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

[Joe Mcseismic]

TI want to see the money HERE, not in some faraway country. Is that not a reasonable request. Is that so hard to understand?

[Pattaya46]

5 minutes ago, Issanman said:

Here is a letter I picked up from the US Embassy Outreach in Udon Thani yesterday //

This his the Fact Sheet

that you can find on the U.S. Citizen Services page of U.S. Embassy,

where the notice on the end of affidavit also is.

[cleverman]

1 hour ago, Just Weird said:

What he said was 100% correct, it was not "complete and utter rubbish".  If you can prove the income to Immigration you will not have a problem. 

 

And, if you are legitimate, it is very obvious that he was not calling you a liar!  Incidentally, how exactly would he be able to say that to your face, Mr Anonymous Forum Poster?

Just weird,most appropriate. 1. He never said about any of us being legitimate. 2. He did call all of us liars. 3. He could PM me and arrange a meet. Not your brightest hour is it. 

[evadgib]

From a similar thread:

Quote

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.

 

[cyberfarang]

46 minutes ago, Thaidream said:

You are correct about  Thailand wanting people who are solvent to reside and not become a burden on society.  How many people beat the system or lied or falsified documentation is unknown .  the issue has become- should applicants be required to prove income amount and source or just that they have money in the bank and how does one do that.  

 

If you just want money in the  bank , i can call a money lender and have 800K put into my bank now but if you want to know that I have the equivalent of 65K  each month- there are many ways to 'prove ' this.  I have no problem with proving it  just tell me what you want and the evidence you will accept and make it consistent with ALL Immigration offices, instead of  the many differences that exist from one office to another.

 

 

 

The borrowing money in order to obtain yearly extensions is what I have already predicted will happen and I can assume immigration are also aware of this.

 

I can also assume that in the foreseeable future this will prompt immigration into wanting to see the sources of monies held in Thai bank accounts by expats. This makes me angry, very angry, because it means for me and others like me will have to endure more procedures to obtain our yearly visas, that has been for years a relatively straight forward  process. And all this for those who do not financially qualify to stay in Thailand long term and try to find loopholes, cons and tricks to stay here. These are the very same people that should bear the blame for this present crisis whereas those who were on the monthly income option by legit means now have to pay the price.

 

In my opinion the required 800000 baht sum in a Thai bank for only 3 months per year for retirees that can remain here for the remainder of their lives is an absolute bargain deal and there are those that even begrudge that, who expect everything laid on for a cosy lifestyle for next to nothing, then consider they are being treated unfairly and immigration is being unreasonable.

 

Can`t say any more otherwise my post will be deleted.

 

 

 

 

[thailand49]

4 hours ago, noise said:

Before U.S. citizens get all excited and start trying to organize for what every reason, I recommend they go to the U.S. Consulate's web site and read the Fact Sheet and FAQs on this subject.  You will find they did not just wake up one morning and decide to stop notarizing those specific documents and it was coordinated with Thai Immigration. 

 

It is more than likely the other embassies did the same thing.

Sorry, disagree it doesn't say or even remotely address " You will find they did not just wake up one morning and decide to stop the notarizing ?

[alex8912]

59 minutes ago, connda said:

At the moment none of this affects me.  However, as I've said before, 'The winds of fate are fickle.'  The stock market crashes in 1987, 2001, 2008, and the Thai financial crash in 1997 simply support that fact. 

 

So, based on the rather Machiavellian Immigration policies that are some of the harshest, nationalistic, and discriminatory in the world - every Expat living here should have a Plan B and perhaps even a Plan C.  Even being married to a Thai for well over a decade, I can envision being kicked out of the country due to circumstances totally beyond my control.  

 

So, do you all have a Plan B?  If not, you should consider making one in the event that Thailand no longer welcomes you.  That's just being realistic and pragmatic in a country who does not welcome you but simply tolerates you living here as long as you meet a certain set of strictly enforced guidelines and submit to being monitored like a prison felon on parole.

With the amount of regular posters not ever able to achieve their plan A to fruition, how can you ever even think there was a plan B, and C would  be completely OTT! 

The next group of retired people coming to Thailand will be much better prepared and in many instances a real asset to the country. Maybe immigration here see a large amount of day to day BS from many that do not even post on here and some that do and they are completely fed up with it. Many have no insurance in their 80’s so what hospital here is able to deal with their  illnesses? The numbers may be overwhelming and this  could have been coming down the pike for years. 

Edited November 8, 2018 by alex8912

[JLCrab]

From the US Embassy FAQ page: 

 

What are the U.S. Embassy and Consulate doing to ease the transition?  We recently met with the new Commissioner of Immigration and his staff to discuss the change, and both the Embassy and Consulate General will work closely with regional immigration offices during the transition period to address any concerns.

 

The nerve of them doing that without the input of the ThaiVisa hoi polloi!

[lkv]

15 minutes ago, cyberfarang said:

The borrowing money in order to obtain yearly extensions is what I have already And all this for those who do not financially qualify to stay in Thailand long term and try to find loopholes, cons and tricks to stay here. These are the very same people that should bear the blame for this present crisis whereas those who were on the monthly income option by legit means now have to pay the price.

Loopholes will always be abused, in any country. And Thai agents are equally abusing these loopholes for profit.

 

At the end of the day, Immigration decides how loose they want it to be, and various factors influence that decision. 

 

PS: They probably don't decide, they just get orders coming from above anyways.

Edited November 8, 2018 by lkv

[cyberfarang]

2 minutes ago, lkv said:

Loopholes will always be abused, in any country. And Thai agents are equally abusing these loopholes.

 

At the end of the day, Immigration decides how loose they want it to be, and various factors influence that decision.

Agreed, but soon even the agencies will be required to show proof of financial monies and incomes to immigration for their clients. They will no longer be able to pull strings, which is already being implemented as is one of BJ`s clamp downs..

[soalbundy]

32 minutes ago, Joe Mcseismic said:

TI want to see the money HERE, not in some faraway country. Is that not a reasonable request. Is that so hard to understand?

Since expats have to live off something the required amount of monthly expenses always ends up in Thailand.

[pookiki]

11 minutes ago, cyberfarang said:

Agreed, but soon even the agencies will be required to show proof of financial monies and incomes to immigration for their clients. They will no longer be able to pull strings, which is already being implemented as is one of BJ`s clamp downs..

The agents deposit 800,000 baht into a person's bank account for one day and get the necessary extension stamp and then the money is withdrawn. You don't even need to show up in person - the agent does everything for 20,000 baht.  Overall, this is the best alternative for expats across the board - probably TI, too for a number of reasons.  However, there are a number of us 'honest' expats that just want to be treated reasonably and fairly under a system that was working fine until some embassy and TI egos got cross ways.  I firmly believe there are workable solutions if the expat community can unite behind putting forth some solutions.  Maybe I'm not being realistic but we should try nonetheless.

Edited November 8, 2018 by pookiki
grammar

[Joe Mcseismic]

4 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Since expats have to live off something the required amount of monthly expenses always ends up in Thailand.

True, but, it has to be the minimum that IO set. 800k per year, or 65k per month for retirement. They really don't want people that can live Thai style on 20k. That's why they set the financial requirement.

 

Some posters really need to step out of their own shoes and see this from a Thai perspective (unpleasant as that may be).

Edited November 8, 2018 by Joe Mcseismic

[Issanjohn]

I fully agree with you but I’m not really worried about it anymore because I have a plan and I know when I get my next extension soon my income affidavit will still be accepted one more time.  Although next year I might have to open a Thai bank account and start transferring money into it from my bank in the United States every month that I get paid my pension payments.  In the end this might actually be a good thing in a way because it’ll save me a trip to Bangkok and actually using a Thai bank account might make it easier for me to pay bills instead of cash for all the bills every month.  

 

But I still really don’t like the changes it is really dumb because basically the United States Embassy and two other embassies are basically saying “well we’ve apparently been doing the income affidavits wrong for all these years because we were supposed to be actually verifying your income so instead of actually correcting our mistake and doing it right we’re just gonna stop providing the service all together good luck”. That’s basically what they’re saying without actually saying it and it makes me angry as well but I kind of know what I need to do in order to deal with it.  Honestly as long as you actually do receive at least minimum the required income every month you really shouldn’t have anything to worry about.  I was stressing out about it as well until after I got official guidance on the issue from both the United States Embassy and immigration.  

 

Really what’s going on here is that immigration is apparently just trying to enforce the current rules already in place and a few of our embassies just flat out refuse to comply with immigration’s rules which I fully agree is BS.  

 

I mean it’s really not that difficult for the embassy to verify our income it’s just a matter of bringing in a bank statement, pension letter, or whatever the case is.  I understand that the embassy is busy and everyone’s income situation is different but really how hard can it be for the embassy to just quickly review a bank statement or a pension letter?  I’m sure it would take more time and cause them a little bit more work but that’s what the citizen services section of the embassy is there to do.  If they don’t want to do their job or work harder then they should go home and let other people take their jobs because there are lots of people who are just dying to get an overseas assignment in a government job making that big money that they make.  I used to work for the government and I’ve dealt with our embassies all over the world and they are very well paid trust me.  They get paid a lot of money to do what they do.  I remember when I worked in Tokyo the United States Embassy was a lot better although they were never half as busy as our embassy is here.  I don’t know I really don’t want to be so quick to blame the embassy employees because it’s not their fault it’s someone’s fault in a high level leadership position.  And I was just at the embassy recently to renew my passport and you do have to admit that they are extremely busy already as it is but I still don’t see what’s so difficult about asking us to bring proof that you do receive the money every month in with you when you go in for your income affidavit, if they don’t do it immigration will have to do it.  It’ll actually make immigration’s job harder as well.  I always wondered what kept people from lying on the income affidavits but it actually is a sworn notarized United States government document so whether it’s actually enforced or not lying on the income affidavit is a federal offense, it’s actually a felony offense to lie on the income affidavit because you are swearing under penalty of perjury.  If I were in charge I would just keep doing exactly what they are doing and just tell immigration that if they catch someone who has lied on their income affidavit then just report them to us and then actually enforce US federal government law and charge that individual with perjury.  The penalty of perjury is supposed to be the guarantee but apparently that’s not good enough probably because people are abusing the system just punish the people who are caught abusing the system and leave the rest of us who are living here legally alone, but that’s just my opinion.  Although that’s a good opinion for a petition or something to the embassy, I’d probably sign it.  Apparently it’s the British, United States, and the Australian embassies who are the culprits.  

[Mansell]

I think the Thais are being very myopic with this whole situation with farang.  Has anybody actually thought about the knock on effect forcing large numbers of farang out of the country. For one is the effect it will have on immigration offices and officers, many offices will close and many officers will lose their jobs as there will be no need for them. Also consider all the foreign exchange money not entering the country. Then add in the fact that most farang are older and moving into health issues, more money not going to the hospitals around the country. And the important fact of the many farang with wives and children. I personally help support two boys at private school and their mother. Where does that leave them? I don't have the 800,000 or 400,000 to leave in the bank, so I need the monthly income verification through the bank. So hopefully this will be the future choice of the Thai Immigration.

[pookiki]

I'm leaving for the FCCT in about 30 minutes. If there are any expats in Bangkok who want to start organizing on this issue, I'll be there!

[soalbundy]

Only my opinion but I see this ending in a whimper not a bang, we have time to wait and see. I will, as a precaution, start sending 65,000 per month from Germany to Thailand via Transferwise, it's all I can do, why worry, we don't have a problem at this very moment in time and that is all we ever have, this moment now, tomorrow at 10 o'clock it will still be now, the future never exists until it is now, so don't give yourselves heart attacks for nothing.

[Pattaya46]

13 minutes ago, Mansell said:

Has anybody actually thought about the knock on effect forcing large numbers of farang out of the country. 

How many? 10? 100? Not that difficult to find a way to stay here.

 

14 minutes ago, Mansell said:

// the effect it will have on immigration offices and officers, many offices will close and many officers will lose their jobs as there will be no need for them. Also consider all the foreign exchange money not entering the country. 

Crisis of delirium? .

Seriously, this has been discussed a lot already. Impact would be nearly nil ! Members here tend to overestimate a lot the number and the financial importance of farang retirees in Thailand.

[jesimps]

4 hours ago, anterian said:

Quite a few years ago when the interest rate on my UK bank deposits dropped to 0.25 % and my Thai deposit was at 1.9 % I transferred much from England to Thailand, since then the falling value of the Pound has made this an even more sensible decision. I realise that people who have moved here recently may have problems, but I think anyone who has been here more than 10 years should have no excuse. 

What a ridulous post. I guarantee most people affected have the money, but prefer to use the income method which has suddenly been snatched from them. It'd be best if you stuck to replying to the thread in hand.

[cyberfarang]

45 minutes ago, pookiki said:

The agents deposit 800,000 baht into a person's bank account for one day and get the necessary extension stamp and then the money is withdrawn. You don't even need to show up in person - the agent does everything for 20,000 baht.  Overall, this is the best alternative for expats across the board - probably TI, too for a number of reasons.  However, there are a number of us 'honest' expats that just want to be treated reasonably and fairly under a system that was working fine until some embassy and TI egos got cross ways.  I firmly believe there are workable solutions if the expat community can unite behind putting forth some solutions.  Maybe I'm not being realistic but we should try nonetheless.

It`s going to be interesting to see what happens as these avenues for bucking the system become closed.

 

The system was not working fine before the embassies ceased the income confirmation letters. Applicants were telling porkies regarding the sources of their monthly incomes or falsifying documentation. This prompted immigration to tighten their rules that in turn had a knock on effect with the embassies. Now I am guessing that soon immigration will want to see all income and savings sources. It`s going to get a lot tougher, the easy access into Thailand days are almost over and it could mean an exodus of many expats from the country next year. I am only being realistic, the days of cheap Charlies here are numbered. 

[digger70]

9 hours ago, Orton Rd said:

All you have to organise is getting the correct amount of money in your bank account, or coming into it. The only people this change affects are the liars and fraudsters, as it was meant to

I Agree .this letter bullshit has been stopped because To many Expats have been Lying about the Real income/pension .I one can't get the acquired funds together for their extension they shouldn't be here,and it will stop the rogue agents from doing their dodgy way of getting you an extension with  no THB in the bank.

[soalbundy]

4 minutes ago, digger70 said:

I Agree .this letter bullshit has been stopped because To many Expats have been Lying about the Real income/pension .I one can't get the acquired funds together for their extension they shouldn't be here,and it will stop the rogue agents from doing their dodgy way of getting you an extension with  no THB in the bank.

We don't know yet what the requirements are, as of yet there has been no change so let's wait and see.

[amdy2206]

I still don't understand why this is a problem. Have your money here and your monthly payment made into a Thai bank and you can proceed without difficulty. The only problems are the people who don't want to conform to the regulations and want to live here but keep money elsewhere. You live here, put your money here. It's simple. Dtop moaning and follow the regulations, or ho back to live where your money is.

[soalbundy]

2 minutes ago, amdy2206 said:

I still don't understand why this is a problem. Have your money here and your monthly payment made into a Thai bank and you can proceed without difficulty. The only problems are the people who don't want to conform to the regulations and want to live here but keep money elsewhere. You live here, put your money here. It's simple. Dtop moaning and follow the regulations, or ho back to live where your money is.

The regulations haven't changed yet, if you go the income method there are no regulations stipulating the income must be in a Thai bank, you are jumping the gun, for the IO's it's still business as usual, embassy income letter is king.

[Sir Dude]

Sad fact is that our western embassies don't give a toss about us and will only clear up the mess if you die. These embassy's masters have too much on their plate at home with multiple issues to care for citizens outside the country of origin plus our pensioners and normal people are suffering because of this. 

Edited November 8, 2018 by Sir Dude

[Lacessit]

Organise to do what? It is the Thai authorities that have decided to not accept income letters or stat decs from the various embassies/consulates. Combined bank deposit/ income is presumably also affected.

Unfortunately, governments shift the goalposts to meet their own ends. IMHO it will end with only 800K on deposit being acceptable for visas and extensions.

[jesimps]

5 hours ago, watcharacters said:

 

Overall, I'd be of the mind that as guests  to Thailand we're simply forced/required to abide by any and whatever program the Thai government chooses to employ as residency requirements.    I wish it weren't that way but it's just the reality.

 

I agree about being required to maintain an 800K balance.    I'm not so concerned about the banks solvency as I am about being able to remove the baht from Thailand if I want to do so.    I'm going to visit the KBank branch to get the information from them first hand.

 

 

Fair enough and I'm sure most of us are law-abiding long-term visitors to Thailand and will abide by any laws the Thais issue. The problem here is that for the income method the Thais require an embassy letter, yet the embassies of three nations refuse to issue one, yet the other nations are continuing to do so (so far). The authorities haven't said what proof they'll accept in place of the letter. If any.

If they come out and say that the income method is no longer an option, the uncertainty will be gone and we'll all have to conform. Until that happens, I think we have a right to expect someone in authority to step up and give us a little assistance on this important issue.

[Pattaya46]

1 minute ago, Lacessit said:

It is the Thai authorities that have decided to not accept income letters or stat decs from the various embassies/consulates. 

No, or source ?

From what we know it's the decision of 3 embassies to stop to provide them. Very different.

[jesimps]

5 hours ago, BarnicaleBob said:

Here is my take on how all this came about.  It is entirely the fault of US expats who bragged and other expats who were tattletales complaining about how the US expat COULD/MAYBE lie that all they had to do was to raise their right hand and say I swear.  In time, this got to the higher ups of immigration and then this Summer they started to demand supporting documents from US expats.  In the meantime immigration contacted all the embassies and told them they will now have to validate the expats income, which would require the embassies to research each statement applicant's financial background.  Of course, this would require additional manpower and expenses that none of the embassies were willing to pay.  This resulted in the embassies tell Thai Immigration, "No, we will not comply and in fact because you are so demanding about this, we will cease to offer this service.  Thus, all the embassies set January 1st as the end of notarized income statements.  So in the end, we only have ourselves to blame for this happening, thank you braggers and tattletales for bringing this upon us.

Pure conjecture and extremely unlikely. Also, only three of the embassies are refusing to issue letters.

[Internatltraveler]

Well for me, who originates from the USA and have lived in numerous countries and dealt with this immigration and visa issue many times now, it seems to me that the USA Embassy could take a position that they can identify what documents could be made available to them to verify the income. Social Security. VA Benefits, Military pensions and other governmentally issued pensions can easily be verified online by our Embassy. The Social Security Division of our embassy in BKK has been moved to the Philippines and is not so easy to work with now. But in the past in Costa Rica as an example, when the document to support our monthly income was needed they could simply pull up our social security or government record because that is a direct verification of income by a governmentally employed agent...end of story.

 

So when they tell us now that it is impossible for them to verify incomes from so many sources, I can understand that completely. But they could certainly issue a list of easily verified documents that they could verify from their computers, and that would still take care of probably the majority of USA citizens here who can honestly verify their records.

 

As for anyone on this site who calls us names, or looks down on us for using a monthly benefit as our income, it is a sad statement of them, and does not reflect on my lifestyle who has chosen to provide adequate monthly income for the rest of my life to live anywhere in the world. I have no heirs and never will plan to accumulate money to have it sit in a bank account like the Thais expect with their 800,000 baht requirement. Does the Thai government really even realize the millions or possibly billions of bahts of dollars that support their economy that could be in jeopardy if all of us that depended on monthly incomes were eliminated from this economy. So many countries welcome pensioners because we spend a lot of money in their countries and rarely get in trouble or cause problems for their governments.

 

Yes, somehow we need to join in in our community voices to talk to our embassies and to Immigration in a professional and meaningful way rather than ridiculing them and making them even more defensive about our presence in their country. I am all in favor of immigration control and do believe we can find a realistic way to address the hardship this is going to cause each of us, our families here and the impact of loss income to the economy that needs that money badly also..

 

Maybe the readers of this site can be encouraged to send letters to our embassy or even our state department in the USA to seek a resolution to this problem. It is everyone's best interest to resolve this in favor of the pensioners here rather than making us out to be the bad guys simply because we cannot or will not put 800,000 baht in their bank. No where in the world have I heard of this before anyway for a simple retirement visa...monthly income yes, but funds in a local bank????

 

We need to find a strong voice to talk for all of us and somewhere I believe we can find someone who has contacts with someone who can be heard here in this country.

 

So I encourage people to write and write and write again to our embassy and our government and deluge them with our letters to have them seek a diplomatic resolution on this issue. Isn't that what our embassy is partially there for anyway?

 

Then the Immigration Police here in Thailand needs to update their online documents and enforce their own codes rather than allowing each immigration office to interpret the rules however they seem fit. There needs to be clarification because right now the Immigration Police guidelines indicate 65,000 baht income can be verified by simply showing of bank statements that consistently show that amount of income and do not indicate it has to be put through a Thai bank even...Sure we all know bank statements can be manufactured but that is a crime and should be prosecuted a such if discovered.

 

But our embassy is another issue. It is simply not true that it is impossible for them to verify governmental pensions in the USA and this is where we need to concentrate our efforts if you are from the USA...a simple matter of contacting the government agency that issues that pension and verifying online...simple as apple pie...so I am not sure where they are coming up with the comment that it is "impossible" but certainly the impossible is doable with the advent of computerized records now for many years and there is no acceptable excuse for doing otherwise in my mind.