BREAKING NEWS British Embassy Bangkok to Stop Certification of Income Letters

[luckyluke]

^

Not at the Austrian Consulate in Pattaya. 

 

After checking the documents, the Income Letter is established by the Consulate, signed by the Honorary Consul or the Vice-Consul. 

I don't sign nothing myself. 

Well it has been like that for me for the last seven years. 

Have to do my extension before 09.02.2019,

Will see. 

[wayned]

26 minutes ago, Maestro said:

Is this what is colloquially called "legalisation of a document", meaning that

1. a consular official checks your identity
2. the official watches you sign the document (affidavit) in his presence
3. the official affixes a stamp to the document with a text stating that you are the per person signing the document, and he signs this statement.

In other words, an authentication of your signature, nothing more and nothing less.

That's exactly what the US Income Affidavit is with one addition.  You are required to swear under oath with a threat of a penalty of perjury if  the information is not true.  The penalty is up to 5 years in prison but I doubt that anybody has ever been accused of it.

 

As far as certifying any individual document other than the US Passport, their position is that any certification has to be done by the issuing agency in the US and it is not their job to try to do this.  I could get my private pension letter notarized by the issuing agency, Sony Corporation of America, in the US.  Most likely a notary seal by the company notary, Joe Smuckatello, in Patterson New Jersey, but the Thai government would never accept that.  I could never get my yearly SSA pension letter certified by the SSA.Therefore the rock and a hard place regarding the income letters.

[Maestro]

If I remember correctly the statement issued by the British embassy, this is what happened: 

1. In a meeting of an embassy official with an immigration official, the immigration official said that immigration understands the embassy letter to be a statement that the embassy verified the income indicated in the letter.
2. The embassy official replied, honestly, that the embassy did not, in fact, verify the income and issues the letter exclusively on the basis of documents shown by the applicant.
3. Fearing legal complications in the future, the embassy decided to cease the issuance of the embassy letter.

Therefore, as regards the embassies of other countries, as long as the embassy of a country is comfortable in pretending that they are verifying the applicant's income and in future stating in the embassy letter specifically that they have verified the income, nothing should change for the nationals of that country.

[Maestro]

18 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

^

Not at the Austrian Consulate in Pattaya. 

 

After checking the documents, the Income Letter is established by the Consulate, signed by the Honorary Consul or the Vice-Consul. 

I don't sign nothing myself. 

Well it has been like that for me for the last seven years. 

Have to do my extension before 09.02.2019,

Will see. 

Thank you for this clarification. I see it more clearly now.

[luckyluke]

18 minutes ago, Maestro said:

comfortable in pretending that they are verifying

We Belgians have only one Office of Pension. 

The Vice-Consul of the Austrian Consulate knows that and is familiar with these documents. 

So she check my print out of my yearly payments by the Office of Pension. 

Check that all the monthly paid amounts (with a reference number) appears as income on a print out of my Belgian Bank account(amounts with reference numbers). 

She do nothing more. 

Of course one can pretend that  both documents can be forged and that the Vice-Consul, with 10 years experience, is not able to see that it is a forgery. 

[Maestro]

12 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

We Belgians have only one Office of Pension. 

The Vice-Consul of the Austrian Consulate knows that and is familiar with these documents. 

So she check my print out of my yearly payments by the Office of Pension. 

Check that all the monthly paid amounts (with a reference number) appears as income on a print out of my Belgian Bank account(amounts with reference numbers). 

She do nothing more. 

Of course one can pretend that  both documents can be forged and that the Vice-Consul, with 10 years experience, is not able to see that it is a forgery. 

4

Here's hoping for you that the Austrian consulate will continue this procedure, with the modification that in future the embassy letter will include the magical word "verified"

[luckyluke]

6 minutes ago, Maestro said:

Here's hoping for you that the Austrian consulate will continue this procedure, with the modification that in future the embassy letter will include the magical word "verified"

Will see,

now the Austrian Consulate don't write the word "verified" but "declare" that my monthly income is xxxxx. 

 

Surprised that other Europeans who use the Austrian Consulate in Pattaya don't comment here. 

[wayned]

15 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

Will see,

now the Austrian Consulate don't write the word "verified" but "declare" that my monthly income is xxxxx. 

 

Surprised that other Europeans who use the Austrian Consulate in Pattaya don't comment here. 

If it working, don't fix it and don't make it public!

[luckyluke]

^

Indeed,

I am a member of a Flanders/Thailand and a Holland/Thailand forum. 

Not a word on those fora about the British-Americans embassies problems. 

Nobody is even worried it may eventually happens to others than these 2 nationalities. 

Time will tell. 

 

 

[Mike Teavee]

1 hour ago, luckyluke said:

We Belgians have only one Office of Pension. 

The Vice-Consul of the Austrian Consulate knows that and is familiar with these documents. 

So she check my print out of my yearly payments by the Office of Pension. 

Check that all the monthly paid amounts (with a reference number) appears as income on a print out of my Belgian Bank account(amounts with reference numbers). 

She do nothing more. 

Of course one can pretend that  both documents can be forged and that the Vice-Consul, with 10 years experience, is not able to see that it is a forgery. 

That sounds easy enough for Official Pensions, but what about Belgian's who get their income from other pensions/sources, is she 100% familiar & would be able to spot a forgery with those?

 

Obviously the answer is no, so hand-on-heart cannot 100% say that she can verify all income for all Belgian's (Unless the official Pension statement is the only income that any Belgian in Thailand has ever used for Income verification).

 

You can see where I'm going with this, your case may be very simple (as are the 1,000s of UK Pensioners living here drawing State or Military Pensions) but there are cases with your countrymen that are not & so there is a risk that your Consulate will also have to stop providing the letters or stop accepting these other forms of income (I truly hope not).

 

However, I think your biggest risk is that Thai Immigration get used to validating extension requests by looking at the underlying income proof and ask you to provide it (which they could do nowadays) which I'm assuming would mean you getting it translated & notarized.

 

 

FWIW, I believe that they will move to wanting to see the 800/400K on deposit or income coming into a Thai Bank Account as this is by far the easiest thing for them to get 99% verifiable proof of [A Bank letter produced within the previous 24 hours showing the amount on deposit or evidence of incoming deposits & stamped with the Bank's official stamp is pretty near impossible to forge]...

 

Edited October 29, 2018 by Mike Teavee

[soalbundy]

1 hour ago, Maestro said:

Here's hoping for you that the Austrian consulate will continue this procedure, with the modification that in future the embassy letter will include the magical word "verified"

The German embassy letter uses words as :-

 

documents seen

certify

is receiving

 

verify doesn't raise its head but has worked for 13 years

[Mike Teavee]

17 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

The German embassy letter uses words as :-

 

documents seen

certify

is receiving

 

verify doesn't raise its head but has worked for 13 years

And no doubt there will be Brits & Americans along shortly to tell you that theirs has worked even longer.

 

Times are changing & it's not difficult to see that IF Brits & Americans move to using income verified in Thailand by being deposited into a Thai Bank Account then Thai Immigration would look to standardize Income verification by having all countries do the same (Whether they provide an income letter or not).

 

You would then end up with the situation where all Retirement/Marriage extensions are simply supported by letters from local banks (& written in Thai) - How much easier would that make their jobs?

 

[soalbundy]

7 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

That sounds easy enough for Official Pensions, but what about Belgian's who get their income from other pensions/sources, is she 100% familiar & would be able to spot a forgery with those?

 

Obviously the answer is no, so hand-on-heart cannot 100% say that she can verify all income for all Belgian's (Unless the official Pension statement is the only income that any Belgian in Thailand has ever used for Income verification).

 

You can see where I'm going with this, your case may be very simple (as are the 1,000s of UK Pensioners living here drawing State or Military Pensions) but there are cases with your countrymen that are not & so there is a risk that your Consulate will also have to stop providing the letters or stop accepting these other forms of income (I truly hope not).

 

However, I think your biggest risk is that Thai Immigration get used to validating extension requests by looking at the underlying income proof and ask you to provide it (which they could do nowadays) which I'm assuming would mean you getting it translated & notarized.

 

 

FWIW, I believe that they will move to wanting to see the 800/400K on deposit or income coming into a Thai Bank Account as this is by far the easiest thing for them to get 99% verifiable proof of [A Bank letter produced within the previous 24 hours showing the amount on deposit or evidence of incoming deposits & stamped with the Bank's official stamp is pretty near impossible to forge]...

 

Posts here float the idea that forgery is easy and almost normal, forgery requires criminal energy and a certain mind set that I and I'm sure the overwhelming majority don't have. How are you to notarize your documents in your home country when you are in Thailand ?  This, if possible, would be expensive and complicated, let us take it to the extreme, who verifies that the notary is real ? Not even the bible is verifiable and yet in court one swears to tell the truth placing ones hand on it. There is a cafe situated inside a court house in Munich, its name, 'cafe Meineid' (Meineid translated = perjury) Without trust there can be no verification. 

[Mike Teavee]

1 minute ago, soalbundy said:

Posts here float the idea that forgery is easy and almost normal, forgery requires criminal energy and a certain mind set that I and I'm sure the overwhelming majority don't have. How are you to notarize your documents in your home country when you are in Thailand ?  This, if possible, would be expensive and complicated, let us take it to the extreme, who verifies that the notary is real ? Not even the bible is verifiable and yet in court one swears to tell the truth placing ones hand on it. There is a cafe situated inside a court house in Munich, its name, 'cafe Meineid' (Meineid translated = perjury) Without trust there can be no verification. 

The point is not so much whether forgery is happening (and I suspect false declarations are happening more with the US Embassy than people providing false documents to the British one) but whether forgery could reasonably happen and so whether the Embassy can legitimately verify the documents.

 

E.g. The British Embassy accepted my Payslips from my Job in Singapore as proof of income, not only are these computer generated PDFs that would be simple to alter but they only contain plain text so could easily be mocked up without having to mess around with getting the correct images.

 

Added to this, these are then scanned & emailed further reducing the already minimal quality of the documents so would be impossible to spot any reasonable forgery.

 

[I was actually concerned about the quality of the documentation I was sending to them, so sent them from my corporate email account to provide some additional evidence that I worked there - obviously this is not difficult to spoof either]

 

I'm not saying forgery is happening on mass, but it's not difficult to do so I don't blame the British Embassy for saying that they cannot 100% verify that the income documents they are being provided are 100% legitimate

[soalbundy]

5 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

And no doubt there will be Brits & Americans along shortly to tell you that theirs has worked even longer.

 

Times are changing & it's not difficult to see that IF Brits & Americans move to using income verified in Thailand by being deposited into a Thai Bank Account then Thai Immigration would look to standardize Income verification by having all countries do the same (Whether they provide an income letter or not).

 

You would then end up with the situation where all Retirement/Marriage extensions are simply supported by letters from local banks (& written in Thai) - How much easier would that make their jobs?

 

and there would be entrepreneurial agents who would find a way around that as well, I repeat, nothing can be verified.

[soalbundy]

2 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

The point is not so much whether forgery is happening (and I suspect false declarations are happening more with the US Embassy than people providing false documents to the British one) but whether forgery could reasonably happen and so whether the Embassy can legitimately verify the documents.

 

E.g. The British Embassy accepted my Payslips from my Job in Singapore as proof of income, not only are these computer generated PDFs that would be simple to alter but they only contain plain text so could easily be mocked up without having to mess around with getting the correct images.

 

Added to this, these are then scanned & emailed further reducing the already minimal quality of the documents so would be impossible to spot any reasonable forgery.

 

[I was actually concerned about the quality of the documentation I was sending to them, so sent them from my corporate email account to provide some additional evidence that I worked there - obviously this is not difficult to spoof either]

 

I'm not saying forgery is happening on mass, but it's not difficult to do so I don't blame the British Embassy for saying that they cannot 100% verify that the income documents they are being provided are 100% legitimate

Nobody can, anywhere, with anything, a certain amount of reasonable trust is required, it all boils down to what is reasonable.

[soalbundy]

16 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

The point is not so much whether forgery is happening (and I suspect false declarations are happening more with the US Embassy than people providing false documents to the British one) but whether forgery could reasonably happen and so whether the Embassy can legitimately verify the documents.

 

E.g. The British Embassy accepted my Payslips from my Job in Singapore as proof of income, not only are these computer generated PDFs that would be simple to alter but they only contain plain text so could easily be mocked up without having to mess around with getting the correct images.

 

Added to this, these are then scanned & emailed further reducing the already minimal quality of the documents so would be impossible to spot any reasonable forgery.

 

[I was actually concerned about the quality of the documentation I was sending to them, so sent them from my corporate email account to provide some additional evidence that I worked there - obviously this is not difficult to spoof either]

 

I'm not saying forgery is happening on mass, but it's not difficult to do so I don't blame the British Embassy for saying that they cannot 100% verify that the income documents they are being provided are 100% legitimate

A round table is only circular when viewed from above, from the side it's an ellipse. 

[Mike Teavee]

22 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Nobody can, anywhere, with anything, a certain amount of reasonable trust is required, it all boils down to what is reasonable.

Yes & how trustworthy would you consider the Embassy to be if they said they’d verified the income shown to them when they haven’t (& the US Embassy makes it very clear that they don’t).

Edited October 29, 2018 by Mike Teavee
Morning typing skills

[luckyluke]

Wait and See. 

So far

no announcement from other embassies or consulates;

no proclamation from the Thai Immigration. 

Raise the question if eventually T. I. has only spoken to 2 embassies? 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2018 by luckyluke

[logres212]

4 hours ago, Maestro said:

Is this what is colloquially called "legalisation of a document", meaning that

1. a consular official checks your identity
2. the official watches you sign the document (affidavit) in his presence
3. the official affixes a stamp to the document with a text stating that you are the per person signing the document, and he signs this statement.

In other words, an authentication of your signature, nothing more and nothing less.

Yes, that's exactly right. As they said they do not issue income letters, and therefore don't require any other documents to verify what's written on the stat Dec, as a stat dec can apply to many other things besides income statement. I always have backup documents with me, attending embassy or immigration, but have never had to produce them. Did my extension a week ago at Khon kaen no problems as always, but who knows what the future holds.

[Tanoshi]

4 hours ago, luckyluke said:

^

Not at the Austrian Consulate in Pattaya. 

 

After checking the documents, the Income Letter is established by the Consulate, signed by the Honorary Consul or the Vice-Consul. 

I don't sign nothing myself. 

Well it has been like that for me for the last seven years. 

Have to do my extension before 09.02.2019,

Will see.  

And that is the same procedure as the UK Embassy.

[luckyluke]

4 minutes ago, Tanoshi said:

And that is the same procedure as the UK Embassy.

So, it seems that the T.I. is apparently selective.

At least so far.

Lot of speculations as we are kept in the dark.

[Tanoshi]

2 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

So, it seems that the T.I. is apparently selective.

At least so far.

Lot of speculations as we are kept in the dark.

No, I believe all Embassies will be aware of the situation.

 

The key word 'verification' of income expressed by Thai Immigration, is an impossibility for any Embassy to comply with.

Whilst the UK and US have therefore withdrawn the service for legal reasons, other Embassies may well have taken the alternative option to continue with their service and put the onus on Immigration to refuse the Income letters as not being 'verified' income.

 

I believe some mind games are at play between Embassies and Thai Immigration at the moment.

[wayned]

20 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

So, it seems that the T.I. is apparently selective.

It not the TI that has stopped the Income letters from the BE and USE, it's the consular twits that work there that have announced that the letters will no longer be issued without any attempt to negotiate An acceptable plan with TI.  The Brits did it back in 2014 (?) which resulted in the creation of the current BE system.  At That time the USE decided to wait and see what happened and nothing did.  Now the bosom buddy of the twit at the BE has gotten involved and has torpedoed the US Income Affidavit and i assume that the ambassadors of both embassies have bought into the "plan" without any understanding of the situation.

[soalbundy]

1 hour ago, Mike Teavee said:

Yes & how trustworthy would you consider the Embassy to be if they said they’d verified the income shown to them when they haven’t (& the US Embassy makes it very clear that they don’t).

They don't as far as I can tell, they certify on hand from the documents seen that the applicant is receiving a certain amount of income, more can't be expected of them, it would be reasonable to expect this to suffice the immigration regulations. To expect verification at source is unreasonable, difficult and considering the different languages involved, costly. Yes they could go the way of wanting to see income deposited in a Thai bank account, this wouldn't prove the source of the income unless they require a direct transfer from source but this isn't always possible for some, I for instance am trying to knock down my overdraft in my German account by not taking my full income out each month. Whatever, some method will be found or the whole thing may be regarded as a storm in a tea cup in a few months time. The BE isn't regarded by many here as flexible, empathetic or helpful but I have rather more hope in the Thai pragmatism which up until now has worked (you give us the impression that you verify and we will pretend it satisfies the regulations). Someone has thrown a spanner in the works, probably an over enthusiastic Thai bureaucrat and the BE and US have thrown a hissy fit.

[soalbundy]

1 hour ago, Tanoshi said:

And that is the same procedure as the UK Embassy.

with exception of the caveat which upsets the pragmatic game of pretend and ssssshhh.

[KiChakayan]

I just had the thought that some embassies (US/UK so far) may be worried about having to bear the financial burden of retirees getting into debt in Thailand for medical or any other reason. I would be easy to imagine the Thai authorities stating something like "you have verified his income so you are responsible", no? If this was the case it could explain that different embassies have different positions depending on the number of "claims" they may have to face.

Since we have thousands of posts on several threads on this topic, this might have been suggested elsewhere, apologies if that was the case.

Edited October 30, 2018 by KiChakayan

[luckyluke]

"Lot of speculations as we are kept in the dark"

 

-LuckyLuke-.

 

1 hour ago, Tanoshi said:

No, I believe all Embassies will be aware of the situation

I suppose one can categorize this, as per now, as a speculation. 

[Tanoshi]

19 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

"Lot of speculations as we are kept in the dark"

 

-LuckyLuke-.

 

I suppose one can categorize this, as per now, as a speculation. 

You believe the Thai authorities just happened to send a 'memo' to the UK and US Embassy.

In that case why would the Australian Embassy need to make any statement on their website to continue their service for the time being ………… that's suggests they are still considering their position in this matter.

 

The UK, US and Australians probably make up to 70% of all retired expats in Thailand.

Edited October 30, 2018 by Tanoshi

[marcusarelus]

5 minutes ago, Tanoshi said:

You believe the Thai authorities just happened to send a 'memo' to the UK and US Embassy.

In that case why would the Australian Embassy need to make any statement on their website to continue their service for the time being ………… that's suggests they are still considering their position in this matter.

 

The UK, US and Australians probably make up to 70% of all retired expats in Thailand.

Before the pound and Aussie dollar crashed.  Now I'd say not 70% anymore.