connda

I paid the Thai equivalent of $10K from my car. It gets over 50+ mph. A typical trip to the dealer for the check-up and oil changes cost between 2K to 4K THB. What you should have said is, "Cars are status symbols and the most status conscious consumers pour their hard earned cash into their status symbol's money pit." There - fixed it! Much more accurate.

If I purchase in EV I'll purchase the most cost effective make and model. Which means I'll probably be purchasing a Chinese BYD. Why? The Chinese are going to beat the pants off of the Western EV technology as well as being able to manufacture them for less money therefore providing consumers with a significant discount compared to Western models. "We hate the Chinese commies and their c**p products. Grrrr!" Yeah - I know. But I have no problems with either the Chinese or their products. So - feel free to pay a premium in order to "show them Chinese commies a thing or two."

I'm afraid that you are just being snarky, as well as wrong. Your information is dated and incorrect. The procedures have changed. They will not accept a bank draft. They clearly state that you MUST use the Pay.gov site in order to pay for the DS-82 passport renewal. https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/1156527186/ They will not accept a prepaid return envelope. They clearly state that you MUST use the ThaiPostMart Courier Pass-Back Envelope for the US Embassy Bangkok. https://www.thailandpostmart.com/product/1013460000929 And they clearly state - on the renewal checklist - to include the "Printout of the electronic confirmation" from the Pay.gov passport renewal receipt and your ThaiPostMart receipt in with your passport renewal package, as well as to write the invoice number on the DS-82 Checklist which must be included in the passport renewal package as well. (screenshot below) So to anyone who is reading this and planning on doing a US passport renewal soon. If you believe like thesetat that I "seem to either not be able to read or perhaps unable to interpret what you read," well, do it thesetat's way - find out! "Where do they 'clearly state' that! I don't think you know how to read or to interpret what you read." Whatever - RTFI: https://th.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/passports/instructions-for-ds-82-processing-by-mail-and-online-fee-payment-for-u-s-citizens-residing-in-thailand/ What some of the snarkier members here don't seen to realize is that - procedures change - and if you don't stay on top of the changes, well - find out! So read through my adventures, follow the procedures, check to see if the procedures have changed since now (June 2024), and follow the directions that the U.S. Embassy Bangkok provides to the letter - or - find out!

His immigration officer is being a jerk. As we often read on the Thai Immigration threads, individual offices and individual IOs can deliberately try to make your life difficult for no other reason then to be malicious, i.e., there is nothing in the police orders requiring something like this, but they make up their own rules. It's just them being petty and spiteful because they don't like foreigners so the go out of their way to make life difficult. Thank goodness the majority of immigration offices are not like this.

Useful link. Thanks!

According to what I've read, there are less Passport Renewals submitted late in the year, therefore they can process the renewals faster. This time of year (pre-summer-vacation) they get swamped. So I fully expect to wait the 6 to 8 weeks.

They don't. They have no inside track to the US Embassy and can not "expedite" a passport renewal.

You post is akin to those members who have to act like the Grammar Police and the Spelling Police. I should ask the Mods to remove your posts as it is not helpful and offer nothing to this thread other than to be snarky, like the Grammar Police. Let's not go any further with this. You know exactly what I meant. I don't like playing word game. Let's not do it any more. Thanks!

As I said - you yourself are filled with hatred of the global Muslim population which you refer to as a "cancer on the world" . Perhaps you should work on your own hatred of Muslims before projecting "hatred" on to those with whom you disagree. I harbor no hatred for any race, ethnicity, or religion. It's sort of antithetical for a Buddhist such as myself to hate other sentient beings. But, I support global efforts to end war as well as to end the genocidal killing and murder of any civilian population regardless of who is doing that genocidal killing, why they are doing it, or where they are doing it - globally.

I have no "vehement hatred" of anyone. You project your own "vehement hatred" of Palestinians Arabs and Christians on to me. No - I'm pro-humanity. And I'm anti-genocide as genocide is a crime against humanity. And the genocide needs to stop - now! The International Court of Justice has called for the immediate ending of the killing, the withdrawal of the IDF, and and opening of the Gaza borders. That's not hatred. That's compassion. If you believe that the calls for the end of genocide of the Palestinian civilian population is "vehement hatred?" Well - then only God can help you, as you have lost your moral compass as well as your humanity.

Ah - if you are Anti-genocide, if you are appalled by the slaughter of Palestinian civilians - especially women, children, and babies with no ties to the military branch of the Hamas insurgency - real, true, ethnic Semitic Palestinians who can trace their ancestry in the land claimed by European Jews in 1948, back hundreds if not a thousand or more years...yes if you are aghast at the leveling of Gaza with 2000 lbs bombs making Gaza uninhabitable, if you are astonished by the purposeful blowing-up of mosques, universities, schools and civilian government buildings as well as the bombing of Palestinian tent cities in makeshift refugee camps, if you are shocked by the utter inhumanity of the siege starvation and the cutting off of water supplies to the Palestinian civilian population as collective punishment, if you are stunned by the killing of Palestinian civilians at a rate of tens of Palestinian lives for each Israeli live lost in the October 7th Hamas insurgency, if you dare to criticize the Israeli government for it barbaric ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza - then you are a "Anti-Semite!" And lets not even talk about what is happening to Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct 7th. Then you'd be an Anti-Semite X 2. Well, in that case I'm in good company as about 134 countries out of the 193 in the UN voted for Palestine to join the UN, with more countries supporting the ICJ's "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip," with many of those countries breaking off diplomatic relations with the Israeli government in response to the genocide of Palestinian civilians, and now openly recognizing Palestine as a sovereign nation - yes, I'm in good company as people like yourself will infer that the majority of the world's population who are shocked by the wanton killing and starvation of Palestinian civilians by the IDF and the Israeli government are all - "Anti-Semitic."

Really. What are they going to do other then take it right down to the bottom like the HTMS Sukhothai? That ship should have never sunk. That fact it did speaks volumes.

Russian President Putin has made Russia's red-line clear to Western leaders. Defensive nukes are on the table. In one of the stupidest moves of the Ukraine war, Ukraine launched drones and hit two of Russia's Over-The-Horizon Early Warning radars which are the tripwires which watch for Western first-strike ballistic missile launches. I've checked the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists regarding the Doomsday Clock but nothing is recent and it does not take in account the latest developments of the attack on Russian nuclear deterrence infrastructure. The Doomsday Clock is still officially at 90 seconds to midnight. Personally I believe with the strikes on Russian nuclear Early Warning radars that clock has move to about 15 seconds from midnight. Do you believe we will see a nuclear Armageddon before 2025, or do you think we'll all still be around this time next year. Why? Personally - I'd say there is about an 90% chance that we collectively won't see the New Year. But I hope I'm wrong. Thoughts? Please keep it civil. Thanks.

Ideologue: "No one used Lawfare against the person I hate, but the person I love is being attacked with Lawfare by other people I hate. Grrrrrrr." Now go back a read what I said because you obviously didn't grasp it the first time around: Lawfare -- regardless of whom it is directed at -- is going to destroy the United States as a functioning Democracy.

Yes - there ya go. All those women and children terrorists need to be slaughtered, and every last one of the 1 million Gazans who haven't been neutralized are all terrorists. Just ask Benny Gantz. If 1 Israeli is killed, then kill 30 Gaza civilians. That will show Palestinian women and children to stop their civilian terrorism. And all those terrorist children - kill them all I say, even the one's in diapers! And blow their schools up too to stop terrorist education. That's the ticket. Lindsey Grahams got the best idea. Just nuke all the sub-human civilian Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and let God sort them out. Or maybe just gas them all then incinerate them. Nah - nukes do the same thing but with less hassle. How's that work for you Mike? Sound about right?

Yeah - I wrote a note in Thai and put it on the top of the 90 day report paperwork. They just told me they didn't know why, in Thai, when they handed back the receipt. Oh well.

Anybody can "teach" Buddhism; living Buddhism is a different story.

Call Hollywood. Make a movie!

You mean like the open-air concentration camp called Gaza? I remember when there was a wall like the one surrounding Gaza built to separate East and West Berlin. How the liberal West howled! Gaza is now essentially a ghetto and the slaughter of civilians a pogrom. The irony is simply off the charts.

Kill another 10,000 Palestinian civilians - that'll show those Hamas terrorist!

Like I said - the person on the end of the customer service line basically speaks the corporate "script" that is given to them. They don't "lie." They tell you want they are told to tell you! You were rude to someone who has very little control over your transaction so you belittled them - you need to be lectured. Complain to management. You don't seem to grasp how corporate customer service actually works: who has power, and who does not.

If a company in the West can manufacture products at a lower price which then benefits consumer's pocketbooks - it's called Free Market Capitalism. If companies in China manufacture products at a lower price which then benefits consumer's pocketbooks - it's called a "commo-fascist dictatorship" by Western ideologues. Blinken said it, Yellen said it, the Biden Administration says it, even Orange-Man-Bad says it. Must be true, 'eh. "Sanction China!" and if that doesn't work, "Nuke them!!!" That's where it's going. But in my book? The U.S. can no longer compete in the game of Free Market Capitalism because during the last few decades, all of the most greedy U.S. corporations off-shored all of their manufacturing to "errrr" 🤔... China ... and literally gutted the U.S. manufacturing base. Now that a McDonald's employee can command $20/hour flipping burgers in California, and the cost of living is so inflated that U.S. citizens who have jobs still end up living on the street (while illegal "migrant" get hotel rooms to help offset the slave labor wages they are paid under the table to do "jobs that no U.S. citizen will do" <because U.S. citizens are already broke and don't get free housing>) - trust me - manufacturing (other than bombs, missiles and weapons of mass-destruction) isn't coming back to the U.S. because they simply can not compete given the cost of labor as well as inflated cost of raw materials produced in the U.S.. "China bad - China over-product!!!" "Horse-pucky. They have beaten Western capitalists at their own game and now they cry to the U.S. government to hurt China any way that they can - because Western capitalists can't compete in the Global Free Market any longer. Hey kids. Do wake up - it's an new world and it ain't your grandma's and grandpa's world any longer. It's the world of economically developing BRICS-based nations led by the billion-plus citizens of China and the billion-plus citizens of India who will be manufacturing affordable products for the other 7 billion people on the planet who are not part of "The West." If "The West" can't compete and doesn't want to play? <shrug> Then they can just continue to create more misery and suffering for their own impoverish citizens as the U.S. middle-class is decimated by inflation and unable to enjoy the benefits of inexpensive BRICS manufactured products due to duties and tariff. "Never support the commo-fascist dictatorship that locks up people for religious & political beliefs" (Like Julian Assange? Like pro-live protestors praying in front of abortion clinics) and seeks to invade and occupy other people's territory (like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Granada, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yeman, Somolia, Sudan, Afghanistan....). Don't buy their products. (Feel free to buy expensive products for the West).

No - they are producing products at competitive prices that Western nations can not match. Therefore, the US and other Western nations complain that China is "dumping over-production" when in fact they are economically out-competing the West - and the US and the G7 are crying like babies and threatening China with sanctions, tariff, and outright war. Which is basically the bell-weather of the fall of Western economic dominance. The West can not longer competed in a a free-market. 😭

I've worked 1st tier customer service in the past - getting angry at the rep for the corporate policies and customer service talking points is stupid and rude. It's not the person on the other end of the phone's fault. If you want to spew shade at someone, get the address (email or snail mail) of the corporate head of Consumer Affairs and write to them. Swearing and threatening the guy or gal on the help-desk is, again - stupid and rude. Really, there are ways to handle your complain and the way you handled it is not effective. Just friendly advice. Stay calm, work with the person on the customer service desk, if you are not happy (and wish to cuss at someone) ask to be put in contact with a supervisor. Easy. Btw - the customer service rep you spoke with showed you the kind of restraint you yourself should practice. Corporate policy and technical affairs are NOT their fault. Be civil.

Sometimes it's the receiving bank. Sometimes it's the sending bank. You need to take in account both your home-country holidays and Thai holidays as well as weekend banking and operating hours. I've waited as much as 5 days for a transfer to take place. It happens sometimes. But usually - seconds. Patience is your friend.