monte01

I am also concerned about how bitcoin profits may b e taxed here in Thailand.  I found this:

Seven statements on Bitcoin taxation in Thailand (pugnatorius.com)

I have spent a lot of time in the last few days scouring the internet, and haven't found any advice that betters all your help.  Thank you.

Stcky and 3S, thank you for your advice re Singapore.  I wish I had that advice a few years ago, but now it would mean selling investments, reinvesting through a Singapore bank.  I would take a capital gains hit I can ill afford.

Redpill your advice about Cambodia and Georgia looks good.  However reading  on the internet, I understand that you need a six month visa to be able to open a bank account in Cambodia and you have to go there to set up an account.  I don't fancy doing a covid quarantine.  I also read that you can only set up an account in Georgia by going there in person, but I contacted TBC bank in the hope that they may have relaxed that rule because of covid travel restrictions.  I was told it was possible to set up a 'mobile bank account", so Georgia remains a possibility.  My worry about Georgia is its position with regard to Russia.  It is not so long since they were fighting each other and Russia annexed a lot of territory. On the other hand it is gaining a reputation as one of the best and easiest places in the world to do business.  There is no minimum balance and fees are low.  The account looks great if it is a safe place to put your money.  What do you all think?  

Thanks also to those of you who recommended a sterling bank account with one of the Thai banks.   As you point out, it is a useful way to hold cash here to be able to exchange it when the rate seems right, and at the same time to hold enough for the non-o visa for the year.  However I have been advised that capital gains are only taxed here if they are brought here within a year of making the gain.  Therefore an offshore account to hold the funds for that period is tax effective. 

Maproa, you suggested Standard bank.  Their head office is in South Africa (is that ok?) but they have offshore branches in the Isle of Man.  The account is not charged unless the amount held falls below 5,000 gbp.  I believe this account carries government guarantees up to 50,000 gbp.  This possibly looks the safest bet without having to tie up tens of thousands of pounds in the account.

Thank you too for those who recommended Transferwise.  This looks like a really good way to transfer money between the UK and Thailand, but for me is as well as, rather than being an alternative to an offshore account.  I have one question:  Is it possible to set up a transfer wise account from Thailand - ie if you are no longer living in the UK.  I do still have a property there but it is rented out.  If not, are there alternatives?

Cheers one and all.

Tuvoc, you are spot on .... you cant have the call account if you don't have one of their other accounts.  I just rang them

Maprao, thanks for suggesting Standard Bank.  I found this account advertised.  It looks ideal for me since the amount I want to hold will generally be between 1 and 10,000 gbp (why don't they put pound signs on Thai keyboards?).  The only problem is that I can't find any details on their website about their charges.  There is no monthly charge but all banks want their kg of flesh somehow.

Thanks guys.  You've all been really helpful.  Now I am going to spend the day checking out all your suggestions.

Also have really appreciated the 'to the point' intelligent comments - so often a forum gets taken over by a couple of idiots hell bent on insulting one another.  Thanks again from Chumphon  

Thanks Up.  The trouble is I don't want to keep 25k in the account.  The banks are going to get there cut one way or another, either by charging or keeping hold of a large chunk of your money!  Can't blame them too much .... oh maybe I can!

Does anyone know of an offshore bank account that is not a 'wealth' account, ie one that does not insist that you have a continual balance of a zillion dollars, or charge an arm and two legs each month just for having an account?  An offshore bank account is extremely useful for us expats, but I cannot afford to have my life savings sitting around in a bank account just to achieve some minimum balance rule.  I have been using Barclays but they are increasing their charges dramatically next month, (it will be 40 gbp per month) so I am looking to change.

Thanks

David

I have recently bought 2 Mr Ken ceiling fans.  They look fantastic and the one that is working is very quiet.  They are expensive at over 10,000 baht each and have the most amazing wooden fan blades …. and therein lies the problem.  On both fans that I bought the blades had split.  I managed to get four good ones, so I have one working fan.  The company tells me they could not have been split because they are each inspected before they were sent out ….. but clearly there is a quality issue here.  I was told to return the blades which I did, but several weeks on I am being told that only the motor is warrantied for 10 years, the blades are not covered by the warranty!  So now I have no blades at all for one expensive fan.

These are very expensive, very beautiful fans.  However it is difficult to recommend a company that treats its customers in this way.  Please be warned, if you are going to buy a Mr Ken Fan, do not in any circumstances do it through the internet or by mail order.  Buy from a shop and make sure to unpack it and check it to make sure that the blades are in good order first. 

Hopefully this will be of help to someone.  I will of course update this message and swallow my words if everything turns out ok.  

It is my understanding that Mitsui Air is part of the giant Mitsui Corporation from Japan.  As such it is backed by one of the biggest companies in the world and I have would have no worries about their products.  however the low price must indicate that some things have been paired down somewhere. 

I suspect that the real reason is that this is old technology. The cheap model that you mention here (now 7,900 baht on shoppee) is a conventional system and not a more modern and economical inverter system.  That does not worry me.  The main energy saving difference is that the inverter system has a variable speed motor, where a conventional system has only one (or rarely 2) speeds.  Essentially the conventional model runs flat out until the correct temperature is reached and then stops, and starts again when it needs to.  The inverter model runs flat out to cool the room, and then slows down to maintain the correct temperature.  Running at slow speed it is quieter and it is not forever turning on and off.

The sales blurb says that the power consumption on an inverter model is less. but I suspect it will take a while to save the difference in price.  It also says that the inverter models will have a longer life.  I have seen this questioned by technicians who say that the inverter has much more to go wrong, and is much harder to repair.  Swings and roundabouts maybe.

I also have another reason to go for the cheaper old fashioned model - likely a Mitsui.  I am buying a water tank with a heat exchange unit which will run in conjunction with the air conditioning.  Reputedly it gives a saving of up to 20% on the energy used by the air conditioner (the compressor has to work less hard because the refrigerant has already been cooled by the heat exchanger) and provides free hot water.  I have been told that the system is more efficient with a conventional air conditioning unit 

Canon vs Epson ink tank printers

I have just bought a Canon G1010 ink tank printer.  I thought I might write a few notes about it vs my old printer, an Epson L800.

The Epson L800 is a discontinued model, but its replacement the L805 uses the same print head and inks, and shares the same casing.  I may be wrong but I think the only difference is that the L805 has wifi connection.  Printing is the same.  The Epson L805 is dedicated photo printer with 6 colour tanks and costs around B10,000.

In contrast the Canon G1010 is the cheapest ink tank printer currently available in Thailand.  It has 4 tanks, and the black one is not used for photo printing.  It costs around B3,000 only ... a third of the cost of the L800, so bear that in mind in this comparison.

The reason that I am replacing my Epson is because it gave up the ghost.  I went back to the UK for two months and the ink had dried and ruined the print head (though I suspect it had been showing some faults for awhile before that).  I went to the service centre in Surat and was told that a new head would be nearly B4,500 and would take 6 to 10 weeks to come from Epson.  They then added that 'wasn't is a shame that it isn't still in warranty, we could have fixed it in 3 or 4 days'!  I was not impressed!

I am a keen amateur photographer, and had already replaced my Epson with a Canon Pro 100 printer for my photos (amazing printer but expensive to run) but was going to keep the Epson for general documents.  So now my requirements are a little different.  I need a general purpose printer for letters and documents, and less important  photos.  I considered the Canon G1010 and the Epson L370.  I already have a seperate scanner so I do not need an all-in-one printer.

I chose the Canon for four reasons.  First, my experience with Epson service; second, reviews on the internet tend to favour the canon;  and 3rd, when I looked at customer reviews on Amazon, over 1/3 of the reviews for the Epson were bad, compared to around 10 percent with the canon.   Fourth, my old Epson printed brilliant quality photos when they were first printed, but I found that the inks were very susceptible to humidity on certain papers.  Here in Chumphon Hi- Jet paper is about the only option.  I found their cheaper glossy photo paper to be much better that their lab photo paper for the Epson ink. Admittedly these inks are not the Epson long life inks, and are not sold as such, but after 6 months of seaside air and humidity, the colours on the photos blended into one another to make a smudgy mess, even when the pictures were stored in books.  I have no idea whether canon inks will be any better, but their printing system is different ... so I am hoping.  For what it is worth, I have noticed that the Canon ink dries onto the paper much quicker that the Epson ink.  Both printers use dye inks for colour printing and neither use proprietary long life inks.  Dye inks are generally brighter than pigment, but not as long lasting.

Both the Epson L800 and Canon G1010 are rather boring black boxes, made from hard plastic.  I don't think it would do to force the plastic hinges!  That said, they are both quite robust.  The canon has its ink tank internally, but the Epson inks are in an external clip on box.  I found the canon tanks to be much easier to fill.  The Epson has a code to be entered and validated for each bottle.  The canon has no such system.  I have no idea what they do to stop you using 3rd party inks, I am sure they must do something.  The canon inks for the ink tanks are reasonably priced anyway (much cheaper that the inks for the Epson L800, but remember that is a dedicated photo printer).  With the canon, I found that some bottles are more squeezy than others.  I had to squeeze and squeeze the yellow bottle to get the ink out, but the red splurted everywhere.  My fault ... and not a complaint, just a warning to go slower than I did!

And so to the important bit ... Print quality.  I have seen complaints that the Canon G1010 is slow, but I have found it ok.  It is quicker that the Epson L800 (but that is a photo printer).  The Canon has separate pigment black ink for documents (good!).  The quality maybe not quite as good as the Epson, but it is plenty good enough. 

However pictures are not quite so good.  The Canon uses only three inks to produce black.  The pigment black ink is used only for documents.  I was worried because whenever I mixed my paint-pot colours as a kid, I always got a dirty brown colour ... not black.  In fact the Canon does a remarkably good job.  The pictures show detail and the colour is reasonably accurate, but the pictures lack the depth of colour (and true black) and the lustre that the Epson photo printer managed ... but remember that I am comparing the cheapest ink tank on the market with one of the most expensive.  For the money, I think the Canon does surprisingly well.

In all I am extremely pleased with my new purchase.  For a family all purpose printer, the Canon looks a great buy, but if you are a keen photographer you will probably want to aim higher for a dedicated photo printer ... or do what I have done and end up with two printers.  All indications are that it will be very cheap to run, though I am little sceptical of the quoted figures.  I believe that they are based on ink per page and take no account of cleaning which uses a lot of ink, and which the printer does of its own accord with alarming regularity.

Hope that helps.  It is a pretty non-technical review of my own experiences.

Hi Weegee,

In one of your replies you sais 'If ever you want a good ride on, let me know...I build heavy duty ones as a hobby'. I am interested. Please get in touch if you are serious

Monte-D

Hi Crossy, Innerspace,

I followed your advice and now have an earthed socket for my computer. Thank you. No more shocks.

Innerspace, I followed your advice and connected through a UPS. It is one that I have been using for a while, made by Ablerex. A word of warning though ...

When I pulled out the plug from my laptop yesterday, the whole socket came out of the back of the UPS. To my surprise, it was not earthed, even though it was a three pin socket ... so all my earthing was to no avail. From your comments Crossy, a UPS is not so critical for a laptop because it has a separate charger/voltage regulator, so for now I am running without.

Can you tell me if it is standard for UPS units not to carry an earth wire to the nperipherals plugged into it? If not, is there any way to tell when you buy a UPS, or failing that particular brands/models to look out for.

Thanks

David

thanks Crossy

thanks Innerspace

Thank you all for your replies - I didn't mean to start a war! Crossy, you suggested that I might earth the computer directly ... unfortunately I have a laptop (still getting small shocks from the mouse buttons, and more scary ones from connections). Also I would like to earth other equipment such as the screen printer, speakers etc.

I am thinking of buying a new 3 pin multi plug socket - one of the ones in a box that sits on the wall, rather than dug into it. I would run a wire for live and neutral to a 2 pin plug, which would go into the existing 2 pin wall socket. I would then wire an earth from the new 3 pin socket to go out the window (or through the frame) to a proper earthing rod.

Would this work to earth the multiple devices? I know that I would have to be careful not to overload the one original socket.

The solution is a little convoluted, but as I said in my earlier mail, I am in a rented house, and cannot go rewiring or digging out wires from the walls.

Thanks

David

Hi,

I have a similar problem, but I live in a rented house and it is not easy to instal an earth to the sockets in my office area. This may be a daft idea, but is it possible to earth all the electrics for the house one time, at say the trip box?

I am sure this is wishful thinking, but any comments would be good (always remembering of course to be grateful, because if I wasn't so stupid, you wouldn't look half so clever!)

Thanks

Monte