breaks no laws, even if you are aware that the agent is using dubious methods to get your extension. The agent is misrepresenting your permanent address in the application, but it is difficult to prove, and it is the agent who is submitting the application, not you. The official actually stamping your passport is probably breaching no laws if he is careful to ensure that financial inducements are not going to him directly.

 

Under current Thai anti corruption legislation, it is more a question of morality than legality. You may be unwilling to support a corrupt system, but that is different from you doing something illegal in using an agent to facilitate a visa/extension. If you refrain from participating on moral grounds, I respect your ethics in refusing to encourage a system that rewards shady practices.

If issued from a province you do not live in the stamp is totally illegal and worthless as it was obtained with false declarations re residence

56 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Yes, the army have been carefully watching the Royal Thai Police. One of my friend's is a Deputy Commissioner, the most senior guy in Isaan.  He told me  that there is a huge increase in crime by foreigners here and asked me to teach the CSD English to help with this. You'd amazed what goes on when there is a shift of power! These fake visas from agents are gradually becoming a thing of the past -  beware, is all I can say. 

Yes, I know that for senior positions, there is a 7 figure sum to pay. 

At one time people breaking the law argued it was OK to give an agent their passport to do constant border runs, until it was not. Now they insists bribing officials for extensions from places they do not live in, and might have never even been to is acceptable, well maybe that is coming to and end, along with their illegally issued extensions. I do hope so. All these people do is make it harder for the rest of us as happened when we had to keep funds in the bank longer in an attempt to restrict the cheats

2 hours ago, xylophone said:

I will post this a second time although it has been posted before:- 

 

This has been covered time and time again on forums like this and there are the two schools of thought, which I won't go into now, however, on one particular thread a poster was able to post part of the "rules and regulations" regarding the 800 K funds in the bank, and the paragraph read something like this, "the senior immigration officer at any immigration office has the discretion to grant an extension of stay based on retirement, without proof of funds being provided" (or words to that effect).

 

 This is actually written into the code of practice/rules and regulations and is therefore not illegal.

Yes written they can ignore money in the bank, but only doing so if they are paid is corruption and ILLEGAL. Also it's written in the rules the extension HAS to be obtained in the province you are living in. So. if an agent gets you one from another province that is misrepresentation, fraud and also illegal. Why try to sugar coat corruption?

2 hours ago, Dmaxdan said:

Are you sure you are not confusing Chang classic with Chang cold brew? 

The bottles are, at first glance very similar.

No chang Classic, got bottles from last 2 weeks all 5% these new ones 4.8, never bought the other ones

Used to be over 6%. noticed the other week cans were 4.8 now latest bottles from 5% to the new 4.8%. Chang Classic, not as tasty either. Will not be buying any more, only as a last resort anyway, did they announce this latest drop? doubt it, why do they do this?

6 minutes ago, taotoo said:

Humans kill more kids than dogs do. They are all pests in one way or another.

Not sure about that

I always leave the country, let the imbeciles have their water fights ????

No such beast as a cute dog, they are all pests in one way or another.

8 hours ago, Photoguy21 said:

Member of a famous pop group? Really? Never heard of her until now. What is this "famous" pop groups name to which you refer?

Most successful  Asian girl group ever. their MV's racked up over a billion views, one has almost 2 billion. Lisa got 100 million views on her single in 24 hours, a record. I'd say that's pretty famous

7 hours ago, Misterwhisper said:

I wonder if the article author, Ji Won Chung, is aware that if she called herself "princess" in her home country she might wander behind bars for up to 15 years.

 

Besides... she may be very talented (if you like that style of music), but her "princess status" and her steep career explicitly can NOT be credited to Thailand. It entirely is the achievement of a record company in South Korea, which recognized and developed her talents and spent millions over million of $ on promoting her and Blackpink.

 

Had she remained in Thailand, she would - like countless other local artists - probably be endlessly touring low-brow country fairs, be a run-of-the-mill house act in a provincial club or discotheque, or got caught up in an oppressive contract with a local record firm, never to become known beyond Thailand's borders.

 

She'd still be chewing on Buriram meatballs, which, I assure you, are factually unremarkable and taste just like any other meatballs available in this country. And she never would've got a lucrative booze promoting gig, because it's illegal in Thailand.

 

So maybe we just should get down a little bit from the "Oh we are all soooo proud to have Lisa and that she is Thai" hype now, shall we...?   

Ever heard of rachinee luktung? Pumpuang is still known as the Queen of luktung, and a real Princess wrote a song for her. So I doubt Princess Lisa will be getting any problems. Low brow country fairs sounds a bit snobish, much to be prefered over hi brow Ekami clubs etc, and many singers earn a good living. They should be proud of Lisa, worked hard made her dream come true and has a few million dollars in the bank- for meatballs!

17 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

That is not the case.

You can do a TM30 for change of address to where your living. 

Having said that many use the agent to do the reports.

Optional extra. 

Surely you have to put the address on the TM30 in the province where you are moving from, which you never lived in, then have to do the TM30 every year. The agent must enter a fictional address on the extension form. is it the same one for all the customers? Seems like one lie after another

EMS

Ubon had a vibrant nightlife left over from the Vietnam war and the US serviceman, there were some bars which lasted until a few years ago. See Saw was one I just got to see before it closed, great cafe. Wrong way bar is not bad good music selection.