richardt1808

Cant agree more with all the comments who advise to let it go and walk away.

I've lived here for 10 years and know of numerous cases like this where things got really nasty. Behind the sweet smiling fascia which is the face put on for tourists and those who dont know better, there are really dark elements out there and you never know just when you are going to come face-to-face with one of those characters who will either cut you up or blast you faster than it takes to blink an eye.

The 'mafia' types here thrive and the police here dont have half of the resources available elsewhere. Even high-profile cases go largely unsoved, so dont expect much help there either.

sounds like a wireless security issue.

When you are setting up the connection, there will be place to enter the wireless key (password) and also an additional tab with several security options. Some networks are OPEN, while others use encryption, such as WPA, WKP and several others. Check these security or encrytion settings on a notebook which is working successfully and then select the same options on your one.

Note that if these settings are incorrect, the nework will accept any password (even an incorrect one) and then it will show you as connected, when in fact you are not.

Hi,

The question is not whether you would get a work permit, but rather whether you would find any company here willing to offer you a job. A Thai company would never hire a Thai person without a degree in IT and there plenty of well-qualified local graduates around who will certainly work for a lot less than what you would likely be expecting to earn. So unless you have something special to bring to the pot, dont get your hopes up on this one.

The other replies are quite correct, there is no rule requiring a degree for any jobs outside of teaching. If it is a reputable company and you have the skills, the WP is pretty much a formality.

it is symptomatic of virus behaviour but I did a quick google of ESET virus and it didnt come up with anything obvious.

Btw it is amazing how useful it is to google error messages or pop-ups. I often get pointed in the right direction when I do this. Are you running NOD32 antivirus ?

hey dude,

What language are you trying to speak ? Sure as heck is not English

...and dont worry, we all know that the islands are very nice.

The US Embassy have staff who can speak Thai as well as English, so I dont think language is going to be a problem. Have yr gf do a search in Thai on one of the other Thai webboards as there will be thousands of users who have had visa experience and who will have commented at length in her own language.

I had a 2.0 Civic for 3 years and was very, very happy with it. I did find the fuel consumption in the city a little on the high side compared with my older Accord, but on the highway it was amazingly frugal. Very zippy and never a problem.

Parts generally are a bit more expensive than Toyota and other similar brands, but Honda really does offer excellent service. I have been using the branch at Sri Ayutthaya road in Bangkok for about 8 years now and I rate their service as A+++ outstanding. Highly recommended.

Yes agree. If you had a one year business visa, you would also have employment and also a work permit - hence have a job and wouldnt have the need to stoop so low as to fill your pockets at other people's expense. Its people like you who give the rest of us (trying to live a decent life here) a bad name and its amazing that you have the gall to come and ask for advice in trying to squeal your way out of this.

I suggest that you arrange to get on a plane and leave as soon as possible. If immigration want to charge you for the overstay, I'll be happy to help pay the fine !

Hi,

If you are aiming at expats, you would need staff who would be able to communicate with your clients, so you would need at least an English-speaking supervisor and that person would probably need to be on site at any ex-pat client premises while work is in progress, so it would probably be quite a handful for your partner. If you decided to employ lower level staff who can speak English, then you would be facing significantly higher labour costs - if indeed you were able to find the right people at all. So, I'd think long and hard about aiming it at expats because the profitability would be questionable, when comparing to the business model of a Thai cleaning company aiming at the local market only.

In terms of business registration, your partner could register as a single juristic person, but this is normally the route taken by mom and pop stores and vendors. If you wanted to have a proper office and a company with a public face and employing staff legally, you would need to register a limited partnership. To do this, you will need the names of 7 persons on the business register and the minimum registered capital would be B 300,000 of which at least 10% must be paid up at the time of registration.

You will need to nominate a juristic person from the list of 7 and this person would be responsible for signing all documents, cheques and company forms. This is where you need to be careful since this is probably going to be your partner. If you are only investing an amount you are prepared to walk away from, then you are thinking correctly. Be aware that the Juristic person is legally able to do everything on behalf of the company - including taking out loans, so beware. Dont put yourself in a situation where you own half the shares in the company but have appointed another person is able to sign documents in a foreign language on the company's behalf. If you dont expect to be reaping any profits, then no problem to put all the share's in your partner's name so you will not face any shared liability in the case of fraud at some point in the future. Case in point: a friend of mine set up a company with a partner, each owning 49% of the shares. Partner took out a million baht loan using his shares in the company as part of the collateral and didnt tell anyone about the loan. He then reneged on the loan a year later and disappeared, leaving the company with a rather sticky problem in that the bank then tried to attach all the profits from the company in order to recover the outstanding amount. They wanted the full 100% of the amount, not only the 49% owned by the disappearing shareholder. If you've lived here a while, you will no doubt have heard worse stories than this.

If your partner has some business ablity, you could do the entire process without a lawyer; but as you are posting on this forum I assume that you will need a lawyer or accouting company to help you set things up. The costs would range from 6,000 to 20,000 to do all the registration for you. You will need a suitably qualified accountant to set up your books and to prepare an annual statement and you will need to submit an audited financial statement each year, certified by a registered auditor. Fee for this would be 12,000 to 20,000. You could probably do your own books, or if you need to pay a freelance accountant, the monthly fee would be around 7,000. You would have to register for VAT if your turnover is more than 180,000 per year (or somewhere around this amount) and once you are in this category you will be watched a little more closely and the revenue department will expect you to make your monthly VAT payments, based on your turn-over, on time. Also, you will need to register your employees and deduct tax according to the tax table if they are earning over the minimum amount and you will need to register them with the social security fund, of which the company needs to contribute a matching amount based on their salary. These are the main things which would be required to set up your business and any law company or business office would be able to help you put things in place.

Best of luck

I agree with the previous post.

If he really intends to arrive on your doorstep and turf out all of your belongings, I would change the door lock or add a nice large padlock and then call the police when he arrives. They really are quite adept in mediating in this kind of thing and I'm sure they would place a high degree of emphasis on what is fair and I certainly would not forsee them helping your landlord put you out on the street in these circumstances.

I have previously sued a landlord here over the return of deposit and won the case, so I also have a good idea of how the civil court proceedings would go; and I agree that a Thai judge is certinaly not going to back a summary eviction in manner you described. It would be great of you could serve him with a summons as he arrives, because then the eviction would become a moot issue until the case is brought before the court. At lease that would bide you time in getting a better place.

Worth talking to a lawyer to get all the options

?

Hi,

I bought an iMac from the Apple store at Siam Discovery a few weeks back and they were only too happy to arrange for upgraded specs for me for HD, graphics and RAM.The service was excellent and they even delivered to my home when it was done. If you dont like the standard keyboard with the Thai letters on the side of each key, do yourself a favour and buy the wireless version which is available in English only and is brilliant.

Agree with the previous post about the VAT refund. It is intended for tourists who will be leaving the country within 14days (or something close to this).

Hi,

I've been living here a number of years and have some experience with treatment of back problems so let me give you some pointers.

First is that over the counter medication without a professional opinion is not going to do it for you and may well exacerbate the problem. I highly recommend that you at least let a specialist give you an initial examination. A large private hospital would be my recommendation since they will also have a CT scan machine which would be necessary anyway if the doctor needs a better look at your spine. X-Ray will not yeild enough detail to diagnose ruptured discs which seems the most likely culprit in your case.

A lumbar specialist will be able to give you appropriate pain meds so that you can lie down and rest for a few days until the worst of the pain is over. Then, you may be able to explore further treatment options. In my case, I was also offered the surgery option by the first doctor I visited but I then visited the lumbar clinic at Bumrungrad in Bangkok and met an excellent doctor who told me that 80% of the cause of my type of disk injury is simply from lack of proper exercise, so he recommended a regimen of back-strengthening exercises to do daily for at least a month. I also began taking a Chondroitin supplement and my back problems are now totally solved. Exercise targeted specifically at the lower back muscles definitely helped a lot in my case. This is vital as the muscles of the lower back are crucial for ensuring that the spine stays properly aligned and also that the correct tension is applied in both directions which keeps the discs aligned and correctly spaced. Chondroitin occurs naturally in the body and my Chondroitin / Glucoseamine supplement is available at large pharmacies or healthfood shops in Bangkok and certainly in Phuket - get the tablet form as opposed to the sachets as it is a lot more convenient and also cheaper. You can google for specific information on these two items which have more common use in the treatment of arthritis but they are also extremely helpful in this type of treatment as well.

Hope this helps to give you an idea and hope you feel better soon.

If your apartment subscribes to a number of channels via their corporate sales program and they subscrib, then you should be receiving the magazine.

Check with your building management office and ask them to enquire with their agent contact.

Hi,

Take a look at xstreamstudio.net the site was done by a friend of mine. If it is something along these lines that you want, send an email to the admin address there and one of the guys can give you a call.

Cheers

I've been living here more than 6 years and registered 2 cars in that time with no problem at all. Went with my assistant with passport, work-permit and house rental contract and let him do the talking. Took no more than 15 minutes.

It's all about how you approach them I guess. We all know that it should be easy to do these things, and sometimes that dear old lady behind the counter who has been doing the job for a million years simply may never have come across a foreigner doing a registration before, so defer to default response is always 'no, we cant do it'. As you say, the moment you say 'YES, you can' - the brakes come on and you get no-where after that.

My mate always manages to just use charm to get around these things, and yes, sometimes a few Baht will grease the system for you. TIT. Everything here is based on beauracracy, but more often than not, you can get what you want if you go about it the right way.

There are now 3G USB cards and similar GPRS cards for sale at computer shops and phone counters all over town. They cost around 3,000 B and come with an internet contract etc.

Well worth the money and the connectivity should be fine in any area where there is mobile phone reception. Take a look around any electronics counter next time you are shopping.

Cheers

I'm always amazed that people put this kind of question here.

Why dont you just pick up your phone and call the service center ? The operators speak perfect English and have always been very helpful whenever I have called. The number is 0-2725 2525.

I bought a base-model Haier AC about a year ago when I moved into a bigger house and I have been totally impressed with it. In previous condos here I have had all the big names, which I also bought new, and this little Haier beats them all. The actual case of the head unit does look cheaper than anything else, and it as a tiny little remote which really didnt impress me when I first saw it, BUT this little baby runs totally silent and keeps my main bedroom brilliantly cool and not a peep of a problem ever.

I have since bought several others for other rooms in the house and would recommend them.

PS: I was also highly skeptical of things coming out of China for obvious quality reasons, so all credit to my Thai partner who convinced me to buy it back then.

I have a friend who works at True.

Yes, it is true that History was physically broadcast from Bangkok, but the program content and scheduling were controlled by AETN in the US and the content was shipped to Bangkok for packaging locally. This was done because AETN did not want to pay an outrageous price for a dedicated satellite feed. However, the broadcast is now totally handled by History channel from outside of Thailand.

Confirm that the content from all networks, such as Discovery, HBO, Cinemax, Star etc etc is totally controlled by them and there is nothing that any of the distributors can do about it. True is not the only distributor facing this issue, there are networks in almost every country who redistribute signals: Starhub in Singpore, PCCW in Hong Kong, Astro in Malaysia. Most do produce local content channels, but in terms of Hollywood and western-type entertainment, they buy turn-around channels from these big name overseas networks at an agreed fee per subscriber.

It's all about economics. Star is owned by Rupert Murdoch and of course if he can save a few bucks on his channels by programming in repeats, he'll certainly do it. All the other channels have big name owners also: AXN is owned by Sony Entertainment and you can guess who owns HBO Asia. Basically it is all a balance between getting what you pay for and the networks trying to run a business which makes a profit.

I've been living in LOS for more than 10 years now and have had UBC in the house from the beginning. In all that time, there have been 2 price increases which were not unreasonable, so I dont have a problem with the fee part. Since MCOT manages the PayTV concession here, they have the final say in the fee issue and any increases must approved by them. Since the additional channels are typically niche programming (like Turbo channel for mechanic-heads) it makes sense to offer them as opt-in services, rather than to apply an across the board increase.

I agree. There must be more than twenty good pubs and restuarants in Soi 4 and you're bound to find one that you like. The atmosphere is way better than some uppity hotel and as it's a largely gay area, you wont be troubled by testosterone-deprived hard-core drinkers.

Whatever gave you the impression that new cars are cheaper in Thailand ???

Thailand levies a 250% import duty on new cars which means that the prices of your typical European-made car are accordingly more than double the price here as in Europe. There are several foreign manufacturers who manufacture certain models in Thailand and those models are a bit more in line with overseas prices, but I would say that the only things which may be cheaper here, are pick-up trucks; since Thailand is a major producer of those on the world stage.

Now that we've established that new cars are so much more expensive here, it is no wonder that second hand cars tend to follow the trend. However, if you are mechanically-minded, I am sure that you will have no trouble in finding a good used car here. There are tents and showrooms all over the place which have the full range of used cars and you can take a look at taladrod.com which has a mixture of private sellers and tents advertising cars. You can search by model and specify criteria and there are currently at least 100 cars there for less than 100,000. The site is in Thai but the keywords are all english, so you could do most of the searching without any help.

Parts for Toyota and Nissan are the cheapest so consider those first. Honda has some excellent dealers here but parts are a bit more pricey. I would stay away from other models which were imported in low volumes for obvious reasons.

You mentioned an old VW and this would also be okay if you are prepared to get your hands dirty. There are a number of shops which specialise in VW repairs, including rebuilds, so you can do a search of this forum to find more of those details.

Good luck

This would have to be one of the hardest jobs to land in BKK because there are a lot of very talented locals around who would be prepared to work for a lot less salary that you would probably be expecting. Also, to be able to interface with most client types, you would need to speak Thai as well. Unless of course you are totally brilliant and able to land a job with one of the big international ad agencies here.

I am in the business here, so if you have a good portfolio and resume you can PM me with the details.

Cheers

Thanks for your comments, BKKJames. You're right though; the issue is more with the retailer, but also partly shared by the credit card company, I guess, since they are the ones demanding the premium commission. I'm sure if it were an extra half percent, it wouldn't be a problem - even for the short-sighted retailers here in LOS.

I called the bank and had a long talk with a very nice and understanding lady who told me that they have had numerous complaints about Power Buy in Bangok, but there was nothing they could do. Even after some pressing, she wouldn't divulge the difference in commission rates, so I asked to downgrade my card or have the annual fee waived. She's faxing me some forms to sign, so let's see if it helps to stir the pot a bit.

I also have the name of the Division SGM at Power Buy, so I'll be giving him a call to brighten his day also

Has anyone heard that Power Buy does not accept Platinum Cards ?

Yesterday, I was shopping at the branch at Central World Plaza and at the end of a good hour of searching for the right pieces of equipment, I made my way to the Customer Service area, whereupon I was told by the Cashier that they do not accept Platinum cards. I was completely flabbergasted. My card is issued in Thailand and I pay a premium fee for it and to have some shop assistant tell me that I should look in my wallet for a Gold card or standard card to be used instead, borders on the incredulous !

I of course spoke to the manager on duty and asked the reasoning behind this, as there are no notices displayed informing shoppers of this fact anywhere. There large printed terms and conditions which is positioned on the rear wall of the customer Service center says "Credit cards are accepted for your convenience" and mentions nothing of this, basically, illegal condition. The official story was that management took the decision because they do not want to pay the higher commission fee to Visa which is levied on Platinum cards.

However, as I understand it, merchants are required to sign an agreement with Visa International or Mastercard which carries specific terms and conditions. Obviously aside from using their discretion in ensuring that an individual card is genuine and of course that the person presenting it is who they say they are, the merchant does not have the right to discriminate against any group of card users like this. The fact that they display the Visa sign, means that they accept the card. It's that simple. I called both my bank and Visa international and this was confirmed to me.

I wonder whether anyone else has encountered this as I intend to take it up officially with Visa and with the Consumer Protection agency, or, if anyone else has any ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.