Today my buddy and I went to our usual border crossing behind CHanthaburi where no one ever goes to, I for my 90 days on my Non Immigrant B, and he to try to see if he could make a fourth crossing. No go, The officer, who had warned my friend last month that it was his final month, wouldn't stamp him out, so starting tomorrow he is on an overstay. Wouldn't even agree to seven days. THe officer, who is always a nice guy politely explained to him to go to Lao, Vietnam, wherever, to get a visa. After he stamped me out, he came out of the office, grabbed my passport and showed my friend my visa. "Get one of these and you won't have any more problems " he said. So I went into Cambodia to shop for junk and my friend waited in the car. Bummer..

Tiger:

Sorry to hear that. I hope your friend can find a way out.

Sincerely,

BR

Why on Earth take such a risk by pushing it to try and get his 4th 90-dayer, ESPECIALLY after being warned after his 3rd?

Now on overstay, no matter where he goes to try and apply for a tourist visa is going to raise an eyebrow and be possible cause for rejection of that application.

Seems like a terribly risky gamble... and he's lost.

Edited January 11, 200719 yr by sriracha john

Well, not sure why he took the risk, said he had been too busy, was ill, etc.. But I just wanted people to know that they are serious about this three entries business, at least at Nam Pong Ron anyway, which is a backwater. Best to get a visa and don't try to get another month if you have done 90 days already.

The officer did say that the maximum overstay was 20k baht, but he highly recommended not overstaying for more than a week,,

No probs at all if you have a visa, they never question me at all, even after three years of visiting every ninety days.. Never once have they asked me what I am doing here, but there are so few farangs in Chanthaburi that I get the feeling they may actually like us at that particular border crossing..

T.

Well, not sure why he took the risk, said he had been too busy, was ill, etc.. But I just wanted people to know that they are serious about this three entries business, at least at Nam Pong Ron (actually it's Pong Nam Ron ) anyway, which is a backwater. Best to get a visa and don't try to get another month if you have done 90 days already.

The officer did say that the maximum overstay was 20k baht, but he highly recommended not overstaying for more than a week,,

No probs at all if you have a visa, they never question me at all, even after three years of visiting every ninety days.. Never once have they asked me what I am doing here, but there are so few farangs in Chanthaburi that I get the feeling they may actually like us at that particular border crossing..

T.

Yes, with a proper visa, haven't heard of any reports of difficulties encountered at any border crossing. And a definite YES, that any overstay should be avoided, particularly in light of the recent focus on VOA changes. It'd be a real shame if he's denied a tourist visa because he was "too busy" to get one when he should have.

btw... I prefer using Pong Nam Ron myself, too...

Well, not sure why he took the risk, said he had been too busy, was ill, etc.. But I just wanted people to know that they are serious about this three entries business, at least at Nam Pong Ron anyway, which is a backwater. Best to get a visa and don't try to get another month if you have done 90 days already.

The officer did say that the maximum overstay was 20k baht, but he highly recommended not overstaying for more than a week,,

No probs at all if you have a visa, they never question me at all, even after three years of visiting every ninety days.. Never once have they asked me what I am doing here, but there are so few farangs in Chanthaburi that I get the feeling they may actually like us at that particular border crossing..

T.

A couple of years ago I had an overstay of 4 days. I had good reasons for it and all that, but it still gave me trouble. I had no problem at the airport, where a friendly officer told me that even if someone overstayed "for years", the maximum fine they would give him would be 20.000 baht... that is, if he was found out whilst going out of the country. However, if he was caught for whatever reason (accident, routinary id checks, etc), the overstayer would be in deep sh.t (I think he actually said big trouble).

He said I shouldn't have any problems to get a new N.I.-B in Hong Kong, where I was going.

Wrong.

They gave me a hard time, refused to give me more than 1 entry, valid for three months and I had to write a long letter explaining in detail how I had come to the situation that took me to overstaying. When I brought that letter in (I had to go and write it out of the Embassy), I was interviewed by a lady, very unfriendly at the beginning, who eventually accepted my explanations but "mai pen rai" was not in the air for a second.

Too late for your friend, but hopefully others who read this won't make the same mistake of thinking that they can get away with a relatively short overstay without any trouble.

A lot less trouble was the time when I was leaving on the last day of my visa, on one of the usual late night flights to Europe, and the immigration officer took quite a long time looking at my passport. Finally, she decided to send me into the "bad boys area". I had no clue as to why. The officer there also took quite a while to look at every page in my passport, without uttering a word. Obviously I wasn't too comfortable with that. Finally his face went into a big smile "ah, your visa finish -whatever date it was- and now already 12:15, so you overstay 15 minutes!". He laughed and stamped me through without any problems, but even for something like that I'd make sure to pass the immigration control before midnight. Better safe than sorry.

Why on Earth take such a risk by pushing it to try and get his 4th 90 30-dayer ( He stayed 3 times a' 30 days = 90 days ), ESPECIALLY after being warned after his 3rd?

Now on overstay, no matter where he goes to try and apply for a tourist visa is going to raise an eyebrow and be possible cause for rejection of that application.

Seems like a terribly risky gamble... and he's lost.

And... Yes, Pong Nam Ron feels more like a Pong Nam Yen ...

Why on Earth take such a risk by pushing it to try and get his 4th 30-dayer, ESPECIALLY after being warned after his 3rd?

Now on overstay, no matter where he goes to try and apply for a tourist visa is going to raise an eyebrow and be possible cause for rejection of that application.

Seems like a terribly risky gamble... and he's lost.

I have used that border crossing before too. The guys there are pretty nice and it was nice of them to warn your friend not to go out. That would have been a big hassle to go from there to Battambang and then try to get a flight out as I doubt Pnom Phen is issuing Thai Tourist Visas, Im still waiting to see the guys from Ko Chang and the Eastern Seaboard get jammed up over there at Cham Yeam but I havent heard anything as of yet. I know it will be costing my old friends at the Cambodian Immigration a big chunk of money since they had hundreds of regular 30 days costumers. Maybe the whole thing is a conspiracy by the Railroad Mafia to force guys to ride the trains