Longwood50

Absolutely yes. This is a typical one immigration office requires something that another does not. One man said he takes his Wise Transfer receipts. Chonburi won't even look at them. Another said he gets his transfer slips each month from Kasikorn from PDF files. I showed them to the Chonburi officer. Nope only a letter from the bank detailing each months transfers with all of the transfers on a single page.

Are you a monthly transfer or 800,000 baht. Mine is a monthly transfer and they don't seem to handle that well.

It is funny, if the amount is a small amount it does appear in seconds. If it is a larger amount such as my pension payment it occurs always the next day. I don't know if the difference is the fact it is a larger amount, or the fact it has to go a different way to be coded as an FTT transfer. I get now charge from my bank in the USA to transfer to Wise or to recieve a transfer from Wise. The exchange rate is better that I get if I use the local bank. More importantly I can set a target rate to exchange at. If I sent directly from my USA bank, I get whatever the buy rate is at the bank which is always worse than Wise and i get no choice as to whether that exchange happens on a good day with the exchange rates up or I catch a bad day when it is down.

I take a picture of myself on my phone with the hairstyle I want. I show it to the barber. Now sometimes that works well, other times I get the Thai Scalp cut. Apparently the Thai's want to save money by going to the barber as few times as possible and hence there is a tendency to end up with the Yul Brenner look. Try the picture, along with the words "not too short" translated into Thai. If good go back, if not move on.

Thank You. I guess that means I make a trip to SCB to see if the letter they provide lists them as international which would supplement the 12 month bank statment.

My account period is from February to January. I have already made my Februay deposit and it showed on this years visa extension. So I am trying to get a new account and commence transfers starting in March to go from March 1, 2023 to Feb. 28, 2024 to coincide with my next visa extension renewal. I "may" keep Bangkok Bank as a backup but certainly no longer my main account for monthly transfers.

Wise main banking account is a New York bank. They "may" also use banks in the U.K. for their customers but I don't know that. My thai GF has a Wise account and likewise her transfers sent to Wise go to a U.S. bank.

Only partially. My experience at any of the Bangkok Banks is one where if you ask a question you get a look like a deer in the headlights and either a response that no we don't do that, or no you must go to the branch where the account was opened. I asked my office for a letter detailing each monthly transfer and she vehemently said 'we don't do that" Then I pointed out to her that the sample that came from immigration was on Bangkok Bank stationery. I did not mention I got one the prior year from a branch that was not the branch I opened my account with. So one way or another, I have dealt with the madness of having to wait a week for a statment and numerous errors too many times, and it is time to change to a bank that allows customers the full range of services at all of their branches.

It is my understanding that several banks offer multi-currency accounts. They include Citibank and Bangkok bank being two I am aware of. With that said. I have a multi-currency account with Wise. I currently have USD, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Yen, and Indonesian. When I travel I have a Wise debit card. If I am in Australia it deducts in AUD. If I take a trip and convert some USD to lets say Yen and have Yen left in my account, I merely convert it back to USD, no wasted change. So you could open a Wise acount, have Sterling. Maintain it in Sterling and convert a portion of it to Baht if and when you wanted to and then tranfer the baht to the bank here in Thailand. You get a far better exchange rate and a lot more options doing so.

Yes you can have two banks. However with the Bangok Bank system if I changed locations from lets say Chaing Mai to Phuket I would have to travel back to Chaing Mai to order the statement, then travel the following week to obtain the statment and the required letter. So enough of the nonsense for me. Time to find a more responsive bank with a more sensible policy.

Yes the coding is dependent on the purpose. If you don't check the box that it is for long term living expenses in Thailand it comes through as a domestic transfer.

Two points. The six month statment is worthless. Immigration requires a 12 month statement. For some unexplained reason Bangkok Bank says that can only be ordered at the branch my account was opened at. That is Pattaya Klang and a round trip of one hour. That means I make two trip. When the statement arrives I need a letter from the bank detailing each of the monthly transfers. They first say they can not do such a thing, I then show them the sample from immigration with the Bangkok Bank stationery. They finally relent and say they can do it. However it will not be ready until the following day. Again another 1 hour round trip. SCB by contrast can print immediately and a 1 years, 18 month, 2 year statement. I can do that at any branch, and the letter is availble same day. The only thing that I need to verify is one Asean Now poster said SCB does not code Wise transfers as foreign incoming transfers. That would be a problem. I was in banking for over 40 years with major banks in the USA. What I have experienced with Bangkok Bank is that each time something is asked, it is like it is the first time the person has ever heard of such a thing and no they don't do it. So bottom line, they say the definition of insantity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. After 4 years I am going to stop the insanity and at least try someplace else.

Do you do Wise transfers into your SCB account and are they coded as FTT ( foreign transfers) One post said that no they come as domestic transfers.

That would seem to indicate that each bank was a profit center and did not want to perform a service for another branch without charging for it. Your experience would demonstrate that it was not that they could not do it for another branch but rather they were going to charge you for it. Most likely the branch personnel are paid some form of additional compensation based on branch profitability. So they try and keep any services performed for another branch to a minimum or charge for them. One way there is only one chartered bank, and all the branches are owned by that bank.

I have been using Bangkok Bank for my monthly pension transfers that are used to obtain my visa extension. Bangkok Bank however is extremely difficult to obtain the required 12 month bank statement and the appropriate bank letter. I have been to SCB and they say they can print whatever period I want immediately at any branch. There are different prices for shorter versus longer statements. They also indicate that they can produce the required letter immediately. However another person on Aesan now cautioned that transfers from Wise to SCB are not coded as FTT foreign transfers. Does anyone currently use SCB and know whether that is true or not? Your bank book would show the coding of any money coming in from Wise.

That is true if you are doing the 800,000 baht method. It is not true if you are doing monthly 65,000 baht transfers. That requires a 1 year statement and Bangkok Bank apparently is still using hand posting in ledger cards. The branch has to request a statement from Bangkok and it takes about one week. The statement is printed on an old dot matrix printer like you see in Makro. The statement comes in paper that has to be burst and decolated. That means the sheets run continuously and have to be manually ripped apart and the perforated holes on the side of the paper stripped away. I have not seen equipment like that in over 30 years. I find it amazing that I can go into a store open my phone and pay a bill based on a QR code but then go into a branch that can not look up my account history. I started working for a bank in 1972 and we had better technolgoy than that 50 years ago.

Now that is just plain false. Each may be its own profit center reporting its income and expenses but they are all owned by their respective organization whether that be Bangkok Bank, SCB, Krungthai or any other. Othewise they would all have to be separate bank charters each with its own board of directors, and capital.

Well that is not saying a lot. I have worked for major banks in the USA for over 30 years. In 1972 I worked for a regional bank, very small by today's standards. We could print a bank statement for a customer at any branch any time immediately. I have been with Bangkok Bank now for 4 years. Each time you qsk anything it is like the customer service person has never heard the qustion before. They must have thousands of expatriates who require bank statements and guarantee letters, yet they have that look like a deer in the headlights of a car. Totally blank stares. One way or another this nonsense about only being able to get information at the branch you opened it at is ridiculous. What if the person lived in Chaing Mai and moved during the year to Phuket. Even if they opened a new account in Phuket some of those transactions would still be on the old account. Does Bankgok bank really expect someone living in Phuket to have to drive to Chaing Mai to order a statement and then drive there and back again to retrieve it. Given my experience there is little to no chance that even if someone was willing to do that, they would get the right papers and statements the first trip.

I went to Kasikorn yesterday. They said they could do the letter, did not know if it would be same day however the only branch that could do that was in Pattaya Klang. That is a 1 hour round trip for me. If it was not done the same day it would be two trips. I found SCB does everything including the letter same day. Can get 6 month, 1 year, 18 month, 2 year statement etc all same day and the same with the letter and any branch of SCB. So guess where my deposits go from now on.

FYI I showed the credit advises to Chonburi immigration and they said they were not acceptable. It had to be a complete 12 month report not 12 single credit advices. Doesn't make sense but then again this is both the government and Thailand.

There is a difference between 'not liking" and something wrong with the product. If they accepted the return, but never picked up it is different than if they never agreed to the return. Typically in Thailand things like not good quality, did not like, did not fit, are not accepted. I have had luck with not fit, if I demonstrate the fitting guide shown does not match with the actual size of the item. Numerous shoes are that way. However only 1 time buying hundreds of items have I never got my money back. They said the description adequately described the item, and I said it was misleading.

Thank You I will show that to immigration and see if he says that is acceptable. Seems to me between these, the Wise monthly confirmations and the monthly statments they have a belt, suspender, and a second pair of pants to make sure the monthly deposits are truly there.

I buy lots of items on Shopee and Lazada. Lazada has recently become more strict about returns. I have only once been refused a return. I complained that the item did not match the description and they believed it accurately described it. In terms of pickup that is typically Flash and yes they are bad. You can opt to drop off yourself at Kerry but of course that adds some work to you. I contact Shopee and tell them the package has not been picked up and typically it is picked up same day or for sure by the next.

Well that means you go to the bank early. Order the statement. Go back to the bank after it is ready and pick it up. Then go back to the bank on the day you are planning to go to immigration. Get a statement for the missing period and order the letter. In my case they said letter would not be done on the same day so that meant yet another 1 hour round trip to Pattaya Klang and when I got to immigration they noted my name, and transactions were correct, but the account number listed was not. So again another 1 hour round trip to Pattaya Klang and of course that wonderful experience of parking, entering and getting into the queue again at immigration. Nope 4 years of this at Bangkok Bank. Time to find a bank that can do it same day and do it correcty.

Is this a copy of it?