Gaccha

"Nice country you've got there. Would be a shame if it got suffocated by pollution'

That won't work. It'll certainly catch a lot of flies because they are attracted to ultraviolet light. After a few days I will be a pile of flies in it. But mosquitoes are no more attracted to ultraviolet light than humans are.

>Thai Immigration Police has entered the chat

Wow. It was a thousand. But I suppose if I had a 1,000 tablespoons to remove the water it would have been about as effective...

Thais on Facebook immediately figured out what was really going on...

And they actually did this. During the floods of Bangkok in around 2011, they deployed around 20 boats thinking that the boats' propellers would help push the flood waters into the sea more quickly... You can guess the result.

You could get tickets for both services. But make sure you prioritise the marriage visa online appointment time. If your 90 day ticket number is passed for the 90 days line because you are busy dealing with your marriage visa, then simply get another queue number and then see how long you have to wait. You can judge it by looking at the number of people waiting. The lines for the 90 day generally dry up late in the day. So there should be very little of a queue by around 3pm. But I would recommend you do the 90 days online. Should take about 5 minutes.

[News for @lelapin and other Bangkok dwellers] I can now confirm that the 90 days report must be done in person at Chengwattana when a new passport is used, even if you've had all the information shifted onto the new passport at Chengwattana. The Immigration Police Officer insisted the systems (i.e. notification system and the formal transfer of visa and extensions onto new passport) were not linked, at least in Bangkok, and it was impossible to do it online. I am very aware that at other immigration offices it is possible to do online. (I have used the online ever since it first began. The only time I had to attend previously was when the whole system collapsed, such as that period during COVID)

The absurd escalation in the number of companies requiring your passport from around 5 years ago was bound to end up with this situation. When even the BTS requires a passport on file just to get a card, you know it has gone too far. More than 5 years ago, almost nobody had a copy of my passport in any data repository. Now they treat it with the respect given to a cinema ticket. The Thai government at that moment should and could have slammed the door on these requirements. It was so obvious even at the time it was happening that it had gone too far. Putting aside the behaviour of companies, how many times have the Thai Immigration Police accidentally leaked all our data? There were at least two cases during COVID.

It is always unwise to make an appeal to common sense when it comes to speculating on the workings of Thailand's occultic immigration system.

Hallelujah. Finally someone who actually can report on what is happening.

Interesting read. The failure of the issue to be resolved in that topic thread, with absolutely no one having any experience of the issue, I think this thread should be very handy.

So it seems that I overestimated the reading comprehension skills of some of the forum members. So I will lay it out with simple sentences: 1. A couple of months ago, several international airports in Thailand introduced automated gates for foreign passengers when leaving Thailand. 2. These gates speed up the process of immigration checks, because an Immigration Police Officer is no longer needed to check your passport. 3. This system has been in place for Thais for some time. 4. It is challenging for Thailand to introduce a system for foreigners because of the various visas and visa extensions that we are on. 5. One particular problem, is that people with extensions to their visas require a reentry permit to re-enter Thailand using the same extension. 6. If they re-enter Thailand without a reentry permit, they lose their current visa, and must start the process again. 7. I seek anyone who has had the experience of entering and leaving Thailand with the new system, and with a reentry permit, to offer their experiences. I hope this helps.

"Moreover, over 30 million baht vanished from her bank accounts. Panithi was a millionaire and never had any history of financial issues but only a nominal amount of money was left in each of her bank accounts." For each bank account to only have a nominal amount in it she would need around 30,000 bank accounts to explain how they could have withdrawn 30 million Surely the millionaire victim was the creditor.

The system has been around for a month or two now but I've not seen any feedback. A lot of people here must have used the automated passport control gates for leaving Thailand. The concern is for people requiring reentry permits and other complex visa issues. Clearly a tourist on a simple visa will exit without issue. But what happens with those of us on visa extensions, needing reentry permits? Can the automated gates be used or must we still go to the manned immigration desks? What procedure has been set up? And also, can the automated gates be used for arrival when possessing a reentry permit?

Very shortly after my last 90 days, I obtained the new passport, and then went straight to Immigration. I deliberately gave them plenty of time.

Have you read the others on this thread? They report that they did not have to do it in person when they got a new passport. However, they were dealing with Jomtien immigration. Also, in the greatly publicised immigration police event of yesterday, Our Man in Siam, the learned Richard Barrow, states (see my lengthy quote of his earlier) the only reason to attend in person is for the very first time after arrival on the current visa. In this thread, I expressed my doubts, having previously experienced the need to turn up in person when I obtained a new passport. So it seemed a possibility that the rules had changed.

They just rejected my application. So their all-new-yet-nothing-new system turns out to be a dud for Bangkok. Their incompetence grates more now that they've just publicised how amazing it now is.

Well... I applied on the 15th with a fresh passport and it is still pending. From my years of experience, this is highly unusual. I applied to Bangkok Immigration.

I'm not sure if he is paraphrasing an immigration police officer or whether he is decided to editorialize in his Twitter comment, but we know that the claim you need to go to immigration only for the first time, is not true. With a new passport it also appears to be a requirement to turn up. As to his last paragraph that "it is getting better", that is simply not true. 15 years ago, this requirement was in place but was not enforced. That was the best of times. Since it has been enforced, the improvements have been painfully slow, and from a very low baseline.

What on earth is this newspaper article talking about? Surely the 90 days has been available online for well over 6 or 7 years now. (I've removed the newspaper's name and I've not made a link to it, just in case it's not allowed on this forum)

I think they take it very seriously. The drivers are paranoid of having their star rating drop below 4. Grab is very strict. If your car is older than a few years, or there is too much mileage, or you play music without the customer's permission, then you'll not be a Grab driver for long. But Grab are also aware of customers who themselves have a bad reputation. Grab drivers are encouraged to give ratings of their customers. Should a customer accumulate a low rating, their low ratings would not be taken seriously. I can see this with when I have complained. Grab Food has instantly given me refunds when the refund is very difficult to justify on any evidence provided. I have had a similar situation with Lazada. They have given me refunds before the seller even received their products back from me after I initiated the refund procedure. I'm convinced this is from having a good reputation.

Just in case anybody doesn't know, and I am getting this feeling from comments on this thread, the scammers are running these scams on a massive scale. There are "scam factories" across in Burma with several hundred or even thousand people working there. They are often themselves the victim of human trafficking. If they call, they might make it a visual call to make it more convincing. They literally have stage production units, actors and extras as well as directors and props on hand for when you answer the phone. So if they ring to tell you that you need to pay some penalty for a crime, somebody acting as a police officer, often an ex-Thai police officer, will talk to you in the scam call, and you can even see fake criminals get fake arrested by fake offices in the fake police station background. It is much more than just some guy giving you a phone call.

The initial low prices were to grab (pun intended) market share. They were clearly not sustainable. And even with the current prices they are not earning a profit. But it is fantastic that Grab exists since it breaks the local motorbike/car cartels, forces better behaviour of drivers, and gives more options to us. Obviously not great news for drivers. It means low wages for them and they must achieve higher standards. I can only welcome them to the new world of neoliberalism!

It's very simple: never answer the phone unless you were expecting a call at that time. About 4 months back, I got around 4 calls a day from "Malaysia". I didn't believe for a minute that they were actually from Malaysia. Around half the numbers were identified as scam numbers by the caller id I use. Each and every number was different and each and every number I blocked and reported. I could also block via the first few digits. Since the number of calls did not calm down, I simply blocked all international calls for 3 or 4 days. I then turned back on and I've received no more scam calls.