Yesterday, I took a tax refund cheque to the local KTB. They could not find any account for me.

 

° Be aware, you might lose your savings!

 

Am not amused... Can you please share your experiences and make suggestions?

 

Is this a "based on national origin" thing, not affecting Thais?

 

Is this limited to Krung Thai Bank?

Did you bring your bank book?

Were funds in the account?

This is a general answer, not specific to Krung Thai:

Banks in Thailand will generally close an account if there has been no customer-generated

 activity for a year. (Interest payments and service charges do not count as activity.) With some banks,you can avoid closure by maintaining a small minimum balance, the figure of B 2000 is common. In this case, they usually assess a service charge of say, B 50/month. Once the balance reaches zero, the account is closed.

None of the foregoing is specific to foreigners. To my knowledge, the banks can not keep the account holder's funds, at least not initially. There is presumably a statute of limitations that is reached at some point, after which the funds are theirs. I once inadvertently allowed an account to become closed. By going into my home branch, and making a deposit, I was able to reactivate it.

Edited August 16, 20187 yr by allane
x

9 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Did you bring your bank book?

No. It's mislaid. 

8 hours ago, Rc2702 said:

Were funds in the account?

You bet! - They found no trace of it and held my passport in hand and even entered the passport's #.

6 hours ago, allane said:

This is a general answer, not specific to Krung Thai:

Banks in Thailand will generally close an account if there has been no customer-generated

 activity for a year. (Interest payments and service charges do not count as activity.) With some banks,you can avoid closure by maintaining a small minimum balance, the figure of B 2000 is common. In this case, they usually assess a service charge of say, B 50/month. Once the balance reaches zero, the account is closed.

None of the foregoing is specific to foreigners. To my knowledge, the banks can not keep the account holder's funds, at least not initially. There is presumably a statute of limitations that is reached at some point, after which the funds are theirs. I once inadvertently allowed an account to become closed. By going into my home branch, and making a deposit, I was able to reactivate it.

I will try to do that!

4 hours ago, WonnabeBiker said:

I will try to do that!

How will you do that if you do not have the book and therefore presumably no idea of the account no?

 

Is it the same branch where you opened it and do you have an ATM card?

How much money was actually left in it?

 

Edit sorry I am confused now between you and @onlycw .............

Edited August 16, 20187 yr by topt

OP,

  Sounds like maybe you let the account go inactive for over 12 months "and" had less than Bt2,000 in it?  This would have triggered a Bt50/month maintenance fee on a savings account which continued until the account reached zero balance....then the account was closed.  And if you had a debit card with the account it probably had approx/at least a Bt200 annual fee that accelerated depletion of the balance.   See below from KTB fee schedule which is pretty standard policy for all Thai banks.

 

 

I recently contacted KTB to close an account from abroad, here is what they replied:

 

We would like to inform you that. you need to contact at branch directly. This procedure compled with Bank of Thailand regulatory.

Normally, if account balance is 0 and no movement over 1 year. We will auto close the said account.

Use it or lose it. same same with cellphone.