scratt

What does your lease/service agreement say about such matters??

You should have insurance on your apartment that covers 3rd Party Liability.

I cannot see why anything additional should be needed.

Thanks for the reply.

When you say lease/service agreement what are you referring to?

All the documentation I have is a monthly maintenance bill, which covers various things from water to rubbish disposal, security, maintenance etc. At the MSM condo water is included in that one monthly maintenance bill, whereas at our other condo we have specific utilities bills, and an annual maintenance fee.

We have the deeds for the condos, and at the other condo (not the MSM one) we get copies of the Co-owners minutes of meetings each year, which we can also go and vote on.

At MSM it's a bit more vague. Perhaps my understanding of a home being your castle doesn't quite fit with Thai culture.... because it certainly feels more like I'm a glorified tenant some of the time, or perhaps an irritation that the management company simply tolerates because I pay their bills!

Anything you can point me to so I can understand what on the surface seems to be a system that varies from place to place I'd be really grateful for. Thanks.

Oh, and btw. Yes we have insurance because I fully inderstand if my bath springs a leak I am responsible for the people below. Strange though that when "I got a leak" *in my ceiling* a few years back I ended up paying for it! TIT!

No idea, anyone? Was wondering if this was in any way normal... or if I should leaflet drop other residents?

Hi all,

I am just looking for some feedback / advice from others before I do my nut in our Condo office on Monday morning!

Just a little bit of background first. Have lived in Thailand over 5 years, and own a couple of condos.

One in Bangkok, one on the coast. Both are owned by us outright as individuals (my wife and I), and not in any way rented or anything else. We have air-con units in both already...

This weekend we arranged for a new air-con unit to be installed in our spare bedroom in our condo just outside Bangkok.

On Friday I tried to let our condo management office (MSM are the company) know about it as a courtesy because we have fairly strict security in the building and we need to let the security staff know about people coming in and out to do work.

As usual the people in the condo management office had gone for an early lunch, which obviously ran into a late lunch, so I could not find them.

Saturday morning our engineer and new air-con unit turned up, and all seemed to be fine until the security guard said that the installation had to be inspected by the condo maintenance staff. I had no problem with this, but then they wanted a 20,000 Baht security deposit for having the air-con in the building.

This unit is going on a ledge on the outside of our spare bedroom window designed exactly for that purpose.

Now in the past I have had a satellite dish installed here and had to pay a security deposit for that ("against any damage it might cause"). I had no problem with this as the dish is on the building's roof on common land, so to speak. SO I just put the 10,000 Baht they wanted for that down to experience and paid up. Of course I'll never see that money again until I sell the condo, or die, at which point I presume it passes onto my descendants!!!! TIT!

But this air-con unit is being installed on a ledge which is part of our condo.

I am not really sure what "damage" the 20,000 Baht is to cover against, or how it's anything other than a cash grab, because I don't really intend on selling this condo anytime soon, so it's effectively 20,000 Baht of dead money that the management company get to keep until I die.... Imagine all the 20,000 Baht's they have in some bank account somewhere.. most condos here have 2 or 3 air-con units each... The added irony is the air-con unit we are installing only cost 15,000 Baht!

Has anyone else ever heard of anything like this?

Is this normal practice?

Do all the tenants in a building with perhaps 100 or 200 rooms in all condo buildings in Bangkok have to pay 20,000 baht per air-con unit they have? I am sure that's not the case...

Can anyone shed any light on this for me?

Any comments appreciated...

As of today censorship is blocking www.f1.com (the motor racing site)as well as some of my own sites which are programming and game related!

It would be funny if it wasn't so dam_n retarded.

Just wait for the price increases later this year when they charge us for their "service improvements".

(Loosely translated as now providing something like the speeds they have been charging for for the last 5 years, but not actually supplying.)

And banks will probably slap yet another surcharge on ATMs for foreign card transactions because they are now "faster... bla bla"

etc. etc. etc.

Ugh. How much do I hate True.

I managed to get rid of their mobile system and their crappy UBC service, but there really is no alternative for internet in my area.

They blocked every company that tried to compete with them here from installing their relays at the local exchanges....

The recent speed increase (which they only did because their IPTV service does not work for anyone I know who has it) was a nice surprise, but it's evident their tech guys and their network simply are not up to the job of a high speed network. Nor has their customer service department for any area of their business had any training at all.

What a hopeless hopeless company. In any other country I'd simply refuse to pay for downtime periods, but they simply would not even be able to grasp the concept as these kind of Thai Companys with their stranglehold on the market, and no competition simply don't understand customer satisfaction or consumer rights.

I am currently rebooting internet at home about once every 10 - 15 minutes.

Ugh. How much do I hate True.

I managed to get rid of their mobile system and their crappy UBC service, but there really is no alternative for internet in my area.

They blocked every company that tried to compete with them here from installing their relays at the local exchanges....

The recent speed increase (which they only did because their IPTV service does not work for anyone I know who has it) was a nice surprise, but it's evident their tech guys and their network simply are not up to the job of a high speed network. Nor has their customer service department for any area of their business had any training at all.

What a hopeless hopeless company. In any other country I'd simply refuse to pay for downtime periods, but they simply would not even be able to grasp the concept as these kind of Thai Companys with their stranglehold on the market, and no competition simply don't understand customer satisfaction or consumer rights.

I am currently rebooting internet at home about once every 10 - 15 minutes.

When I first heard about the Elite card I worked through the maths with my lawyer.

The Elite card is, and always has been, the absolutely most expensive way to get a 5 year visa anyway, and I did not want any of the crappy Spa, Golf or Limo services.

The next most expensive option is to try and go for PR off the back of a Work Permit and a period of uninterrupted trouble free residence in Thailand.

By far the easiest and cheapest way to stay here is to make a company, and do yearly visa renewals, employ a decent Thai lawyer and follow the rules...

So it really is a case of a fool and his money IMO.

Hi.

I been wondering about this since a while.... i am signed up for True's 1.5M/512K ADSL connection. As the switch box or what that's called is less than 100 meters from my room i always get great speeds, actually matching or even ever-so-slightly exceeding what i am supposed to get (1.60-1.65 Mbit).

However a few days ago i noticed really abnormal speeds on my torrents, to be precise up to 240 Kbyte (!) per second, which would be close to 2 Mbit connection speed. I also noticed that, despite torrents going at that speed, web surfing was not affected at all, i.e. web sites would open as quickly as if there were no torrents running at all.

And right now, with a bunch of well-seeded torrents on, it's actually flying along at around the 310 Kbyte mark, which of course would equal a 2.5 Mbit connection, and i am STILL surfing the net as if there was no torrent activity!

Now is there something officially going on (i.e. subscribers have gotten the next higher type of connection, for example if someone, like me, is also UBC subscriber) or could this be just a test run? Because some time ago True increased the speed by a notch (from 512k to 768k then for me) as a "trial" for a couple of months or so and then back to normal, however that was announced by e-mail.

I am not complaining about my internet being "too fast", i just want to know if i can expect it to stay that way or if it will get slower again (and i don't want to ask True because they may have switched me up accidentally and would revert it upon knowing)

Kind regards......

Thanh

Same here this morning for me.. From memory I pay for a 1MBit connection. (I have had this contract for over 5 years).

Today I have stuff running at 300+KB/s.

I am not (by choice) a customer of True for anything else. I ditched both my mobile and UBC accounts with them some time ago, because both services are awful. But for internet I've never had any other choice in my area.

Interestingly my speed test still reports a paltry .75MBit connection while data is definitely flowing much much faster.

Hi.

I been wondering about this since a while.... i am signed up for True's 1.5M/512K ADSL connection. As the switch box or what that's called is less than 100 meters from my room i always get great speeds, actually matching or even ever-so-slightly exceeding what i am supposed to get (1.60-1.65 Mbit).

However a few days ago i noticed really abnormal speeds on my torrents, to be precise up to 240 Kbyte (!) per second, which would be close to 2 Mbit connection speed. I also noticed that, despite torrents going at that speed, web surfing was not affected at all, i.e. web sites would open as quickly as if there were no torrents running at all.

And right now, with a bunch of well-seeded torrents on, it's actually flying along at around the 310 Kbyte mark, which of course would equal a 2.5 Mbit connection, and i am STILL surfing the net as if there was no torrent activity!

Now is there something officially going on (i.e. subscribers have gotten the next higher type of connection, for example if someone, like me, is also UBC subscriber) or could this be just a test run? Because some time ago True increased the speed by a notch (from 512k to 768k then for me) as a "trial" for a couple of months or so and then back to normal, however that was announced by e-mail.

I am not complaining about my internet being "too fast", i just want to know if i can expect it to stay that way or if it will get slower again (and i don't want to ask True because they may have switched me up accidentally and would revert it upon knowing)

Kind regards......

Thanh

Same here this morning for me.. From memory I pay for a 1MBit connection. (I have had this contract for over 5 years).

Today I have have stuff running at 300+KB/s.

I am not (by choice) a customer of True for anything else. I ditched both my mobile and UBC accounts with them some time ago, because both services are awful. But for internet I've never had any other choice in my area.

Interestingly my speed test still reports a paltry .75MBit connection while data is definitely flowing much much faster.

I have a plot of land which is owned by our company and is located near Surin. We want to put it up for sale.

I am looking for a real estate agent which overs that area who also speaks English.

If anyone has any recommendations I would be very grateful.

Thanks.

This is rampant right now.

This last week connections to the US generally are terrible, and the same symptoms the original poster found persist on our servers also.

Strangely I can get different results at different times of the day, with web pages being served which are several days out of date, and then intermittently up to date pages...

Obviously it's a cheap way to save international bandwidth, but their caching is not only annoying and out of date, it's unreliably inconsistent.

Proxy servers are the way to go...

I would imagine the Import/customs duty is paid for by Apple. Would not worry about customs. Apple would have to state so in the Apple store if the end customer was expected to pay taxes/import duty. Which it does not on the Thailand store.

If the worst came to the worst just refuse delivery and take it up with apple.

I hear you. Logically it does appear that way, but we all know Thailand is not logical!

Also the prices match pretty close to the store prices here, but I like getting my stuff out of the box, rather than having some numpty in the store load all his favorite rubbish on it first!!

My main concern is ordering a couple hundred thousand baht worth of gear and having some chump at my door refusing to hand over goods until I cough up another 40,000 Baht plus their handling charge. The money, or taking it up with Apple is not the issue. It's the thought of watching my new toy going back in the lift because I will simply return it!

In any case if someone does actually do a large purchase and can post some feedback here I'd appreciate it. I won't be picking up my new 17" until next month anyway.

Has anyone bought from this service yet?

I am a bit confused about the sales tax situation, particularly as Thailand Customs guys seem to try and gouge money at every opportunity from any package that comes into the country..

I am keen to buy but am worried that when this thing arrives at my door I am going to have a nasty little man from UPS or Fedex asking for Thai Customs cut ontop..

Any experiences with actually getting a large purchase this way I'd love to hear about..

Thanks.

CLASS ACTION: in the normal circumstance, company and normal people can ask, in the court that who gives trouble must pay for the damage.

Ok we stay low 5.000 bat per day.....so 350.000x5.000x6= 10.500.000.000 Bath 233.000.000 of Euro. (How mach mister T. paid for the Manchester?).

But not from Thailand people, from the leader and from the guilty of don’t do nothings. Next time they thinks 10 times before make trouble again to the tourist. So let’s go start to send email whit yours agree and go to the international court!!!!!!

Not from Thailand. Not from the UK. Not from Germany. Not from France.

Only the US does such stupid things, and only for their own people.

Suing people and expecting handouts, rather than getting on with life, is why the US is in the mess it is in today.

Get over it.

You are a fool if you believe that judgment would have come in so clearly and so early had PAD not done what they have.

Are you telling me the judges did not rule based on law but becuase they wanted to have the airports returned?

No. I am telling you that the judges would have been manipulated to rule more in favour of PPP, and would in any event have taken longer to bring back any verdict (giving PPP time to change the constitution) unless PAD had pressured them.

The PAD has achieved nothing. Todays events have not bee achieved by the PAD, but the decision of the courts that was long awaited.

You are a fool if you believe that judgment would have come in so clearly and so early had PAD not done what they have.

It was refreshing to see a few people sticking up for Thailand in this thread. Particularly the retired gentleman posting a little above.

Thailand is the Thai peoples' country, and it is refreshing to see a country which actually does understand peacefull protesting and restraint in sensitive situations, rather than the western approach of police, gas and water cannons which seems so popular in so many increasingly fascist western regimes these days.

If I was on holiday here, rather than living here I'd have loved to have been forced to stay here a few more days.

As it is I run a business here which involves both tourism and shipping, and I don't have a single problem with PAD, or their actions, or any other facet of the Thai country and people. The only people that really irritated me this week were the ill informed, selfish and rude fallang in a lot of these threads.

I will go to sleep with a smile on my face tonight, knowing that there is still along way to go, but a line in the sand has been drawn.. Hopefully the Thaksin years are over now, all bar the wailing and venom of the extremists.

Okay, so we have their next target. And when the entire cabinet leaves office, what is their next target then?

The government is corrupt. Removing the PM who was not even in power when the crimes were committed is not by any means a solution.

PAD are right. They have always been right, and the courts have borne this fact out.

Calling something a democracy when it is not a democracy, does not make it one. Bought electoral seats are not democratic. Period.

Thailand is not, and has never been a democracy, and democracy does not work here in the way that westerners like yourself would like to imagine.

Get over it.

Allow me to highlight your own words.....PAD supporter

Calling something a democracy when it is not a democracy does not make it one

Feel free to highlight / quote my words. It can only make at least part of your post have at least some meaning, as opposed to the usual trolling rubbish you spout.

But perhaps you could actually clarify your point?

I am aware of a Pediatric Surgeon trying to get back to their home country as soon as possible. So far all of the operations that they were supposed to be doing this week on sick children have had to be cancelled. There comes a point when these types of situations move from a serious protest (I am all for the right of people to protest) to something that causes great harm to others. Please PAD, you have won a battle, dont do more harm in an all out attempt to win the entire war this way. It is not acceptable to hold so many people hostage in this way.

Pulease! I have been in and out of the country twice this last week.

If you need to you can do so...

Myself, and that pediatric surgeon are not package holiday makers who don't want to shell out a few quid, or are too lazy to sit on a bus for a while in order to achieve their aims.

Okay, so we have their next target. And when the entire cabinet leaves office, what is their next target then?

All Thaksin puppets no matter if TRT, TRT 2nd edition or TRT 3rd edition must leave.

And their children and their Childrens children , also any maid and drivers as well ,long way to go still

Absolutely. The rot is very very deeply rooted. Unfortunately PAD know this, and as unpopular as this may make them they are right.. I just hope the international community understands now with a supreme court verdict which is plain and simple for them to understand. TRT, PPP, and anything remotely associated with Thaksin stinks of corruption, and can in no way be called democracy.. Better to not have it than to have a sham!

Seriously what the hel_l more do they want? The PPP has been disbanded and Somchai Wongsawat has been removed as PM, wasn't that their goal the whole time? Just leave the airport already!!!

They want an end to corruption in government.

Okay, so we have their next target. And when the entire cabinet leaves office, what is their next target then?

The government is corrupt. Removing the PM who was not even in power when the crimes were committed is not by any means a solution.

PAD are right. They have always been right, and the courts have borne this fact out.

Calling something a democracy when it is not a democracy, does not make it one. Bought electoral seats are not democratic. Period.

Thailand is not, and has never been a democracy, and democracy does not work here in the way that westerners like yourself would like to imagine.

Get over it.

I can't agree more. PAD is pressuring the court to vote in their favour. The judges are people too. They know that not giving what the PAD wants will hurt the country, and there is a chance that they will give in.

Not withstanding the little fact that the courts should vote in their favour as it happens to be the correct decision.

Great photos, really shows the difference.

Yeah, big difference.

Warm, loving people:

"Scum" according to rainman:

Warm, loving people:

"Scum" according to rainman:

Warm, loving people:

"Scum" according to rainman:

Yep, whole lot of difference between them.

Nice post. Took the words right out of my mouth.

I guess they're supposed to vote for the PAD elite snobs who think everyone in the country is inferior to them, and are insisting on a system in which 30% of seats are elected and 'intelligent people'-which is them and their dictator leader-rule the entire country..

Wrong. Go do some reading.

Although, frankly, I don't have a problem with the system they *used to* propose. I wish we had it in the West.

However, they abandoned that some time ago because they (unlike the PPP) do actually listen to their supporters, rather than using them like cattle.

The problem with vote buying is the people willing to pay more always win... That is not a democracy, and it needs to be stamped out. Ask anyone who cares to discuss it 'up north' and they will very openly and clearly state they vote for whomever pays more... and that is *always* PPP.

As I have said before it's much easier to buy 1 million votes at a few hundred baht each, than buying 1 million votes in Bangkok. And that a democracy it does not make.