Everyman

Reading things like that, scares me. The secret is out regarding the Schwab accounts and there must be millions of people with checking accounts with or without sizable investments with Schwab. They must be paying out millions of dollars every month in ATM fee refunds. I don’t see how it’s sustainable. Therefore, I endeavor to limit my use of this “feature” as much as I can. I don’t want them to change it or take it away. I rely on it extensively when traveling outside Thailand. Within the kingdom, I use my Thai bank account.

Yes, the spirit of your post remains valid. I don’t want to argue tax issues. There are enough threads about that. It’s only I can’t work out which customers this will benefit. I think it is nobody. I never saw the point of the Wise card anyway, I have something like 5 US based checking accounts with better debit cards.

Please don’t use AI for things like this. People put way too much stock in the things it says. I catch people doing this all the time. A total misuse of the tool.

So….I can still transfer money from my US checking account to my account at Bangkok Bank? I have never held currency with Wise nor I have ever had a “Wise Card.”

This is precisely why foreign currency accounts in Thailand are not very useful.

some people love getting ripped off.

If the app is slow you probably have a crappy phone. The cardless withdrawal feature alone makes the app useful. I’ve probably saved thousands of baht on ATM fees since I discovered it, especially since I am rarely in Bangkok anymore (where my account is) so I am dodging the interprovincial ATM fee. Now that most ATMs can be used with a variety of accounts I almost never use my debit card. If I use a card I use one of my excellent foreign credit cards that have no fees, but do have reward kick backs. Scan pay helps me to avoid tipping, since I am a cheap charlie and also hate the principle that I have to pay the staff salaries. It’s also annoying in a bar since they often don’t have change, “forget” to give you change, or try to charge you multiple times if you look drunk. Scan pay defeats all that. The Bangkok Bank app could be better optimized and faster, but it’s not terrible if you have a decent phone. Regarding contactless payments, I have more than a dozen cards loaded on Apple Pay, so I just use my phone. Android has a similar system. Plastic cards are obsolete technology and prone to fraud. I signed up for my last credit card from Thailand. I loaded it up using the banking app onto Apple Pay minutes after approval. I’ve been using it since November and I’ve never had the plastic card. It’s sitting on an envelope somewhere at a family members house in my passport country.

No, just once a year. After 180 days I could get an extension, which I would qualify for since it involves showing foreign accounts not Thai ones. I haven’t had to do that yet though since I travel a lot and haven’t been in Thailand longer than 6 months since i got the visa. I’ve heard of immigration scrutinizing travelers with my visa since a lot of sleazy agents helped people get DTVs when they weren’t otherwise eligible. But of course, they won’t crack down on the agents. Only their customers.

yes, i got a 5 year DTV so no need to update for another 4 years.

Makes me glad I completely stopped updating my book years ago.

When someone relates a common experience in Thailand there’s always someone who jumps in and says “i’ve been here 15 years and never been scammed by a tuk-tuk driver,” or “i opened bank accounts on tourist visas all the time,” or…what you said. But let me give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are talking about established business relationships. That’s not what we are talking about. We’re talking about contacting businesses with which we have no prior affiliation to pose a query or apply for a job.

Who trusts AI generated rubbish? Also, are those numbers inflation adjusted? Because if they aren’t then spending actually went down.

In my experience, business in Thailand do not respond to emails. The one time I got a response, it was hostile and dismissive. They also used a fake name with a fake title “Dr. Johnny Walker.” Not very imaginative.

Thai people do not follow the written laws of Thailand. You don’t either, because there are so many silly and unenforced laws that nobody cares about that you break them without realizing it. Thai proper aren’t going to give a gold medal or think you are a “good guest” because you become a legal scholar and tip-toe around trying to follow every weird rule. They’ll just think you are foolish and maladapted to the culture you are in.

It’s absolutely bonkers. And there are still foreigners that think that in five years the immigration is going to deny them an extension for not fist fighting the revenue department to allow them to file a tax return despite owing nothing.

I suggest you get over your “bad experience” with the app and use cardless withdrawal. That or get over your paranoia of having your card skimmed. But the biggest obstacle appears to be your state of mind.

I would like to know which Thai banks allow foreigners to open accounts online.

I think even in Thailand they have “criminal intent.” Doing absolutely nothing should not land a person in prison in any country. I will happily return the money if i am asked. Otherwise I’ve decided to leave it there. I’m not even in Thailand to spend it. But I’ve been thinking about it and it’s not that much money. I doubt anything will happen. It is quite weird though. I don’t understand how it can be part of a scam.

I am out of the Kingdom at the moment and left only 300 baht or so in my Bangkok Bank account to cover the upcoming expected yearly ATM card fee. So imagine my surprise when I find that somebody has transferred 1000 baht in my account with prompt pay. Their named is written on the transaction record but i don’t recognize it and don’t know who they are. It is a Thai name, written in Thai. Hardly anyone has my prompt pay QR code since i never receive payments to that account and I know the name of the two people whom I have ever given it to (and it’s not them the transaction receipt, it’s another name). I speculate that someone in Thailand was paying with “transfer” and mistyped the account number of the person they were trying to pay, accidentally sending it to me instead. My other idea is that it is an attempt to initiate some kind of banking scam. Thoughts? Edit: This has got me wondering about sending it back. Does anyone know the format of the transaction record number? Is the account number encoded in there? Maybe it’s the first ten digits?

Thai people don’t have much respect for Thai law because they know that they’re just nonsense made up by some self important loser who bribed his way into his job as a bureaucrat or politician. Thailand is a country of men, not laws. Bending over backward to follow every Thai law if it was holy scripture isn’t respectful it’s foolish and ignores the cultural and legal context of the country, in favor of an imaginary version that exists only in your mind.

How many retirees living on pension income has this happened to so far? Why would they go after such small fish? Those foreign tax authorities aren’t auditing grandma in her beach chair living on social security in Florida. Mind you there are cases where it makes more sense to be cautious, like bringing in lots of money to run a business or buy property. Im really just talking about retirees living on state or private pensions.

I am currently in Laos and I’ve met loads of Thailand based retirees who are spending time here in order to be no more than 179 days in Thailand because of all this tax hysteria. I tried reasoning with a few of them but they don’t believe me, only whatever crap they saw on Youtube. One of them was getting angry when I poked holes in the idea. I think this hysteria will be more or less permanent and will never go away. 20 years could go by and people will still be saying “next year they will enforce it, they will drag you off your bar stool in Pattaya and bang you up for not declaring your pension.” It’s just the latest way to scam retirees. this time with uneeded tax “advice.”

To update you, I am in Laos and with difficulty have found L’Osem. I am taking it and It seems to be legitimate and effective.

If I have to speculate and be fair then their reason is actually pretty good. It has nothing to do with my address. I maintain one in the U.S. with relatives and it’s quite legitimate. I churn bank account opening bonuses, like “open an account and get $300,” that kind of thing. When you open a new account it goes into Chex Systems, which is like a hidden credit report but for checking accounts. Just like with credit cards, if you open too many too fast, it looks suspicious. This past year I’ve opened accounts at Capital One, Citi, and Wells Fargo. So a couple months ago when I went to take advantage of Chase’s $900 bonus for a newly opened checking + savings combo, they probably pulled my Chex Systems report and saw what I was doing. I’ll just have to wait a year or two without opening new accounts and my report will normalize. Then I’ll try again, depending on what the current offer is.

I have accounts with Citi, BoFA, Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Schwab, Capital One and US Bank but Chase won’t open an account for me. So they can ‘eff off.