Australia joins the UK and USA with withdrawal of income verification

[OJAS]

45 minutes ago, TSF said:

Looks like all farang living in Thailand on annual extensions will now need to have the 400K & 800K THB in a Thai bank account in order to continue living in Thailand.

Definitely agree 100% with this sentence (but not with the rest of your post). Despite the so-called "agreements" which embassies claim to have reached with the Immigration Bureau, my gut feeling is that the days of the 40k/65k monthly income method will, in practice, be well behind us by this time next year.

 

[giddyup]

2 minutes ago, Longcut said:

If anyone is still wondering if the Thai government reads any of these forums, this should be proof that they do. Also, for those that complained some people were abusing the affidavit letter and possibly not having the funds that they swear to. It looks like it backfired on them too. 

 They too will have to scramble about just like the ones they accused of not really having the funds or income available. 

 Wouldn't it have just been better to have minded your own business?

 I for one really didn't care how my neighbor got to stay here. 

As long as I knew I was legal, no business of mine.

I would imagine that there was an agenda to bring all embassies in line and stop the issuing of affidavits or stat decs, nothing to do with what is said on this forum.

[OJAS]

17 minutes ago, Will27 said:

Surely it will mean a lot of people (not just Aussies) will be going to places like Savannakhet and HCMC

for visas now.

Or back to their home countries.

[Raymonddiaz]

3 minutes ago, Longcut said:

If anyone is still wondering if the Thai government reads any of these forums, this should be proof that they do. Also, for those that complained some people were abusing the affidavit letter and possibly not having the funds that they swear to. It looks like it backfired on them too. 

 They too will have to scramble about just like the ones they accused of not really having the funds or income available. 

 Wouldn't it have just been better to have minded your own business?

 I for one really didn't care how my neighbor got to stay here. 

As long as I knew I was legal, no business of mine.

Good to know that they are reading us. They can educate themselves a bit.

[giddyup]

Just now, Raymonddiaz said:

Good to know that they are reading us. They can educate themselves a bit.

Pure speculation that they are reading anything here.

[Will27]

9 minutes ago, grego49 said:

The OAP is $849,au a fortnight in Thailand.

You wouldn't want the Aussie dollar to drop a bit though.

 

On the current exchange rate, that's about 300 Baht per month over.

[OJAS]

29 minutes ago, giddyup said:

I would say it's become pretty clear to TI that in many cases the stat dec or affidavit is not worth the paper it's written on.

And not just those issued by the American, Australian and British embassies either!

[sfokevin]

2 minutes ago, Longcut said:

I for one really didn't care how my neighbor got to stay here. 

As long as I knew I was legal, no business of mine.

The problem with your logic is that enough of your neighbors have lied on these affidavits to cause Immigration to remove them as an option... Now your neighbors will figure out a scam to rotate 65k in funds in and out monthly or falsely state 800k in the bank... This will lead to Immigration to requiring even more proof or just making the 800k a year round sum required... 

[evadgib]

1 hour ago, TSF said:

Looks like all farang living in Thailand on annual extensions will now need to have the 400K & 800K THB in a Thai bank account in order to continue living in Thailand. Now, just wait and see if next year they'll double the required sums. I've been expecting it for a couple years now, but it'll happen because they want you gone.

The new govt next Feb will have to try exceptionally hard to beat this lot ????

Edited November 2, 2018 by evadgib

[Dale75]

Logically, all the other embassies should now follow suit. My money would be on Canada & NZ next. I'd also bet that at least one embassy holds out and maintains that it can verify income. My money would be on the Germans for this.

[giddyup]

6 minutes ago, sfokevin said:

The problem with your logic is that enough of your neighbors have lied on these affidavits to cause Immigration to remove them as an option... Now your neighbors will figure out a scam to rotate 65k in funds in and out monthly or falsely state 800k in the bank... This will lead to Immigration to requiring even more proof or just making the 800k a year round sum required... 

The 65K rotation could possibly be scammed, but I don't know how you'd falsely state 800K in a bank book.

Edited November 2, 2018 by giddyup

[kannot]

2 minutes ago, evadgib said:

The new govt next Feb will have to try exceptionally hard to beat this lot ????

You mean same same  but not  different?

[kannot]

Just now, giddyup said:

The 65K rotation could be possibly be scammed, but I don't know how you'd falsely state 800K in a bank book.

Bank staff may find a new source of income?

[sfokevin]

Just now, giddyup said:

The 65K rotation could be possibly be scammed, but I don't know how you'd falsely state 800K in a bank book.

There seem to be a lot of places in Pattaya that offer this service...

[soalbundy]

Will be interesting to see how the European embassies react. I hope that the Germans will continue with the letter but to be safe I will now transfer 65,000 every month to my Thai account using Transferwise and hope that will suffice, interesting times we are living in.

[cleverman]

Ozzie embassy, that's new info, the rest, every comment has been the same as on the other 4 threads. Anybody got anything new to add?

[giddyup]

3 minutes ago, sfokevin said:

There seem to be a lot of places in Pattaya that offer this service...

I think that it's only a question of time before that loophole will be closed.

[giddyup]

2 minutes ago, cleverman said:

Ozzie embassy, that's new info, the rest, every comment has been the same as on the other 4 threads. Anybody got anything new to add?

Does it matter, this is now a particular concern for Aussies, before it wasn't.

[JimGant]

Quote

WHAT DO I DO NOW!

You should show the Thai Authorities that you have

the income required to obtain your visa by transferring the

funds needed into a Thai bank account.

That's clear enough -- and substantiates what the Brits and Yanks have previously said. They're no longer interested in potential funds -- they want to see that money here.

 

Why haven't we heard anything from Immigration about this? Obviously there are some transition questions to be answered, that will affect the entire long stay expat community. And probably the big question yet to be answered is: What will be the unintended consequences?

[evadgib]

32 minutes ago, OJAS said:

Definitely agree 100% with this sentence (but not with the rest of your post). Despite the so-called "agreements" which embassies claim to have reached with the Immigration Bureau, my gut feeling is that the days of the 40k/65k monthly income method will, in practice, be well behind us by this time next year.

 

The way ahead is to lobby our Embassies to push for permanent residency (PR) that is grandfathered for eligible law abiding applicants that have already served a probationary period and to keep the requests short, factual and rant-free.

Edited November 2, 2018 by evadgib

[soalbundy]

1 minute ago, evadgib said:

The way ahead is to lobby our Embassies to push for permanent residency (PR) that is grandfathered for eligible law abiding applicants that have already served a probationary period.

After all up to now the BE and US have shown great concern for their expat's welfare.......not.

[elviajero]

59 minutes ago, giddyup said:

The 800K hasn't been increased for many years so it would be no surprise to see an increase, but tell me, why would the Thai government want us gone?

There is no reason for an increase at this time, and the Thai government don’t want us gone!

 

I am only surprised that these worthless embassy letters/affidavits have been accepted for so long.

[cleverman]

Could some Ozzie ask our embassy ,Phuket, if they will supply proof of incom if the income is a Govt. pension, eg. DFRDB pension. I can't because of an argument I had there once. 

[Jonathan Fairfield]

 An off topic comment and replies have been removed

[giddyup]

1 minute ago, cleverman said:

Could some Ozzie ask our embassy ,Phuket, if they will supply proof of incom if the income is a Govt. pension, eg. DFRDB pension. I can't because of an argument I had there once. 

Are you asking if you will still be able to get a stat dec because you have a government pension? I think it's spelled out pretty clearly that stat decs will no longer be issued, no exceptions.

[elviajero]

16 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Will be interesting to see how the European embassies react. I hope that the Germans will continue with the letter but to be safe I will now transfer 65,000 every month to my Thai account using Transferwise and hope that will suffice, interesting times we are living in.

Even if the German and other embassies do continue to issue letters, unless they comply with Immigration’s request for income validation, they won’t be accepted.

[Pib]

In my opinion when the dust settles on this which is when "HQ Thai immigration" hopefully provides updated guidance on the "monthly income option" my money is on the bet that it will indeed require an average monthly international deposit into your Thai bank....repeat, into your Thai bank account....not your bank account outside of Thailand.  Summary: monthly international deposit of 65K to your Thai bank account if using the monthly income method.

 

And accepted proof will be a bank letter with passbook/statement confirming the monthly international transfers.  This proof method is similar to the 800/400K large deposit in a Thai bank method (i.e., relies on the Thai bank versus a foreign financial company/bank) and is easy for an immigration officer to review & verify.   If feeling the provided Thai bank docs are fake the immigration office can easily/quickly contact the issuing Thai bank to confirm the docs.   It's following the KISS principle. 

 

If the docs are identified/suspected as fake during the extension renewal the renewal is disapproved.  If the the extension is approved but say a little later (a few days, week or months) later they do a verification check with the Thai bank that issued the docs and the docs are found to be fake your extension is cancelled, you are given 7 days to depart the country, and possibly even an reentry/reapplication ban of X-years depending on the situation.  I feel this is certainly and easily within the realm of possibly.

 

As more and more foreign embassies come out with this same statement taking X-amount deposited monthly into a Thai bank account it also makes it easier for Thai Immigration to implement such a policy, especially since those foreign embassies have been notifying their citizens of the income letter change.  UK/US/AU embassies have provided notifications so far.  Just these mere home country embassy notifications, whether the info in the notifications was completely correct or not, makes the change easier to implement for Thai Immigration. 

 

Our own foreign embassies are basically making it easier for Thai Immigration to shift to a monthly international deposit into a Thai bank requirement.    

 

[cleverman]

4 minutes ago, giddyup said:

Are you asking if you will still be able to get a stat dec because you have a government pension? I think it's spelled out pretty clearly that stat decs will no longer be issued, no exceptions.

I don't care what you think, or anybody's thoughts. It's what the Oz embassy will put in writing is what I would like to see. 

[GarryP]

36 minutes ago, grego49 said:

The OAP is $849,au a fortnight in Thailand.

 

25 minutes ago, Will27 said:

You wouldn't want the Aussie dollar to drop a bit though.

 

On the current exchange rate, that's about 300 Baht per month over.

AUD 849 x 2 = Baht 40,270, which is under the threshold. 

 

[4MyEgo]

I believe the intention is to weed out corrupt agents and Immigration offices, i.e. if the money is in the account 3 months beforehand, no problem and proof of steady monthly income of either 40k or 65k baht.

 

I know a few blokes who pay between 10k-20k baht to get their extensions through an agent who somehow gets money deposited into their account for one day, then the letter from the bank saying that the farang has had the required money in the bank, so if the Immigration department wants proof of funds in the bank by way of 400k or 800k baht, how is this going to stop such bank letters via the agents being stopped. 

 

I know myself, that I also have to get a print out from the ATM on the morning of the extension stating how much money is in the account, so the mind boggles as to how they are going to weed out the corruption side of things.

 

As for me, not an issue with funds, but I know a few Xpat Aussies that are now joining the ranks of a few poms feeling worried.