Gaccha

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?

14 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

How long ago did you transfer the extension of stay into the new passport?

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.

32 minutes ago, UWEB said:

You have a new Passport, first 90 day Report must be done in person.

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.

2 hours ago, lelapin said:

Does this mean I can do the next 90 day as usual ONLINE?

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.

27 minutes ago, treetops said:

He's now reported the press conference was just immigration encouraging people to use the on-line system. 

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)

8 hours ago, samtam said:

Grab do not seem to take criticism of their less than 5 star ratings with any degree of seriousness

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.

17 hours ago, samtam said:

dramatically increased its prices

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.

8 hours ago, ricklev said:

Mine was rejected even after I transferred my visa extension to the new passport.

You'd really think the counter which moves the extension over to your new passport would be able to stick your passport number onto the system for the other counters. 

It's interesting that it did work for a mail-in. I wonder if you had tried again via the electronic again whether it might have worked. It might have just been a coincidence. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

I've got a new passport. Does anyone know if the online system at CW will accept it, or for a new passport do they require a walk-in? (I'm not looking for speculation)

Just to be clear, I have already visited CW to move my visa and visa extension over into the new passport. They have the number somewhere on their records.

Here is the answer:

Settings> Accessibility > Installed Apps 

... And then switch off all Apps that are currently on.

The bank app is worried that these apps which have advanced accessibility to your phone are able to read your phone screen even when you're using the app. It's obviously is a security danger.

The banking app refuses to function unless you switch off those advanced functions. You'll have to do this each time you use the banking app. Yes it is annoying but it is the only way for the banks to be sure that a third party is not watching you stick in your PIN number or read your fingerprint.

The apps with this function are things like antivirus apps and apps which change your screen presentation or apps which block adverts in YouTube etc. . That is, any app that needs to be able to "see" the screen.

On 1/8/2024 at 2:18 PM, haston said:

I have all of the relevant documents but

Follow the answers to this linked page. HMPO will tell you exactly what they'll accept in a lovely table and application form they provide. It is very precise and very easy to understand. You'll no the answer with certainty within a couple of minutes.

I am sure this story won't get much traction among ThaiVisa users; they'd probably prefer to discuss the difficult transitional period of romantic Akha poetry in the late 19th century.

In Europe I'd get 3 or 4 a year with nasty sore throats. In Thailand, never had a cold in 10+ years. The only sore throat I've had was for three or four hours when I had Covid. Glorious.

I rinse and gargle with the special saltwater (you can buy in 7/11), so my nose has never felt clearer. 

17 hours ago, scottiejohn said:

Do you have to sign up to it

You'll increasingly need to use 2FA for lots of things. There is no escape. I use it for 6 or 7. I use one. And have made sure that I always can recover. 

I am being vague because not making public this kind of info is part of a personal security setup.

Make sure you understand how the backup of the authenticator works.

If your phone goes missing, once you've set up a new phone and are setting up the authenticator app again, you'll need to be ready with that backup reset system. It might be a password or an access e-mail account.

It will be very strict and everything depends on you getting it right. There is no recovery to that backup. It is the very last line of defence.

Having cereal is just about the worst thing you can wake up to in the morning. It will give you a quick sugar high followed by a long episode of fatigue, it will make you feel hungry and moody. Stop. 

5 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Notifications still not picking everything up, but no one else seems to have noticed

Just tried with Brave got the same Cloudfare error message of the host server.

Please could you let the IT support know as I have literally no way to contact them. If I attempt to send a message via contact support, that also fails!!

I have a major problem. I am not able to go to the forum landing page or any of the pages of each of the forums. That makes it impossible for me to create a new topic and the reason why I am posting it at the end of this topic. I also cannot send a message to the support since it also fails to send!

I have deleted site settings in order to be rid of any cache and the problem remains. Bizarrely, it remains whether I use Opera or Chrome or Google as the browser.

Apparently the fault is on the side of Aseannow:

A point that I'll keep making every time this comes up: every case that resulted in death in Thailand (according to all the newspaper articles that explain the trigger cause) was after they took aspirins or NSAIDs to lower their fevers.

If you must insist on lowering the fever (which is a silly thing to do because a fever is your body's way of fighting the infection, and only becomes an issue if it gets out of hand) then take a paracetamol tablet.