Thanks again. Just to be clear, are you advising me not to bother with getting another 60 day visa in Vientiane and to instead just re-enter Thailand with the usual 30 day visa on arrival under the exemption system, and then to get an agent to help me transition to a non O immigrant visa in the next 30 days or so on that 30-day visa?
Last year I spoke to a couple of agents and they offered to get me on the non O immigrant visa path for a fee.... pay them the fee, their companies would deposit the roughly $15,000 needed for that path to a bank account and I would receive that visa, and then the company would retrieve its $15,000. And then I checked the Internet and found that there were a lot of instances where others had been promised a similar wonderful deal, but the problem was that even when the company in question did get keep its initial promise to put a person like me on the path to a longer term deal, the $15,000 was supposed to be a minimum balance left in a Thai bank... it could not be just withdrawn after the visa was obtained, it had to stay there, and if the Thai authorities saw that it had been withdrawn, I would face an unpleasant outcome and the agent who had supposedly helped me would not be interested in doing anything further to help at that point.
I am also a neophyte here so I do not understand the mechanics at all. I need a bank account in Thailand. I tried to do that with a letter from my language school last year.... and the bank told me no, go to the US Embassy, get some kind of letter there... and I did not get that done, no. But the bigger picture here is that to pursue this non O immigrant visa route, I first need a Thai bank account IN MY NAME ONLY, and then for a fee the agent will be able to deposit the roughly $15,000 for the 5-year deal into it, and then once I am on that track the agent company withdraws those funds.... and I assume that it is then up to me to supplement the $15,000 within a decent interval or.... well, I can imagine.
Sorry about the long meandering message, with the two parts being: 1) Can I really trust an agent to help me for a fee of 30,000 baht or so, without that "deal" just ending when the Immigration authorities see that my bank balance is closer to 0 than it is to $15,000? and 2) Without a Thai bank account in my name (it cannot be a joint account with my Thai girlfriend, for example, and it cannot be a US bank account), it will not be possible to pursue this non O immigrant visa option?
Sorry to be long-winded, just trying nail down my options here, I greatly appreciate the help.