Cardano

Learn how banks work before making silly statements, banks do not give money away, they use deposited funds to lend to 3rd parties from which they generate interest (profit) of which they will give the depositor a small percentage of said interest.

You don't have any advantages you are just being conned into using your own money in exchange for a card that the bank claims is a credit card but whatever way you cut it there is no 3rd party credit facility applicable to your card, you are the credit facility. Your'e bank is treating you as a child who cannot be trusted to manage their own finances. As for your list of so called advantages; I do not know any stores that will accept credit card and not debit card, but even if perchance they do exist then just use your phone banking app or do bank transfer. Hospitals readily accept debit card and bank transfer. As for sum "blocked" only come across this at hotels and it's quite easy to just pay cash deposit as amount is insignificant. Car rental will accept deposit via bank transfer and do reverse transfer when you return car, takes a couple of minutes at most. You may think I am being a bit of a <deleted> here, but on the contrary I am just trying to make you realise that you have been conned in to a prepaid so called credit card with no credit facility. Do you not have a credit card from your country of origin which can be used for security deposits and in case of emergencies?

Reliable IPTV provider, Nord or Express VPN, all the channels, movies and series you will ever need including Netflix, HBO, etc. etc. Have been using it in Thailand for over 10 years now and apart from occasional ISP throttling of international bandwidth no problems.

Maybe try calling Halifax and ask them to explain. Had the same thing with NatWest a couple of years ago, called them and they explained that as I had not used the card for a considerable time it was company policy to reduce the credit limit to the minimum amount to limit exposure to fraudulent activity. After I explained my situation (working overseas, need card for any emergency situations) they reinstated my original credit limit.

Oh give it a break Sherlock!

Sorry but you are completely wrong, what you have explained above is that you are actually giving the bank 200,000 baht on deposit (for which the bank will earn interest from). You can then use the bank issued card to borrow your own money up to the amount on deposit, if you fail to pay the monthly charges the bank will take them from your deposited amount, subsequently reducing the balance on deposit and the card limit. There is no benefit to you using this system as all you are doing is borrowing your own money whilst the bank uses your deposit balance to earn interest. Just use your debit card it's basically the same thing.

OP, Don't know where you got this info from. Immigration do not retain your passport for any visa, why would they? They will put a stamp in your passport stating your application is pending and a date when you need to go back to immigration.

There is only one type of credit card available in Thailand and that is one that allows you to borrow money (credit) from Visa, MasterCard, Amex etc. up to an authorised credit limit irrespective of what bank funds you have. All other cards issued via Thai banks are debit cards irrespective of whether it states debit or credit card on them.

Me thinks some Thai story telling going on here, Pythons tend to eat once or twice per month. Not everyday or even twice a day as claimed here. Why do Thai media outlets not conduct due diligence to avoid printing misleading and factually incorrect substance.

quite right that wattmeter will only show power consumed by an appliance connected via that meter.

What!! So it's not a money making machine here? LOL, At least with proper H&S rules that are adhered to you at least have peace of mind that your vehicle is safe.

Yes, trolls!!

So what you are implying is that ALL products manufactured by companies based in China are manufactured to the same stringent quality standards and procedures that are mandatory for manufacturing companies in the western world?

Your response is a bit childish and doesn't bear any relevance to my post, I didn't mention anything relating to rubbish products or to who is buying them. I said that batteries produced in China for Tesla are based on Tesla's specifications and QA/QC procedures. Are you saying otherwise?

So you mean a service centre and not a showroom? Yes agree they have an extensive network. But I am just curious where in such a short period of time did they manged to find all the qualified vehicle mechanics to staff all these service centres?

Yes but they are to Tesla specs and subject to Tesla QC inspection.

Why is a showroom reassuring? it's just a sales outlet!

Thanks for your advice but I'm only reiterating what AIS told me, spoke with one of their technicians yesterday and he confirmed that IP addresses seen to be using high data downloads at peak times through the international gateway are throttled and that is done to preserve the integrity and capacity of their local Thai network, I can understand this logic as their guarantee only relates to DL/UL speeds on their local network. Ironically he said try using a VPN, ironically I do and problem solved. So doesn't matter whether Europe, Singapore or anywhere outside of Thailand all data comes through the portion of the international gateway leased by AIS from CAT and if they notice high loads on this they will identify IP address and throttle it. What this does highlight is that their infrastructure was design based primarily on their perceived demand of the local Thailand network and did not take in to account the high rate of data transmitted via international connections. And it's not just us expats that are streaming internationally, many Thais and Thai bars are also doing the same for sporting events, one large Thai bar near me has 4 android STB's all streaming English Sky sports channels via VPN.

After being here for a good number of years I have had all the main ISP's at some time or another and can categorically state that they all work fine when used within the Thai domestic network. However it's a different story when you need international connections for streaming, torrenting etc as all ISP's have to pay CAT for international bandwith usage, and as they all may work fine initially, after time you will have problems with buffering and freezing due to the ISP throttling your international bandwith I am currently having this problem with current provider from 7pm to 11.30pm every day (peak international demand) . I have 500/500 package and when I do WIFI speed test (using nPerf) to server in Pattaya I get ping 5.5ms and average 250/200Mb/s, when I do speed test to London server I get ping around 270ms and average 44/168Mb/s, which proves they are constantly throttling download speed but not upload. However when i do speed test to same London server when experiencing buffering/freezing between 7pm and 11.30pm my results drop considerably to between 3 and 9 Mb/s download, 35 and 70 Mb/s upload with ping anywhere between 420ms and 780ms. I have spoken to them about this issue and they actually admitted that yes they throttle international connections when they see a heavy download demand being used for streaming services, as apparently this has a knock-on effect with the domestic internet network, not sure how and they couldn't explain it either. Their final statement was that upgrading package will not make any difference as speed figures quoted are guaranteed only for domestic internet market and no guarantees for DL/UL speeds for international connections. Solution - get a VPN, problem solved.

After moving to Thailand and building our house in 2008 I had 6 Mitsubishi Heavy industries A/C's installed, why Mitsubishi? because it was a name that I was familiar with in the UK and had a good reputation. They served me well for more than 10 years without any problems, never needed assistance from their service dept. I just made sure to have them cleaned every 4-6 months. However in 2018 the A/C in our bedroom started having problems. After doing some research and based on recommendation of the guy who cleans my A/C's I opted for a Hitachi A/C unit as a replacement (actually bought it on shopee and imported from Japan). What a difference 10 years makes in technology; unit has intelligent inverter that initially operates unit at full power until set temp is reached then it switches to silent mode and runs at 2 degs above set temp, if it detects a moving heat source it will ramp up until the set temp is reached and return to silent mode. I can also set it to sleep mode whereby it will continually run silent. It also has self cleaning function that can be auto or manual, in auto it operates every 200 hrs of use so only needs a manual clean every 2 years. It is now 4 years old and never had a problem. Also note I use the bedroom A/C every night and after installing the Hitachi unit electric bill dropped on average 170 Bht per month due to intelligent inverter. As my Mitsubishi units come to the end of their life I will definitely replace with Hitachi units, unless there's a compelling argument for a different brand

Guy comes on here to ask for positive advise and all he gets is the usual negatives. Why not give him credit for at least willing to try something new, instead of spending each day with his thumb up his <deleted> and complaining about everything Thai as most expats here do. Best advise I can give you is go and talk with the expats running successful businesses in Phuket.

I'm utterly shocked at your naivety, the amount of debt owned by Thais trying to keep up with or be one better than the Jones's is utterly staggering. You need to understand that the Thai "saving face" mentality is all about giving the impression of how rich you are perceived to be by your peers.

It seems you're the one whose logic is somewhat off kilter. They didn't rob me, nothing was done against my will. I agreed to pay what I considered a fair price for the level of service and use of latest technology.

My CT scan for abdomen and chest at Simitivej hospital in Bangkok 25K THB. so 14K seems pretty reasonable to me, providing they are using up to date machine and technology.

Even though they will stop being legal tender they still retain their monetary value and can be exchanged for the new notes at any UK bank after 30 September. Just means you need to take a trip to the UK.