mokwit

I don't think they give a damn and don't think 65k/month is enough to have foreigners amongst them.

Good luck getting a denial of insurance confirmation from the British Embassy. Why do they assume embassies will come up with these documents?

They will be restricting retirees based on one incident let's see if they restrict Chinese based on many. Ah yes, but most Chinese visitors are law abiding so no need.

I think it was lowered to fifty to lure* US federal and Military retirees who can retire at 50 on gold plated pensions. I think it was 60, then 55, then 50? *the correct word.

Why? We all had to keep an extra 400k in the bank. I doubt it. Thailand is not Switzerland.

That was previous governments. Under this government of people who have spent their entire lives on army bases the amount was de facto increased by 400k PA (due to requirement to keep 400k in account year 'round) with no grandfathering and Joke and smart people on this board saying there had been no change because it was still only 800k................

The bangkok based newspaper we can trust gets down and dirtier on the details.

Include something that excludes all the farangs calling for visa tightening. How about: "educated to Masters level" as per one visa type. Only problem is very few people did Masters back in the 70's 80's even 90's.

On reflection, I remember that Joke was talking about getting the 1979 act amended when he was Imm Chief. Maybe too much vested interest got in the way and maybe will again. They seem to be able to do a lot with Police Orders. There has been no Parliamentary involvement in changes such as 400k year 'round OR for example dropping TM28 which is stipulated by the law.

I don't think that many retirees are living here on retirement visas as a way of operating as a criminal.

Yes that is how they think, but a fair assessment would be to compare crime conviction rates of retirees to the 'norm'.

That was before the 2014 "Government" and it's high quality appointees. They didn't grandfather a change in financial requirements for retirees - specifically 400k year 'round. I just think to change the deal on retirees makes Thailand NOT a retirement destination and that will likely be broadcast on the internet by people who have to leave and go back to rainy afternoons back home. My guess is it will be 3m, maybe grandfathering, depending on who the Government is. No, I am not scaremongering. 3m seems to be their new minimum for "quality" judging by recent visas aimed at "quality" tourists. Easily achieved by not issuing new 800k extensions and requiring new retirees to get OA/OX (with all the attendant requirements such as no criminal record) in their home country.

These guys are smart. They probably take the colours off before going through Immigration at the airport.

Popular belief has it that he is Prawit's appointee. He was appointed head of Immigration when they had a contract for fingerprint recognition. Apparently he was put in place to ensure there was no corruption in the contract award...........

Shouldn't they be looking at how many people on retirement extensions have been convicted of a crime since 1979 and then compare that percentage wise/statistically with the Thai population and people on other visa classes such as VE/VOA/TR before knee jerk making things difficult for law abiding retirees?

Fairly easy to prevent this kind of thing in future, just find out what visa they are on and make it more difficult to obtain.

This can be stopped by making things more difficult for retirees it seems.

Sorry, should have in some way better indicated I was being sarcastic. We all had to keep 400k year 'round but the agency business continued as before.

Seems all our visa problems/inconveniences are caused by just this one person. If he is worried about corruption I could point him in the direction of somebody.

Read the source cited at the bottom of the Pattaya Mail article. You will end up thinking this is more about getting rid of retirees than outlaw motorcycle gangs.

Pattaya mail link gives the source they are quoting at the bottom and he does indeed say that. We can't mention source here.

He stamped it out by making people who didn't use agents keep 400k in the bank year 'round. HTH.

Picking on retirees again rather than solve the problem. Criminal record check is a given and the 800k seems to be in his line of sight. This is what bothers the authorities: 1979 Immigration Act, which allows foreigners aged above 50 to easily live in Thailand. Operative word being 'easily'. The agent system went away after we had to keep 400k in the bank year 'round? He should have gone after the IO's who were facilitating it. Prior to this character you could accept the rationale behind much of Imm's tightenings e.g 30 day VE wasn't meant to be used to stay year in year out with 30 day border hops. Edit just read the full source article we can't mention (it's the one you can trust aparentl). If there is ONE thing that makes foreigners feel unsafe in Thailand it is changes in visa rules/requirements, this character is an absolute menace to a peaceful retirement. All those who have been demanding stiffer visa criteria may find you wish being granted may involve you returning back home (if you still can). Som naam naar. looks like he may be thinking about having everyone move to the OX - except you DO have to go every year to requalify. It is an utterly poor visa choice.

There is a very good interview with the Labour Office Chief in CM somewhere on the net where he basically says remote workers are working under the definitions of the law but they are way down the list for any action being taken. There were one or two cases where he said no breach of the law with this one.

They were all let go and the Police said they didn't see what they were doing wrong - the info they got was that these people were all working for a company apparently - which may have been an umbrella company for WP etc.