smx1313

16 hours ago, patman30 said:

but if sending 50 small packets daily
then regardless of any specific wording of laws
this could likely be seen as working here,

I agree, I'm not looking to send packets out daily. 

I did that for a while in the early 2000's. Got to know the postal clerks, who in turn took it upon themselves to teach me Thai. It was actually enjoyable to go to the post office.

With postal reporting, those days are gone. There will be no daily trips to the post office.

On 7/12/2023 at 3:11 AM, darrendsd said:

After 14 years I gave up on it as I just wasn't making money any more

2003-ish I was living in BKK. Buying in Pratunam and selling on ebay and in person in the states. It was much much easier to make a buck on ebay simply because Thailand based sellers could not open an account/sell.

Now they can. When that happened (2010-ish?) all of my suppliers became my competitors.

The online market place is constantly changing, left me in the dust several times.

I've adapted, have my own brand and customer base. Manufacturing in Thailand.

It's chugging along nicely. Not getting rich, but it takes care of what I need it to take care of.

I want to keep doing it in "retirement", simply because I enjoy it. 

8 hours ago, BritTim said:

I doubt this is what you want.

Well, It might be close enough to start.

Thank you for your help!

11 hours ago, BritTim said:

My opinion remains the same. It is work, but might well be tolerated as it does not compete with Thais for work. If the authorities are aware, it comes down to the discretion of the officials. They could definitely come after you if they wanted. I recommend you keep a low profile.

Thank you for getting back to me.

That's my hunch as well. I wonder if there is a "working" visa? Something that allows you to conduct business. I mean, if my company in based in the states and I'm there as it's rep.....?

I guess my real question is where can I learn about diff visas available?

I'm going to check youtube school of law. 

On 7/7/2023 at 7:36 PM, BritTim said:

It will definitely be regarded as work. However, it might be tolerated if all you are doing is sourcing Thai products and selling them online. Risky.

I currently have manufacturing done in Thailand. I would just change my base of operations from USA to L.O.S.

On 7/8/2023 at 11:00 AM, AustinRacing said:

Unless there’s something unique about the product you plan to sell or you have a better way to ship it, you may find there are businesses that have been doing this for years and you’ll be competing with them. Can you beat them?

I currently manufacture in Thailand. I sell my own designs. 

Thank you for all the response's.

I'd to clear up a few points.

I'm not looking for info on how to drop ship, sell online, or the logistics of doing so 

I currently (for several years now) have manufacturing done in Thailand.

I have a wholesale and retail customer base, shipping systems in place.

Basically the only change that will happen is that I change my base of operations from the USA to L.O.S.

The whole thing is run from my small apt.

I lived in BKK in the Thaksin Shinawatra era. 

Selling online from a room in a guesthouse, "under the table" was easy (not so much today).

Back then it was easy to sell retail online, ship to customers directly. If it was small and light it cost about the same to ship from BKK to San Francisco/London/Berlin as it did from NYC to those cities.

I'm researching info on visa regs. Essentially, is this considered "working"?

I'm interested in talking to those who have, currently or in the past, done something like this in the past.

Maybe there is a Asean Now page that deals with this subject?

Thanks again for all the response's. 

Hi,

I'm looking for info regarding being an active online seller, living, creating and shipping from Thailand

I'm interested in hearing from expats who run similar a side hustles while living in Thailand with a some sort of Visa.

Sitting on a beach or mountain doing nothing does not appeal to me at all. I need to keep busy.

Is it possible? Does it count as work?

I'd love to hear from anyone who can share their experience or point me in the right direction to research this myself. 

4 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Why take pity on criminals?

I'd rather criminals don't enjoy their time, and don't use it either to be used as "girlfriends" as apparently happens in US prisons, or to learn how to be better criminals, as apparently happens in western prisons.

Being convicted of a crime doesn't necessarily make one a criminal. People who do terrible but legal things doesn't mean that they are innocent.

For instance, a man and his wife live in a country where wife beating is legal. That man assaults is wife whenever he deems necessary. In his culture he is not a criminal.

In another country christianity is banned. There a person has friends gather together on Sundays. He is discovered, tried, found guilty and sentenced to prison. Is he a criminal?

In America, a family has a child with a terrible medical condition. The only thing that can help the child comes from cannabis. The mother, arrested while in possession of marijuana, is tried, found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Is she a criminal not worthy of pity or mercy?

3 minutes ago, sjaak327 said:

Drinking the cool aid ? If a platform like Airbnb would disappear, it would do absolutely zero to the tourist numbers. There is ample competition already and ample avenues for visitors to find accommodation. And despite all the bull, often the cheapest way to get a room is deal with the renter directly, without any third party like Airbnb, booking,com or agoda. Cut out the middle man, as money always sticks there, logic at work. 

Hardly, I do know a few people who fall into the legal side of renting their space on AirBnB. It's been great for them.

I'm sure if I had the ability I'd do the same.

But even those case's, the laws are shifting against them, rental laws responding by getting tighter.

The truth is, those are apt's that middle class families used to live in.

Now they go to tourists paying top dollar. 

Finding an affordable place in NYC has alway been an issue. But because of AirBnB a dry spell has become a drought.

I've lived with neighbors who think they live in a party house. It's hell. 

If apt above me in my thin walled building became a hub of loud rotating travelers, it wouldn't end well.

But perhaps you can deal with it better than I can.

10 hours ago, newnative said:

   Yes!  Hotels are dealing with vacationers and tourists and small groups in town celebrating something and business people in town for meetings and lots of guests with special needs and lots of other types, including some of the shady kind--and they're equipped, staffed, and trained for all of that.  Hotels are where short-term guests should be.  Hotels have an entirely different function from condos; that's why there are, rightly, separate rules and regulations for hotels and condos.

A decade long building, renovating and/or flipping boom has created a modern nightmare that is part of daily life to many in NYC.

 In my Brooklyn neighborhood entire blocks of old shoddy row houses had been torn down and replaced with new shoddy row houses.

Building owners implement an illegal but hard to enforce scheme. 1/2 the units rented long term. 1/2 the units AirBnB. Essentially turning a residential building into a hotel.

The long terms, people with jobs, families, lives, find themselves living in a hostel/college dorm/party house.

There is a constant flow of AirBnBers, checking in/out at 2:00am, celebrating their stay in NYC near someone who has to wake up at 6:00am to go to work.

People will get a AirBnB apt so they can then sublet it to party promoters or even other AirBnB's.

Local newspapers love telling the story of someone retuning home to find that the AirBnB renter used their home for a sex and drug orgy

2 hours ago, ChouDoufu said:

or they tried to exchange muddy bills which

would have been laughed at and sent away,

I'm asking this because I'm curious, not to give you a hard time.

Perhaps there is there another possibility that would account for an arrest?

They handed over dirty/stained bills (or bill...did Makara state that one woman tried to exchange one note?), the clerk realized they were trying to get over and contacted the police.

They get arrested and the rest of the story falls in place.

To me that sounds more likely than the whole "pretend to get arrested" scam.

I wonder how Thai authorities would react to 2 farang very publicly running such a scam from a hotel in Chang Mai?

Using the Thai currency and legal system as a foundation for a international scam? 

Not to well is my hunch, but I'm not sure. Is it possible they wouldn't care? Just ignore it?

But lets just go with "not to well". Wouldn't there be news stories about the BiB arresting such scammers? They love to parade that kind of stuff.

2 hours ago, AGareth2 said:

why don't you give it a try

There are over 1400 posts in this thread.

A good portion of them are from Makara giving it a try.

22 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Felangs being walking ATM's/Water buffalo is not a scam , they do it from their own free will 

Agree.

Like in Vegas, the attitude is it's ok to fleece the tourists but it's not ok to hurt them. That will scare them away.

So tourists go in. Knowing they're being fleeced, but getting something they want in return without being blooded.

In Vegas and in Thailand the walking ATMS are comfortable with the rules as they are laid out.

56 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Thailand is no longer the free for all, do whatever you want .

Laws and regulations have been tightened up in all departments .

   You seem to saying that the difference between a developed country and an undeveloped Country is whether they allow you to commit crime or not .

This guys prosecution was rather harsh , but he did break the law

Agree.

The free for all is over.

If that guy was busted in NYC today for the same crime he'd be in deep shit.

From the 1960's to the 1990's? Not so much.

I'm not say that developed/undeveloped is different.

I'm just saying, for a while Thailand had a different way of handling stuff like that. It wasn't looked upon so harshly, wasn't really all that concerned with such infractions. Pay for the visa stamp and it's live and let live. The Thai powers that be were more focused on other issues.

41 minutes ago, Crash999 said:

There’s a lot more out there than a chewing tobacco scam. Look at the boiler rooms that have operated here for years earning many millions (in USD) and somehow they avoid jail. Though they tend to attack each other sometimes. 

 

Then there are numerous real estate scams. Dodgy developers and so-called real estate investment companies. Some are still operating openly today. 

 

These guys milk foreigners for huge sums of money. Makes a tuk tuk scam seem like child’s play by comparison. 

 

Con men like these guys operate rather freely here. The police often times won’t get involved in a criminal case as it seen as a business disagreement or poor investment. 

 

Then you get opportunists like that old couple who were caught trying to get insurance money. And we may have another case here, though personally I think evidence leans towards the scam being just trying to use fake bills rather than trying to get funds. 

Absolutely agree with you. Earlier addressing this I said the foreign scams have become very sophisticated. Scary stuff.

When I say that in 2005 everybody had a hustle, a scam, it was stuff like this.

3 minutes ago, smx1313 said:

Things were much looser, Thaksin Shinawatra was in charge.

Oh, I was living near BTS Phaya Thai when the Red Shirts rolled in. Foggy memories, but I think there were clashes around MBK and Pratunam where people where killed. Central World...burned? I packed up and headed back to NYC. I didn't want to be stuck in the middle of hell.

Oddly, there was a movie with Owen Wilson (No Escape) that illustrated what I thought could be very possible. 

2 hours ago, sanemax said:

Did you also assume that Makara was one of the girls ?

I did think that the girls in the OP were Amycat and Makara .

I am still trying to work out who you are, as all your posts in TV have come in this thread , just like Makara

It did briefly occur to me that Makara could be one of the women but I honestly don't think they are.

Didn't Amycat have a long history on this board?

I myself lived in Bangkok, well, commuted from NYC to BKK routinely, spending months in BKK sourcing for my store in Brooklyn NY, USA. This was primarily from 2005-2012, with a handful of quick trips up until 2017.

I imagine I'll be back soon but not sure when.

My posts on TV from the past seemed to have been deleted.

But back then they where "are there adult volleyball leagues in BKK?" "Where can I buy a good cigar?" I would talk to farang and Thai's about the in and outs of sourcing for my store. Sometimes even bringing merch from NYC to BKK for Thais for their local biz.

This was a couple of coup's ago. Things were much looser, Thaksin Shinawatra was in charge.

I've been lurking on TV for years. 

I'm actually puzzled as to why I've become so interested in this story.

Maybe because in 2005 western hustlers in BKK was more of a thing. Whole stores in Pratunam selling counterfeit gear. It seemed everyone was running a petty scam, even if it was just visa runs. The hustler vibe reminded me of NYC in the 1980s.

Much tighter there today and the western scammers are more sophisticated.

So there you go. My CV.

1 minute ago, sanemax said:

Ha-ha, knew it .

Even though She clammed to be in the USA, the timings of her post indicated that she was in Thailand .

  Is Makara one of the girls involved ?

Ah, perhaps I am mistaken.

Maybe she is in the states.

See? Like I said, after nearly 100 pages there is a lot of confusion.

This whole time, for some reason, I thought she was in Thailand.

22 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Now come on, all we've every asked is for to post some evidence, anything will do , evidence that it actually happened, once its been established that it did actually happen, then, we can move on 

Actually, I think if Makara could somehow contact the principals and get such info and post it here it would be the water need to put out this fire.

However, she nor the women are under any obligation to due so.

I also get the feeling that at this point, it would be like Prez Obama releasing his birth certificate and people would dismiss it as fake.

1 minute ago, jenny2017 said:

This part was gone when I posted of the disappearance. Does that make me guilty, or to a liar? 

No, it wasn't gone. It's been there the whole time.

Perhaps you made a statement that wasn't 100% accurate due to confusion.

I suggest that everybody here, including Makara has done that at some point in this saga.

However you wrote "Makara is a troll and only trying to keep the story alive, with always changing facts, but never something about the two women. It seems that Makara is only posting to keep the GFM page of a conman alive."

You make a very specific accusation of committing a crime.

In Thailand using a false statement to defame and accuse someone of a crime on the internet, ironically, is A ACTUAL CRIME.

Makara, who is in Thailand, could literally take legal action and bring this to a Thai court.

There have been some big stories about westerners being sued by westerners, arrested and sent to Thai prison for such crimes.

(If you are not a "western" I apologize for the assumption)

Others can decide if you are guilty of being a liar. Just as they have done to Makara.

I'm not a judge.

But maybe someone should grab a screenshot in case at some point a judge is needed?