delboy

Beatles, Gerry & Pacemakers, Roy Orbison, Louise Cordet at Granada, Tooting Jul? 1964

Crystals, Ronettes at Streatham Odeon 1965?

Brenda Lee, Mike Berry, Bachelors, Sounds Incorporated at Granada Tooting 1963

Hollies at Oxford Street 1965

Four Seasons at Chicago 1967

Beatles, Stones, Cliff & Shadows, Gerry & Pacemakers, Freddie & Dreamers, Dave Clark 5,  Manfred Mann, Tremeloes, Springfields, Joe Brown, Searchers and others at NME Poll Winners Concert, Wembley Empire Pool 1964

Bill Haley & Comets, Duane Eddy at Royal Albert Hall May 1968

Screaming Lord Sutch, Johnny Kidd & Pirates, Billy Fury, Tornados and many others

My adjusted bills for March and April were, as promised, the same as for February, but included the 3% discount.  The amount I paid in March covered both the March and April bills, so I pay them nothing for April.  Use the PEA online calculator to check your bills. 

I went to pay my bill at the PEA office today, and was told they can't accept the payment yet.  The girl said that for our consumption (600 units) the bills for March, April and May will be the same as we paid in February.  The computer system is being updated to reflect this, and credit will be given for excess money already paid.  I was told to return to the office after May 5th.

I used a Bangkok Bank ATM in Chiang Mai timed at 16:30 to withdraw cash from a Bangkok Bank account, no problem.

PSA test at Suan Dok hospital in Chiang Mai was 460 baht for me last Sunday (8 Dec 2019)

If you are in Thailand, go to https://www.goal.com/th/ข่าว/stay-tuned-ตารางถายทอดสดฟตบอล/1avl5byctg48z1tjl9y0cu9ro2

The page is in Thai, translate if you wish, but it's not necessary.  Scroll down till you see "LIVE UCL FINAL"  There are 4 links to the same stream, Website, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube.

When I opened my first Thai bank account, at Bangkok Bank 30 years ago, I was told that I did not need to produce proof of identity at that branch, but it would be needed at any other branch, and that has been my experience ever since.  I usually use the ATM, and I am not personally known at that branch, but have never needed any ID to withdraw cash there on the rare occasions I need to use the counter service.  In fact the last time I used the counter service to withdraw cash from my account and deposit it into a friend's account, I simply presented the two passbooks together with the deposit and withdrawal slips.

My Thai wife has an account at a different branch, and she does not need to produce her ID card for withdrawals there, only at other branches.

The ID needed for my withdrawals at other branches has always been a passport.  Thai driving licence not accepted. 

1 hour ago, watcharacters said:

 

Do I hear 6 1/2 months for ฿130,000?   555    Great post delboy!     Certainly shows immigration in a lighter tone.   Tons of information.

 

 

"I needed a certificate of residence in 1990 for a lifetime driving licence, and that was issued straight away, no charge."

 

delboy, does the administration still honor your lifetime driving license?     I'm guessing you must have been among the handful of people in thailand at the time who even had a driving license.

 

Thank you very much.

 

I applied in the morning for the driving licence, and went to Chiang Mai to get the residence certificate.  I arrived back at the car registration centre in the afternoon and the licence was issued.  No driving test, my UK driving licence was sufficient.  Cost 1005 baht.  It's still accepted everywhere, but they are no longer issued, so if I ever lose it I would have to apply for a new 5 year one.  When I told my friend about it a day later, he went to the same office to apply, and was told, by the same person that had issued mine, that they don't issue lifetime licences to foreigners.

I applied online 26 July to Chiang Mai, and it was still pending this morning, so this afternoon I went in person to the office with the normal photocopies that Chiang Mai need.  The Immigration Officer tapped some keys on her computer and informed me that as my application was pending, I had to get it approved, and told me to go to Office No. 5.

At Office 5 the officer told me the application was on her computer and that she would approve it as soon as possible.

When I got back home the e-mail with the approved message was in my inbox.

So the system is working when they have the time to use it.

Has anybody actually had an online application approved or rejected since the system started working last week?  I applied on 26th to Chiang Mai office and I do realise that the office was closed last Friday, but past applications have always been dealt with within 24 hrs.

I tried phoning the office but gave up after being passed round to people who had no idea of what to do.

It's possible the the Immigration side of the process is not working, or more likely nobody has told the offices that the system is back online so they are not checking for applications.

Looks like another trip to the office at the end of the week.

Worked for me this morning, status Pending.  Did not work yesterday.

Went down to the Trendy building today to submit the wife's application for a UK visa. Travelled down on the 6:55 am flight for a 1pm appointment, could have caught a later flight as "too many people" caused the appointment to be shifted to 2:30pm. How can you have "too many people" with an appointment system ?

Fingerprinting took a long time as the equipment wasn't working properly, and we didn't clear the Trendy building until 4pm. Managed to "lose" the wife on the BTS/MRT/City Line network and spent an anxious time at Swampy trying to find each other. Eventually we did meet, but not until our flight had departed, so it cost 1,600 baht to catch a later flight (which only had 36 passengers total). Reached home at 23:45. A long, long day.

The more systems are "streamlined" onto computers and outsourced, the slower, more costly, and more complicated, they become.

null/กิ่งอำเภอแม่ออน

null/กิ่งอำเภอดอยหล่อ

What the Thai script says:

null/กิ่งอำเภอแม่ออน = (King Amphoe) Mae On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_On_District

null/กิ่งอำเภอดอยหล่อ = (King Amphoe) Doi Lo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doi_Lo_District

So indeed ("only") the transcripts for these two are missing (null).

but the Immigration drop-down list only contains 23.

The two entries should be valid and represent entry 24 and 25.

And: even the Thai script still says "king amphoe" which is kind of a "pre stage" for becoming an amphoe (district).

So double fault (heavily outdated).

Its more than 8 years (!) that these "king amphoe" have been lifted to full amphoe status.

A king amphoe is a subdistrict. Literally branch district.

I selected my Amphur as null/กิ่งอำเภอดอยหล่อ, and in the drop-down list of Tambons I selected ดอยหล่อ which is the correct combination for me. I took a screen copy of the details I submitted, and the Amphur and Tambon are shown exactly as I selected them.

My application was not approved and, looking at their rejection report, neither Amphur or Tambon is shown, so they disappeared in the sending.

I applied online and got to page 2 of the input form. My Amphur is not shown in the drop-down list. I tried neighbouring Amphurs to see if my Tambon had been included in them, but no luck, so I have to go in person.

It could well be there, but the English name may be incorrect, can you get someone to check the Thai.

I had that with my Tambon, showed up as Pa Na when it should be Napa.

Thanks for the tip

There are 25 Amphurs in Chiang Mai, but the Immigration drop-down list only contains 23. It seems to have been compiled from an out of date list as the 2 missing districts have only been created in the past few years.

There are a couple of districts at the bottom of the list listed as

null/กิ่งอำเภอแม่ออน

null/กิ่งอำเภอดอยหล่อ

And one of these is my Amphur, I will see if it works

I applied online and got to page 2 of the input form. My Amphur is not shown in the drop-down list. I tried neighbouring Amphurs to see if my Tambon had been included in them, but no luck, so I have to go in person.

I have had a K-Web card linked to a PayPal account for several years. The K-Web card has a life of 2 years and, just before the expiration date, they extend it for another 2 years and issue a new CVV. This year it was not extended. I contacted the call centre and was told it's a new policy to cancel the card after 2 years and issue a completely new card.

This, of course, meant registering the new card with PayPal. As has been said earlier, PayPal debit the account by 70 Baht and included in the description was a 4 digit code which I have to send back to PayPal to confirm the card. Finding out the code was difficult. It was not shown on my online account, or in my passbook. When calling the call centre I was told to contact my local branch, when contacting my local branch I was told to contact the call centre.

I tried contacting PayPal and they said I could confirm the card if I sent them a scan of the card to prove I had it in my possession. I told them it was a virtual card, so I couldn't provide a scan, and they replied that they don't allow virtual cards to be used on PayPal and that they were in the process of checking cards registered with them to discover the virtual ones.

After trying 2 other Kasikorn branches, I eventually got a result. The clerk understood the problem, contacted the call centre himself and got the code. I confirmed the card with PayPal, and finally, all is OK. Until, that is, they discover it's a virtual card. But that may never happen.

My driving licence does show my passport number, but I've had 3 new passports since it was issued. When I got my first new passport I went to the office to inform them, but they said there was no need to tell them.

I recently set up the Bangkok Bank feature that enables an SMS to be sent whenever there is an international transfer to my account. However, my UK state pension which is paid "directly" into my account does not trigger the SMS. The answer was that the pension is not transferred directly into my account, it is transferred into another account in Thailand, and from there into my account. So when I receive the money it is classed as a domestic transfer.

I further investigated the charges imposed by Bangkok Bank on the crediting of the pension. They produced the transfer documents which showed that their charges are 100 baht fee, plus 0.1% of the amount.

My pension arrives every 4 weeks and the exchange rate favourably compares to the TT rate at the time.

I bought a TrueMove SIM card last year. As I was not certain it was registered, I called at the True shop recently to check . The lady took my passport and checked on her computer. She told me that it had been registered, but my passport number did not agree with the database. Not surprising as I got a new passport since buying the SIM card. She said it was a requirement to re-register when the number of the ID changed.

I re-registered using my Thai driving licence as that does not need to be renewed.

I'm not sure about the need to re-register, but it does seem logical, once your ID changes, the old one is useless.

My friend recently visited Thailand from Cyprus. As his passport was valid for 5 months, he checked online about passport validity, and also went to the Thai Consulate in Nicosia who kindly gave him a letter to show at the airport, confirming that he only needed a passport that was valid for his length of stay in Thailand. He boarded the plane at Larnaka airport, but was then told to leave the plane before take-off. The airline refused to take him because he needed 6 months validity on his passport. They read, and ignored his letter.

He contacted the British Embassy from the airport, and they sent a representative to the airport to extend the validity of his passport by 12 months. He had to re-book the flight for the following day.

So, the airline have the last say in the matter, it's their rules that count.

Perhaps if he had applied for a visa in Cyprus, rather than relying on a VOA at Bangkok airport, the airline might have allowed him to fly.

There used to be one in the car park at Makro on the super highway. I took the pick-up through there a few times.

I sent the forms for my wife and I, by normal Thai Post on 12th December.

I phoned today to check if they had been received. They have a special Life Certificate section (you press "1").

The guy was most helpful. He confirmed that they had received them, and after asking us a couple of security questions he said he had inspected the forms and they had been accepted.

I used Skype, very good sound quality, 12 minutes call cost 21p or 10 baht.

One less thing to worry about, until the next time.