Expats need to organize in face of Embassies discontinuance of income verification letters

[soalbundy]

30 minutes ago, sniggie said:

I've raised the point of Transferwise a couple of times. I am with Kbank and, due to the passbook update machine not reading the magnetic strip on my book, I've been rather lax about updating it. So today I thought I'd look at my statement online. What a shock! Up until August my monthly transfers (generally 2K GBP) using Transferwise were showing as coming from the International Trade and Factoring Centre with a TFN number. All well and good, I thought. Now from late August onwards they are shown as coming from a Dummy Branch with an MCL number, whatever that is. It never rains but it pours! I know we are a long way from discovering what sort of transfer (if any) will be acceptable in the future but this change couldn't have come at a worse moment.  I'll be off to the bank soon to see if they can find out if they can state that these transfers do in fact come from overseas. So it behoves all of us to keep an eye on the way Transferwise get the money into our Thai bank accounts as it would appear that it can change without us knowing.    

thanks for that. First, we don't know if it's imperative that funds must come from abroad (transferwise case it doesn't, it comes from a local source, transfer from your home account goes to a (for your country) local account, at least that's my understanding but I believe you get an interim online report with exchange rates etc and this could be printed out. I'm no expert I've only just got registered with them, perhaps you could verify what I have written or PM me.

[sniggie]

21 minutes ago, Artisi said:

Think I would be very easy to ask your bank once a year to prepare the necessary paper work addressed to Immigration stating that Bht xxx xxx has been received by overseas transfer to account number xxxxxxxxx, backed up with a copy of your bank book or yearly statement, if you can't show a reasonable bank balance and regular payments into your account to the value stipulated by immigration you must be trying to fly under the radar.

The rule is quite clear xx amount in the bank for the past couple of months, or yyy each month into your account or a combination of both. It's not rocket science, just abide by the rules. 

 

P. S. I don't particularly agree with the amounts and reporting requirements, but that's the rules - like or leave. 

I think you have slightly misunderstood my comment. I bring well over the (currently) required amount into the Kingdom in a year but if Immigration were to require that each monthly transfer is clearly shown as coming from abroad but KBank do not show it as such or are prepared to confirm where it comes from then it could be a problem. I probably spend well over a million baht in Thailand every year (new car last year, completed on an off plan condo this year) so I slightly resent the suggestion that i don't bring enough money into Thailand. My point was that, if the bank cannot state that the payments come from abroad (even though they do) then it doesn't matter how much you transfer in if it doesn't satisfy Immigration criteria,    

[onera1961]

7 minutes ago, smedly said:

not talking about other incomes which on the face of it are not guaranteed for life and that is totally understood

Nothing is guaranteed for life, including the extension of stay. And I don't receive a pension yet (who on earth receives pension at the age of 50?)

[Jingthing]

2 minutes ago, onera1961 said:

Nothing is guaranteed for life, including the extension of stay. And I don't receive a pension yet (who on earth receives pension at the age of 50?)

I think some people do, such as military people, etc. 

Also as far as the "retirement visa" situation there really isn't such a thing as a retirement visa here. There are extensions based on retirement but the O-A visas issued in home nations are actually LONG STAY visas. They don't require being finished with worth at all but they do require not working in Thailand.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Jingthing

[Bang Bang]

6 minutes ago, lkv said:

It's a special tourist visa that gives holders a temporary permission of stay of 12 months upon entry, extendable locally with no further documentation for 12 months at a time. 

 

So it's temporary just like the others.

1 MB gets 20 yrs. Long enough. And the Elite staff will handle extensions. Good enough.

[evadgib]

12 minutes ago, lkv said:

The real solid options are PR and citizenship respectively, impossible to get for pensioneers here.

Now is as good a time as any to change this.

[sniggie]

48 minutes ago, chickenslegs said:

Some useful information about this in another thread ... https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/1067280-krungsri-bank-report/?do=findComment&comment=13544014

Thanks, helpful.

[smedly]

1 hour ago, Kenny202 said:

Many here assuming a lot. Many of us have income as such from other countries....savings, interest, rent, stock dividends etc but as I beleive this is not classed as monthly income as far as the TI requires. Has to be a pension or government payment. Is that correct?

Sent from my SM-J730GM using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

yes correct, but according to the smart people in Phuket Immigration - only a government pension will be accepted which is stupidly silly, as in my above post - many people have guaranteed pensions from other sources and they are all for life, as for the other income sources - I sort of agree with TI thinking on this 

[lkv]

22 minutes ago, Bang Bang said:

1 MB gets 20 yrs. Long enough. And the Elite staff will handle extensions. Good enough.

Yeah, I agree, it is an extra option at the end of the day.

 

Maybe that's the actual reason Immigration is doing this, to direct people into either paid options, or money sitting in Thai accounts, or both.

 

Win win situation for them.

Edited November 10, 2018 by lkv

[Jingthing]

Just now, evadgib said:

Now is as good a time as any to change this.

Probably a pipe dream. If they did that, probably 99 percent of us couldn't meet whatever rules they might come up with for that.

[soalbundy]

1 hour ago, JackThompson said:

My advise - don't use transferwise, unless your Thai Bank Book shows it as a Foreign Transfer.  Some BKB clients say it does - others vary. 

 

Chances are, if a new "income system" is permitted at all (or maybe at some offices - who knows), Immigration will only accept Thai-Bank documentation.  SWIFT fees may be a pita, but better that than stuck later with loan-interest on the 400K.

thanks for the advice. The money would be coming in regardless of where from, must it come from a foreign account ? we don't know. It is my understanding that TW sends a report online with exchange rates, this could be used as proof. Strange thing is, in addition to my German income I get a small British pension which is transferred direct to BKK bank but I have found out it goes the curious way over the American banking  system and on arrival shows a cash booking without a bank book BTN

[joeyg]

On 11/8/2018 at 4:35 PM, ParadiseLost said:

Mate, all countries want that...

 

What puzzles me is that you somehow think I was moaning about that? I was merely stating a fact.

 

Pick another point out of context to further your own ambitions...

Not true in the US anyway.  Immigrants are draining resources and social services at record rates.  The US is basically giving the country away.

[evadgib]

7 minutes ago, onera1961 said:

Nothing is guaranteed for life, including the extension of stay. And I don't receive a pension yet (who on earth receives pension at the age of 50?)

The sort that wear...

 

[Jingthing]

1 minute ago, joeyg said:

Not true in the US anyway.  Immigrants are draining resources and social services at record rates.  The US is basically giving the country away.

Sounds like propaganda with no basis in fact.

The midterms are over and the caravan fear hysteria lost. Give it a rest. 

[NanLaew]

On 11/9/2018 at 12:20 AM, Spidey said:

I did say "seen", which means that I have personally seen them. Are you doubting my word?

I wouldn't be posting if I wasn't. But if you have "regularly" seen the local plod "arresting and deporting expat beggars/vagrants" in Pattaya, then maybe you hang out at venues where this has a high probability? If these pages are to be believed, the thing that most Pattaya's denizens see is the old, fat farangs with their young dollies, cops taking donations from farang bike riders while giving the locals a free pass, the bad driving, loud music, dirty beaches, etc..

 

BTW, where in Pattaya do they deport these miscreants from?

[JLCrab]

When I read on here on how some want to game the 65K baht monthly extension route should it ever come into existence, it makes me realize why I live in Thailand (except for young non-English speaking Thai females) as a virtual recluse as far as the farang population.

Edited November 10, 2018 by JLCrab

[soalbundy]

5 minutes ago, joeyg said:

Not true in the US anyway.  Immigrants are draining resources and social services at record rates.  The US is basically giving the country away.

They still have enough resources to pay for weapon systems that could destroy the planet many times over. Germany did a study showing an overall plus economically for letting in refugees (1.4 million to date) Western demographics shows a need for the influx of migrants if the state is to survive.

[smedly]

20 minutes ago, onera1961 said:

Nothing is guaranteed for life, including the extension of stay. And I don't receive a pension yet (who on earth receives pension at the age of 50?)

you would be surprised - I retired before 50

 

and yes nothing is guaranteed for life but there is a general understanding that private pensions and government pensions are solid unless of course the earth is hit by a huge asteroid 

[lkv]

13 minutes ago, JLCrab said:

When I read on here on how some want to game the 65K baht monthly extension route should it ever come into existence, it makes me realize why I live in Thailand (except for young non-English speaking Thai females) as a virtual recluse as far as the farang population.

So you can mentally and logically connect with Thais ?

 

Wonderful then, it means you have integrated well. I haven't and never will, so I will make a move soon.

 

As far as judging farangs for identifying loopholes, look in the backyard to see what sort of scams the Thais are up to. You want to be far from farangs and you chose Thais as an alternative ????

Edited November 10, 2018 by lkv

[JLCrab]

1 minute ago, lkv said:

As far as judging farangs for identifying loopholes, look in the backyard to see what sort of scams the Thais are up to.

Since I avoid them (farangs), I don't have any need to judge them. If the Thais want to be up to scams, as long as it doesn't involve me, this is Thailand.

[onera1961]

5 minutes ago, smedly said:

you would be surprised - I retired before 50

And you get pension? In the US you don't get private company pension any more. Private company pension (even if it exists and you're eligible) before 62 is a meagre amount. I let it stay in their pension fund to increase in value. 

[Spidey]

1 hour ago, wgdanson said:

Requirements for a Non Immigrant Visa 'O-A” (Retirement)

• Must be 50 years of age or over.

 

You go tell her Spidey.

Yep, I was 55 at the time. She was having none of it. Took 2 months to get my paperwork in order at a cost of several hundred pounds. I was slightly peeved. The last straw was when she looked at my printout of the page from the Thai Embassy website and told me that it was fake. Not going there again!

[Artisi]

47 minutes ago, sniggie said:

I think you have slightly misunderstood my comment. I bring well over the (currently) required amount into the Kingdom in a year but if Immigration were to require that each monthly transfer is clearly shown as coming from abroad but KBank do not show it as such or are prepared to confirm where it comes from then it could be a problem. I probably spend well over a million baht in Thailand every year (new car last year, completed on an off plan condo this year) so I slightly resent the suggestion that i don't bring enough money into Thailand. My point was that, if the bank cannot state that the payments come from abroad (even though they do) then it doesn't matter how much you transfer in if it doesn't satisfy Immigration criteria,    

Why can't the bank state where the money came from? 

[wgdanson]

2 minutes ago, Artisi said:

Why can't the bank state where the money came from? 

Even if they did, Immigration would not accept their evidence.....it MUST be an Embassy Letter.......at the moment.

[simon43]

Did you ever consider the guy might not have 800k ready cash?

 

I have every sympathy if you don't have the cash....

I have every sympathy if your family will be broken up...

I have every sympathy if you and your family will suffer.....

 

But that's 100% irrelevant, because neither TI nor the embassies who have imposed these requirements will change their stance because of your unfortunate circumstances.

 

Stop wearing out your computer keyboard and use your time wisely to work out how you CAN meet their requirements.

 

BTW, as a 'lowly' teacher who comes and goes between Thailand and Myanmar, I managed to find the money to buy a 5-year TE visa - it's called prioritising your expenses.

[sniggie]

12 minutes ago, Artisi said:

Why can't the bank state where the money came from? 

Maybe they can, I've yet to ask them. The point of my post was to let people know that Transferwise can change the way that the funds come into the Kingdom without telling their customers and this might be a potential problem further down the line.

[soalbundy]

7 minutes ago, sniggie said:

Maybe they can, I've yet to ask them. The point of my post was to let people know that Transferwise can change the way that the funds come into the Kingdom without telling their customers and this might be a potential problem further down the line.

Everything is a potential problem at the moment because we have no input from TI. I believe at the moment as things stand that the 65k doesn't have to be deposited in Thailand, having it in a Thai bank each month makes it easier to confirm but that also means it doesn't matter where it comes from, earlier it was in a UK, US, German bank whatever, now it is in a Thai bank, how it got there should be immaterial, it's there and you still have your back up documents, pensions, foreign bank statements showing incoming funds, and outgoing, whether TW, direct transfer or ATM, same same but different. 

[JackThompson]

25 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

29 minutes ago, joeyg said:

Not true in the US anyway.  Immigrants are draining resources and social services at record rates.  The US is basically giving the country away.

Sounds like propaganda with no basis in fact.

The midterms are over and the caravan fear hysteria lost. Give it a rest. 

Western Expats in Thailand spend money into the economy.  We don't earn it here and send it out.  There is no comparison.

 

But, I think many, like yourself, do not understand the dynamics that occurred to millions of Americans, which are driving the current climate.  As someone with a lifetime on the "working-class" side of the political-spectrum, I had my careers wrecked - one after the other - by both outsourcing and mass-immigration.  I don't blame the immigrant pawns in the game as individuals / "bad people," but there is no doubt that, as a group, they were used to check-mate my options for a decent life in the USA. 

 

Those with global interests, have increased profits by a "managed decline" of the American standard-of-living.  From the early 1990s until 2016, they managed both political parties, and left working-folks with no voice what so ever.  Then, a rich, uncouth loudmouth saw the ball laying in the middle of the field, picked it up, and said what millions of Americans - their lives and families in shambles from what had been done - had been screaming for decades to no avail. 

 

The response of the global-faction, who own literally everything, including nearly all media, was to scream insults / name-call / demonize citizens who simply wanted their former middle-class lives back.  Many people with good intentions - either part of a group not yet thrown under-the-bus, or young enough to have never experienced what life was like pre-globalization, believed the name-calling was true.

 

This dynamic - not any individual politician - has split the USA between these factions.  Those who have direct-experience of globalization's harm will not have that memory erased by being called a bigot, or whatnot - they will just get more and more angry.  Maybe, someday, they will even match the level of violence of the "antifa" faction.

 

The fact is this:  If recent-immigrants (legal and illegal) left my country, today, millions could return to the good-life we had - a life that was intentionally ripped away by the govt-policies of open-borders coupled with the elimination of long-standing trade-barriers.  As well, the younger generation - who never knew what it was like to work and save in the USA, might see a viable alternative to socialism.

 

31 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Western demographics shows a need for the influx of migrants if the state is to survive.

There are two factors as to the population-decline.  Many aren't having many children, because it is not our cultural makeup to bring large numbers of one's children into poverty.  This is especially true in the USA - where, when asked in surveys, young people say they "cannot afford" to start families.  As well, automation is quickly replacing labor, so large numbers of "new workers" are redundant.  Only some govt-ponzi-schemes are at risk - though those could be re-structured to take automation into account.

 

Some, at the top, don't think they should "have to pay" for "workers" to have a middle-class lives.  Once the labor-pool significantly outstrips demand, wages drop to bare-subsistence, which is what those at the top prefer to pay.  As most from our culture won't put up with poverty (see the history of the struggle / building of the Western middle-class), we are being replaced by those who have demonstrated that they will put up with it - generation after generation. 

[fforest1]

22 minutes ago, simon43 said:

 

 

 

I have every sympathy if you don't have the cash....

I have every sympathy if your family will be broken up...

I have every sympathy if you and your family will suffer.....

 

But that's 100% irrelevant, because neither TI nor the embassies who have imposed these requirements will change their stance because of your unfortunate circumstances.

 

Stop wearing out your computer keyboard and use your time wisely to work out how you CAN meet their requirements.

 

BTW, as a 'lowly' teacher who comes and goes between Thailand and Myanmar, I managed to find the money to buy a 5-year TE visa - it's called prioritising your expenses.

Dear Sir we are using our time wisely figuring out how we can BEAT the system...We are prioritizing quite well thank you...  

[Spidey]

1 hour ago, NanLaew said:

I wouldn't be posting if I wasn't. But if you have "regularly" seen the local plod "arresting and deporting expat beggars/vagrants" in Pattaya, then maybe you hang out at venues where this has a high probability? If these pages are to be believed, the thing that most Pattaya's denizens see is the old, fat farangs with their young dollies, cops taking donations from farang bike riders while giving the locals a free pass, the bad driving, loud music, dirty beaches, etc..

 

BTW, where in Pattaya do they deport these miscreants from?

Where did I say that they got deported? Where did I say that I saw the BiB arresting them? I said that I have seen them hanging around. Another poster has seen them sleeping on the beach. As I did say, my opinion is that the BiB invariably leave them alone as they usually have mental health problems.