Cappella

I like the way thai medias always need to give the full name, I wouldn't like to be this poor girl and have this kind of unwanted advertising... I'm surprised they didn't also provide us with her full address....

Hi,

My company has been importing electronics from China for over a year now, we only pay customs & vat when the shipment is done through DHL or FedEx, none of the other shipments (registered air parcels) had any tax beside a small surcharge by the local post office if the package is larger/heavier than a certain size/weight (7 to 50 baht). Registered parcels usually arrive within 1-2 weeks, so we never bother to have shipments by DHL/FedEx anymore unless it's an emergency or very sensitive & expensive equipment.

Larger shipments (pallets, ...) that go through the customs are guaranteed to be taxed, it's also a long and painful process every time, and if they suspect there is a falang involved, they will try to screw you (happened multiple times to one of our customers), so we stay away from that kind of shipments.

These kinds of fake bills are widely available to purchase online, from Amazon and Ebay for example:

One example here with multiple links to other products on the page: http://www.amazon.com/Set-100-Million-Dollar-Bills/dp/B00B50PJVE

I think the US Embassy had a good laugh when they came ask them the authenticity of those...

As well you can purchase "fake" gold ingots (which are actually gold plated iron bars) for a few $, I wanted my GF to carry one in her handbag for the next time a motorcycle steals it form her (happened twice...), hoping the guy get caught trying to sell it back to a gold shop ;-) She said it's a wrong idea and feared it would lead to her being killed for trying to cheat on the thief...

One quote comes into my mind regarding attempts to reason with djjamie: "Don’t argue with idiots because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience", and I would add "and give them an opportunity to have a 35xx post count and be called advanced members" ;-)

Well... he's a gang member, and murdered the member of another gang after an argument... Maybe the police let him loose while monitoring him to catch more fishes? Or they don't care as long gang members murder each other?

For reference: http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuket-news/Three-teens-surrender-New-Years-Eve-gang/43963

There is a school near where I live, and there are 3 7-11, 4 small thai restaurants, 2 big thai pubs with band/food/drinks, 2 small terrace restaurants/pubs, all that within 300m of the school.... What would this law mean, no more alcohol sold even at 7-11???

I know Thais are lazy to walk... but 300m more to walk to get booze... I don't think that'll be a show stopper for them...

It makes me think about the movie Independence Day (ID4), when the Alien is asked "What do you want us to do?" ;-)

I passed by Huai Khwang night market about one hour and half ago with my girlfriend, and we were surprised to find about a hundred of police forcing all street sellers to pack and go away... She asked to one lady what's going on, she was told they don't have the right to sell on the street anymore and have to move to another market area (with a high rent to pay), and that it's the end for her as she can't afford pay such rent... It's quite sad, is that was they meant by "returning happiness to the people"?

Sending monthly allowance, then 634600 for a wedding ring for someone you never actually met in real... sounds... very dumb... I would bet the didn't have a girlfriend for a long time, was in deep depression and was not very sociable, that's the only explanation I can find...

"... attempt to cover up sexual violations and theft."

In a love hotel? huh?

While myself am very doubtful about quality of Chinese tourists, we can't put the actions of 5 on a whole nation (they are just 5 out of hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists), and there have been plenty of reports of credit card fraud by various other nationalities.

I would say count 70-80k Baht / month if you plan to live alone and be reasonable about going out (bars, disco, ...). Now mark my words: if you plan to get a thai girlfriend/wife you are extremely likely to need to double (or close to it) that amount unless she is mature woman has a good job with over average earnings, notions about foreign mentality and no greedy family behind. The most important is being able to keep active (work) and your head cool, which is not that easy.

Good luck :-)

Typical way for your "teerak" to get the insurance your money will go to her and her family and won't end up in the pocket of another thai lady... 2 months relation + isaan + pig farm... even being color blind I see big red flags...

You really helped me to save some money.

So, in order to avoid this 45 eur fee the one who sends the money can send 999 eur and the fee can be avoided.

Thanks

No, sorry as I said above, a comma was missing (and for some reason I can't edit my first post). there is a 4.5% fee whatever is the amount, if you receive 100€ the fee will be 4.5€, if you receive 500€, the fee will be 22.5€, if you receive 1000€ it will be 45€, if you receive 10000€ it will be 450€!!... Since international transfer cost between 30 and 50€ and clears in 2-3 business days, it's not interesting for amounts over 1000€

Personal account have lower fee for receiving money which is not business related (I forgot how they call it), however you'll get your account suspended pending verification if you use that method (that's what happened to my friend who had to pay the 4.5% in the end after having his money frozen for almost 3 months).

When someone sends me the money by PayPal, 4.5% fee is always cut.

It really did not matter if the amount was less or more 1000 eur.

Is there any cheaper way to send or receive money in Thailand than PayPal as I thought that this is the cheapest way?

I'm sorry, there was a comma missing in my sentence, I was saying indeed there is a 4.5% commission taken by paypal on all payments received. And I meant that for amounts over 1000 Euros the commission (45€) becomes higher than the fee for an international wire transfer.

It's true that a company account is not required for a company, but for a paypal company account a company bank account is. Personal accounts may be suspended by paypal pending verifications, and they can get pretty annoying, I have a friend who had a very bad experience and had over 5000€ frozen for almost 3 months doing business on a paypal personal account (he was in Thailand). I would only recommend doing business using a business account.

Hi,

I have been using a Paypal Business account for several years, it's working perfect for me. Takes about 1 week to withdraw from paypal to bank account. You need a registered company in Thailand and a company bank account in a Thai bank. Note that there is a 4.5% paypal fee on receiving payments for amounts larger than 1000€ an international wire transfer is usually better.

David.

342 Millions Baht for this :-)

Hi,

Here is my first experience with DTAC 3G:

I'm working on Silom, this morning I got the 3G signal (full bars) on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S2), and I got an internet unlimited package.

Signal has been pretty unstable since the morning, switching between 3G and 2G, even some period with no signal at all...

I was unable to get any 3G Data connection until 11:45am (It would switch between E / 3G / H / H+ and even sometimes going to G (gprs!!!)), only Edge was working.

Calls were problematic this morning : unable to call, able to call but extremely bad quality or calls being dropped, and unable to send sms. For the last half hour however, I've been able to make and receive calls with very good quality... hope the problem is fixed.

Since now I'm able to get the H+ data connection working, here are some speed tests (I only put test results where the data connection was H+ all the way around, got a few test where it would switch to Edge in the middle):

Latency (ms) / Download (Kbps) / Upload (Kbps)

546 / 105 / 459

178 / 78 / Fail

70 / 297 / 2341

72 / 905 / 2024

76 / 615 / 768

227 / 597 / 876

579 / 809 / 265

426 / 107 / 437

Results are not really consistent, I hope they work on improving this since it's their first day. However I could see some nice upload speeds (2M+), but a bit disappointed by download, while I'm getting between 700 & 1500Kbps with True, I didn't see anything higher than 600Kbps with DTAC.

Also, DTAC advertises HSPA+ up to 42Mbps, my phone supports up to 21Mbps, during the tests, the connection to the antenna was only 7.2Mbps (dial *#0011# on the SGS2 and "HSPA+ used: 1")

But well, can't complain too much on launch day ;-) specially considering how bad the Edge service has been here recently

David.

Hi Raymond,

I went to a French National day celebreation in a restaurant called La Paillote 2 years ago, It was pretty good and the good place to meet french expats! I checked their website they organize another special dinner one this year. I'm not sure if it's allowed to post links here, but you can find it easily by searching for "French Restaurant Hua Hin" on Google.

Hope it helps,

David.