MangoKorat

I am/was a vaccine supporter but now I'm not so sure. I first got Covid in March 2020 - immediately after returning from Thailand so I almost certainly picked it up there. Obviously there was no vaccine available then but despite having every vaccine offered, I've had it 4 times since, including spending my entire New Year ill with it this year. A bit of a bummer as I had just arrived in Thailand for 2 weeks. We were told that the vaccine would not guarantee that we wouldn't get Covid but it would stop the disease affecting us as badly - this last bout has been the worst and longest lasting I've had. I'll never know if I would have been even worse if I hadn't been vaccinated but I'm beginning to wonder if its worth the risks it carries - small as they are.

Its not about 2 minutes spent filling in your details - if they introduce the previously proposed SIM card thing, it will be the reluctance to feel like they are being tracked that will make the difference. Remember, whilst many members here have a connection to Thailand - tourists have choices.

There was an article about that not so long ago - apparently storage of all the old TM6's was one of the main reasons they were discontinued.

I remember mine very well - even the reg no. A 1966 Austin Mini Van in Almond Green reg. EET 780D. Already very old and rusty when it was given to me by my brother at 14 years old subject to a promise not to drive it on the road - a promise I broke almost immediately. I even used to drive to school in it but had to park it out of sight of the teachers.

Well in the cases I know of I have no reason to think its anything else but true, my friends are not the type to lie. I don't doubt that there will have been cases where the application has been successful with only the normal fees. The problem is, how do you get around it once you are asked for a 'sweetener'? It must be remembered that the total proper fees for Permanent Residence are already around 200k baht.

Yes I will, I have no choice but tourists have. Tourist numbers are going up at the moment but that may not always be the case. Introducing things that have the potential to make tourists feel uncomfortable is maybe not the best way to boost figures especially when other S.E. Asian countries are looking to increase their tourism revenue.

No they haven't - they have just gone through the motions. They had no idea where most tourists actually went when they left the airport Nobody ever checked if you were actually staying where you said you were. There wasn't enough room on a TM6 to write most Thai addresses and there was no requirement for you to tell them where you were staying if you moved. They didn't check before and they won't check this time.

Quite the opposite - I just hate wasting my time doing things that I know won't have any effect/work. Much like the Covid thing I mentioned - getting my 7 day test done took 2 visits to a hospital quite some distance away. For what? The App didn't work and nobody checked if it had. I'd previously had visions of the police knocking on my door - they didn't. The old paper TM6 was just a joke - you could put any fictitious address you wanted on it - nobody checked. How will this one work? Youre asked to download an app probably but when? On entry? Will you be allowed to leave the airport until you've shown your registered? How will that stop you going somewhere else? Its a waste of time and it won't work.

Because English is the international language.

There is another very important component of the application - a large 'donation'. Two of my mates gave up when they were told that an envelope containing at least 100,000 baht in addtion to the other fees would be needed for the application path to be a smooth one.

So if the hotel does a TM 30 why do they want this online TM6? It will be much the same as the old paper one - you state where you will be staying - remember many people actually move around and don't book their stays until they get to Thailand. How many people will bother telling them they've moved to once they've done the original notification? I don't know if things have improved but a lot of small hotels'Thai style resorts still have no idea what a TM30 is. We will have to see what the mechanics of this thing are if its ever introduced - but I am confident that it will both fail to work and not be checked.

Of course I do but I doubt 99.9% of tourists know about the TM30. Do you actually think a tourist would check to make sure they were registered if they moved to stay with a Thai friend for example? I've stayed at plenty of hotels where my girlfriend has dealt with the booking - my passport wasn't asked for so no TM30 was done. In any case, you are just being obtuse. My point in the post you initially quoted was that tourists are not going to like having a phone app or any other form of tracking. That is the underying reasoning behind all this - the Thai government have brought it all up before, several times. They want the ability to track the whereabouts of a particular tourist - current and past locations. They think that by doing so it will help them to identify people involved in a crime or overstaying. The last time this was proposed, they thought they could make tourists use a SIM card which they had to put in their phone and that would be used to track them. Would you want to replace your SIM with a government one? Its Thailand not China or North Korea - people on their holidays just don't want even the feeling they're being tracked. Apart from that - have you ever known any Thai online system work properly? Did you ever try to send your 7 day Covid test results? When the App didn't work, were you worried you'd be stopped at the airport upon leaving, thinking you'd be arrested for not complying, even though you'd tried? I and thousands of others probably had that experience but in fact nothing happened. In any case - even if the system did work and I had been able to send my 7 day test results - they had no way of knowing if I'd tested myself of the family dog. I'll tell you what all this is about - its about money. Someone high up in the authorities will have a cousin who has a company that will create the app that tracks tourists and everyone will feed from the trough. They won't care one jot that the App isn't actually capable of tracking anyone because they don't care - they will have had their feast. People entering bent on commiting crime would simply leave the phone in their room or take the govt SIM out, there would be no check on that or action until afterwards. So I'll turn it around - 'do you not know how things work around here'? I repeat what I said in the post you originally quoted: This will really go down well with tourists.

Tourists?

Hang on a minute........aren't they supposed to be introducing an ETA soon? So an ETA before you travel then register on an online tracking system (which will be all it is in reality) when you arrive. This will really go down well with tourists.

Careful, someone's bound to come along and tell you you don't 😁.

Who dreams up this rubbish? Just give up on this obsessive idea of tracking people - waste of time. Anyone entering for the purpose of some form of wrong doing will comply initially, leave the airport and disappear. Most tourists don't stay in the same location all the time. What address did you used to put on the old paper TM6? There wasn't enough space to write a full address in any case. I used to have a night in Bangkok before heading up home. The only address they used to get from me was that of the first Bangkok hotel that came to mind and I almost certainly wasn't staying there.

Precisely!

I'm not going to get into an argument with you about this - I've seen how 'ordinary' Thais are sometimes treated by the Thai legal system - that's enough for me to know that money talks - it even makes charges go away.

I am simply going by what my Thai friend said when they told me about this incident.

Its the norm when there is overwhelming evidence and the forthcoming sentence is definitely incarceration. In addition, most 'ordinary' Thai's couldn't put up 600K.

Naturalised apparently - according to Thai news.

Back to the matter of whether duty is payable or not: Depending on the meaning of 'non immigrant quota', I might not be liable to customs duty. I've checked the Thai version and it says exactly the same. Anyone know what 'non immigrant quota' is? Note its 'OR' work permit. '- Nonresidents (1) Nonresidents changing their residence into Thailand must be granted a non-immigrant quota as shown in their passports or Nonresident Identification Cards; or (2) Nonresidents granted to work in Thailand are regarded as resuming residents in Thailand provided they have a one-year non-immigrant visa issued by the Immigration Department. In case where the non-immigrant visa has not yet been granted, either of the following documents may be accepted: The letter from the Immigration Department certifying that the nonresidents shall be granted an annual temporary stay in Thailand; or The work permit from the Department of Labor to work in Thailand for no less than one year. https://www.customs.go.th/cont_strc_simple.php?lang=en&ini_content=individual_F01_160426_01&ini_menu=menu_individual_submenu_02&&left_menu=menu_individual_submenu_02_160421_01

He's not actually Thai.

They may be a PITA but deliberately chsing after them, running into them and killing them??? No amount of broken mirrors can justify that.

Certainly if I can find iy again.