JoeyMac

Hello all, looking for some assistance to buying a second hand car in Bangkok. We have spent a year using the BTS/MRT/Taxis but now we must make a change - our walk commute to school, work, and to the BTS is so horrifically polluted by other vehicles that we must simply get in a vehicle to get out of the pollution (how about that for world class irony).Taxi's (including Grab) mess around with fares, not wanting to come near our condo so they are a waste of time, and some convenience. Now what's peoples experience in driving in Bangkok. I am fully aware traffic is a nightmare during peak hours, we intend just to use for work and schooling commutes. I have my international driving license permit. I am looking to buy a car that is 2-3 years old, that won't fall apart as we leave the dealership. Are their dealerships that you can recommend in Bangkok that will also offer some warranty scheme? How does one go about getting car insurance? Do you also need a yearly MOT / Service in Thailand ? Will driving here effect my travel insurance ? If so, i will look into a new policy.

Roflmao ... did he say that with a straight face?

There are two immediate things that could be done : 1) Put bars on the drains. If you walk along Sukhumvit now, there is universal bars on every drain. The rats use these drains to sneak up and down, and live down there on mass. In Silom barely any drain has bars on them, and the ones that did, have been chewed up many years ago by the rats. 2) Rubbish collection. There needs to be a better system than just chucking rubbish on the streets in black bags. 3) A better breed of cats set lose. Cats are rats natural predators, but the breed of rats around Silom are bigger than the cats. We need some well trained hardcore cats. You must be really silly to say let the rat population grow and nothing can be done.

How do i identify what has gone bad ?

They are electric meters. I will turn my meter off in condo and investigate to see if the meter click is still moving. As someone suggested could it be feasible someone in a high end condo is stealing your electricity? I don't see it, but i guess anything is possible. May i add we have two bathrooms. And the water in each is placed on high temperature - you have three setting, cool, warm, and hot. We just leave it on hot. We also have a few electrical appliances - mobile phones, ipads, etc.

I asked about the possibility of someone charging their EV car to my room. They said the charging for EV cars is separate and paid on a separate bill. So that ruled that out.

We have two condenser units on the outside. The a/c units are built into the walls, so all we see is the vents. I have no idea how efficent they are, but the condo was built last year so you would assume they would be pretty efficient. We had them cleaned a few months ago too, thinking maybe there was an issue with them. The condo management say people have nearly double the bill we have, which i believe was meant to calm me down at my subliminal hints i felt something dodgy was going on, lol.

There are two separate figures around 600 baht each, which i assume are the VAT at FT charges. Yes it is the total bill.

Okay so on my last bill ... it says i used 1430 kWh. Again, i need to stress the only thing we are using any different to the US, is the air conditioning. We do keep it on at night in two rooms. Nothing else is different. Bill has come to 7 and half thousand Baht. Bill has Mea authority on the top.

I'm in a brand new condo. High end of the market. You always heard the stories how cheap utilities were in Thailand, but at the moment my utility bill for electric is actually more expensive than the USA ! My latest bill came to 7,500. I verified the meter reading and it was indeed accurate. We sparadically use an a/c in the main living room for about an hour during the day - no more. We have two bedrooms, so we do have our a/c on for the evening at a temperate of around 23 degree whilst we sleep. We have one laptop, and one Mac computer, usual charging of phones. TV is on around 6-7 hours. When i querried it, i was told my bill was quite the average for the condo building. Thoughts as to what could be going on here ?

Rats have always been an issue in Bangkok, but i have to say for Rats the Silom area has to be the Capital city and luxury zone to be. If you are a rat, and you end up in this area it's like your Beverly Hills. Around Silom, you have no bars on any of the drains and sewers down the side of the paths so you have free access to come and go. You have black bags just thrown in the streets, full of waste food for the sporadic times the bin collection come. Silom has not returned to it's pre pandemic busy nightlife, so you have less predators and human feet walking around to disturb you. Rats are so big and fat, that even that even the cats stay away from them. Literally no where else in the world have i seen rats this large. Criminally you get idiots that open up the black bags, or if they are left in cages they break them open (i assume looking for recyclables), and just leave the litter everywhere. When i return home in the evenings you see rats, with impunity, no s*its given, the size of cats going through the rubbish, you can actually see their teeth just cutting through the bags, going into a feeding frenzy, jumping up and down, running amock. We have to literally cross roads when you see piles of rubbish as you know their will be rats in it. You don't fear a mugging at night, but with the lights dim you fear at any minute a swarm of rats is going to be all over you. Nothing is done to tackle this. At a bare minimum the local authorities surely need to do something better than just having local businesses thrown their rubbishes out on the street in black bags. 7/11 are the worst offenders, but they did attempt to put some cages out infront of their stores for some control, but they are just ripped open by locals.

Cany anyone summarise what is going to happen ?

I will be staying the year hopefully. It would mean doing flight runs 6-7 times a year though. Ideally would like the O visa !

Hoping for some expert advice please. We have got ourselves into a rite big arse pickle. I was given a Guardian O visa, along with child who got education visa. We were both given it for 3 months. I had funds in my account and all went well. We were told after 3 months we would get a year visa. However, our agent neglected (or maybe it was us) that we had to keep 500,000 in our account 30 days before the renewal at the 3 month stage. We continued to use our Thai account, and the level has dipped below 500,000. We usually use our UK accounts (along with Wise) to pay for most of our outgoings. So as it stands our Thai account is below 500,000. On learning we had to keep our finances in the Thai account over 500,000 we quickly attempted to transfer some funds over from our UK accounts. But surprise surprise the UK bank blocked our account, citing suspicious behaviour. The earliest we can rectify this will be in a few days time - WHICH WILL MEAN WE WILL ONLY HAVE HAD 500,000 in our account for 29 days before my visa ends !!!!!!!!! At the moment i am like forget this. The whole visa drama does my head in (and we are paying for an agent!!!) The agent is charging a fair bit, and i just tempted to get the normal 30 day visa on arrival (and renew once). I usually holiday around SE asia once a month anyways. However, i would still (for peace of mind) like to get the visa. Who knows maybe their is a limit on arrivals by air. What would be my options here ? What would the experts do ?

It has left us in a peralous situation. We were not told of the 500,000, now we have days left scrambling around to get our bank in the UK to transfer the money. And as you guessed it's just not that easy. Even using Wise and other apps, the banks are just too tough on security that i need to be physically in the UK to do it.