Big Joke: Promises easier, faster and more "watertight" Immigration rules

[sambum]

8 hours ago, cornishcarlos said:

They always promise exactly the opposite of what is going to happen !!  

Compulsive lying, I believe, is the term ????

The last time that he said that he was going to make things "easier" for ex pats he doubled the length of time that 800,000 baht had to be "seasoned" in the bank! (And it had to be a THAI Bank!)

[THAIJAMES]

13 minutes ago, bizboi said:

so are you telling us you have different visa rules to the rest of us?

I think what he's saying is that in the countryside most Thai people still respect and like westerners.

 

in the cities Westerners are no longer the money champions that they used to be 10 or 20 years ago.  Globalization has really affected many westerners income and the income of Thais in the cities as risen considerably.  Thais no longer as much respect foreigners like they used to unless you make a lot of money or have a high position.

 

In other words they know that most of us are no longer walking ATMs

 

[mike787]

The only promise I see BJ fulfill is track us farrang down, tighten immigrations rules, and kicking us out for as long as possible....

[BritManToo]

46 minutes ago, THAIJAMES said:

Unfortunately Thailand like many other countries around the world is faced with a massive amounts a foreigners not just European but even more from China India Africa and many other parts of the world.

Poor people from 3rd world countries.

No need to legislate against rich retired western people.

(rich compared to Thais earning 9k-15k/month)

[totally thaied up]

6 hours ago, Pravda said:

I think a lot of you guys made a mistake by burning bridges back home. Have any of you gave it a 2 second thought that you are moving to a third world country

Some of us have wives that don’t want to move away from family for certain reasons. My wife does not want to leave Thailand until after her elderly parents pass on. Means I may need to stick around for five to ten years. I can go home (we are in Australia now away from burning season) but my home currently is Thailand and making it making it not easier for those of us with long term genuine relationships is just pure madness. I would be back to doing 90 day border runs hoping I could stay with my wife. What the hell they trying/may do is anyone’s guess but we will find out soon.

 

None of this makes sense but when I left the country last week, I hardly saw any foreigners on my flight - it was predominantly Chinese. I am starting to believe Thailand is being modeled now on its large neighbor and that does not bode well for us.

[sambum]

8 hours ago, Artisi said:

Well I've been here for nearly 20 years, never any problems, an occasional hic-up with paperwork but always easily sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. 

So what is under siege if you go with the flow. - - - start being a smart arse, try and pull a swifty you will rightfully have a problem. 

 

Yes, but they're now moving the goalposts by FEET rather than INCHES (Or METRES rather than MILLIMETRES)!

 

[4675636b596f75]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

There are also changes to business visas and extensions of stay based on people who have children or who are married to Thais.

Good or bad changes?  Responsible parents out, irresponsible parents in.  

[THAIJAMES]

3 minutes ago, totally thaied up said:

Non of this makes sense but when I left the country last week, I hardly saw any foreigners on my flight - it was predominantly Chinese. I am starting to believe Thailand is being modeled now on its large neighbor and that does not bode well for us.

That looks to be the new reality for Thailand especially under military.

[JAG]

7 hours ago, freedomnow said:

I'm sure they will nail the regional exeption way of 'no show money' method for marriage visas that is known soon as well. That consulate seems to be getting deluged by applicants of all sorts now as a side effect of Vientiane's online booking system being tied up by those consulate agents. Queues ere cleared there after the first hour before, just walk up to the window....not now by the looks of things.

I've just this week been there. Queues much the same as the last couple of times. As far as I could tell (from observation) the vast majority of those queing were tourist visa applicants ( young backpackers - they may have been displaced by the new Vientiane appointment syste) or newly hired teachers. Vientiane never did multiple entry O visas based on marriage anyway as I recall.

[Leslie850]

8 hours ago, malagateddy said:

Surely it would be common sense to wait and see the new list of rules/regs before commenting/jumping to conclusions??
Ps..I'm a happily married man living in the Issan Province and have not encountered any " farang haters ".!!!

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

The only Farang haters I've encountered living in Thailand for 7 years now are  Farang from here in Thailand and most from Thai Visa, I dared to make a suggestion on the Retirement visa and wow many comments received not all bad but from the Elite ( Farang not Thai )people who are above every one else here with their opinion of people struggling with the visa issue go home, get a job etc etc, My wife (Thai ) said Thai people don't care where the 20 baht comes from it's only Farang complaining about other Farang.

So yes I am Retired and living the dream.

follow the rules for a stress free life.

Rant over.

[THAIJAMES]

7 minutes ago, sambum said:

Yes, but they're now moving the goalposts by FEET rather than INCHES (Or METRES rather than MILLIMETRES)!

 

It's called jumping hoops I've been doing it successfully for 32 years.

[Leslie850]

8 hours ago, malagateddy said:

Surely it would be common sense to wait and see the new list of rules/regs before commenting/jumping to conclusions??
Ps..I'm a happily married man living in the Issan Province and have not encountered any " farang haters ".!!!

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

The only Farang haters I've encountered living in Thailand for 7 years now are  Farang from here in Thailand and most from Thai Visa, I dared to make a suggestion on the Retirement visa and wow many comments received not all bad but from the Elite ( Farang not Thai )people who are above every one else here with their opinion of people struggling with the visa issue go home, get a job etc etc, My wife (Thai ) said Thai people don't care where the 20 baht comes from it's only Farang complaining about other Farang.

So yes I am Retired and living the dream.

follow the rules for a stress free life.

Rant over.

[JimGant]

8 hours ago, ThreeEyedRaven said:

 Judging a book by its cover I believe is the term.

Yeah, but when you open those books and find so many with crime, overstay, and phony visas -- you then know where to aim your scarce resources. Would be derelict to do otherwise. Kinda like what happened in the US, at airport security, where the human rights folks demanded that Middle Eastern young men receive no more attention than 80 year old grandmas. Ludicrous, of course. Reality oftentimes kicks a big dent in the idealism bubble. Please keep kicking, Thai Immigration.

[bizboi]

Apparently because there is a shortage of females in China, they’ve just sold 11 million Thai women as Chinese brides, after doing the Maths they’ve found out they need the married ones back too!! 

[sambum]

7 hours ago, Dmaxdan said:

Maybe I'm deluded but at least I don't suffer from chronic paranoia. BJ is just trying to eradicate all the expats who acquire their extensions illegally or through the back door. The problem is in doing so they are  inadvertently going to tread on the toes of the expats who's applications are legal and above board.  

 

Its naughty school kid syndrome. One kid misbehaves and doesn't own up so the whole class gets punished.  

I suggest that you delete the word "just" from your post! 

 

When he says that he is going to make things easier and the next week makes it doubly difficult (at least) in certain areas, you should beware of what he says when he uses the word "easier", and I am certainly not paranoid because the example I am quoting is not hearsay - it is FACT. 

 

If he had any consideration for ex pats and elderly people who have lived here legally for years, he would have mentioned it already and made provision for them - but not a word!

 

[malagateddy]

No no no

so are you telling us you have different visa rules to the rest of us?

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[connda]

7 hours ago, Pravda said:

I think a lot of you guys made a mistake by burning bridges back home. Have any of you gave it a 2 second thought that you are moving to a third world country? All I hear from some people how UK, US or whatever is bad because it's a nanny state and you have to pay council tax. Come on, Thailand can be a nice place but it will never be your place. Are people really that naive. Always have a backup plan and only invest in your own country. One of the stupidest advice I hear here is only invest what you can afford to lose. Yeah sure....that's how Warren Buffet got rich, by being stupid.

You and others pontificate about 'burning bridges', but has it every occurred to you or the pea-brained crowd who managed not to get screwed in the various stock market downturns, specifically 1987, 2001, and 2008 that others did?  Or do you have a silver spoon permanently embedded where light seldom shines that you feel above all the hoi polloi.  So, you feel you can be holier-than-thou.  Congratulations. How wonderful for you.  So who burned the bridges?  Me?  No!  Leaving the US, or UK, or EU in order to make our fixed income stretch farther, to live a middle class life in a developing country rather than living on the dole in our own over-priced, urban-ghettos where the gentrified pretend to be scraping by on their trust funds, inheritances, and endowments, or family businesses which mommy and daddy willed to them? - that's burning bridges?  The bridge is still there dear dudes - but cross it and you're immolated by the cost of living, by the Machiavellian rules and regulations, and if you happen to look down and out or poor or a street person in your transition back from getting off the plane at home while trying to reestablish a life - if a cop shoots you for acting strange - you die, he's acquitted, and who cares. You frightened him so he had cause to riddle you with bullets.
Thailand is not the 'end-all'.  It's a place who's usefulness as an expat retirement haven and a place to raise a Thai family may be reaching its end.
But there are you who believe you're better than the rest of us - which is a very Thai cultural imperative - "I'm higher than you, and you are lower than dirt."  The trouble is - I'm not Thai.  I don't buy into it. I don't give a damn who you think you are.  And to paraphrase Lee Marvin in the Professionals,

'You may consider me a bastard, but you sir, are a self-made man.'

Try some empathy.  It's good for the soul. 

 

 

[emptypockets]

 

1 hour ago, totally thaied up said:

What about the people married, on a pension living a easy life and cannot go home as they made Thailand their home with a family.

 

It has to be a two way street.

Read my further post re PR etc.

Sadly there may be 'collateral damage' .

Unfortunately there is not usually a two way street when dealing with government departments.

can you go the marriage extension route?

[DaRoadrunner]

8 hours ago, bluesofa said:

The introduction of Artificial Intelligence that includes ten finger fingerprinting and iris recognition technology would speed up applications and make them harder to circumvent. 

They can't even get the existing (non-existing) 90 day online report to function.

 

Repeatedly changing the rules only convinces me that we have no stability or entitlement here, our Visas are not worth the paper they are printed on.

[emptypockets]

1 hour ago, DrTuner said:

That's likely true. Let's define underfunded as anybody who brings and spends less than 6M baht per year in the country. No worries.

If that's your definition. 

[DrTuner]

8 minutes ago, connda said:

Thailand is not the 'end-all'.  It's a place who's usefulness as an expat retirement haven and a place to raise a Thai family may be reaching its end.

Another angle, a family raised by a farang has likely been influenced by those evil outsider ideas like democracy, transparency and such. The real conundrum must be how to get rid of all those luek kruengs too. The vote count for FF already shows the young are the enemy of the junta. 

[RBOP]

Joke, April fools hahaha

[Kalasin Jo]

Anything that actually simplifies the multitude of things we, as genuine law abiding foreigners in their country, have to do  will be welcome. At the moment it's a nightmare of different visa types, financials, extension paperwork repeated every year, ( especially for marriage extensions), arrival cards, TM 30s if you move for even 1 night from home, 90 day reporting. I can understand hotels, guesthouses, short let condo owners having to report, but home " owners" ,marital home house masters? Every time you so much as twitch? TM 30s plus 90 day reporting plus arrival card. Surely providing your permanent address and any change to that is enough? Presently a nightmare just to peaceably, legally, go about your life.

[DrTuner]

Just now, Kalasin Jo said:

Anything that actually simplifies the multitude of things we, as genuine law abiding foreigners in their country, have to do  will be welcome. At the moment it's a nightmare of different visa types, financials, extension paperwork repeated every year, ( especially for marriage extensions), arrival cards, TM 30s if you move for even 1 night from home, 90 day reporting. I can understand hotels, guesthouses, short let condo owners having to report, but home " owners" ,marital home house masters? Every time you so much as twitch? TM 30s plus 90 day reporting plus arrival card. Surely providing your permanent address and any change to that is enough? Presently a nightmare just to peaceably, legally, go about your life.

And it's so even if you've got the yellow thabian baan and pink id card, i.e. you are registered in the Thai system. Fun & games.

[eggers]

4 hours ago, ThaiBunny said:

Is that what happens in your home country? USA, Australia, UK, NZ - I don't know of a single country where "foreign expats opinions or suggestions {are} taken".

On occasions, yes it does!!

If not, doesn't mean it couldn't be, does it?? 

[smedly]

1 hour ago, sapson said:

Yes those favorable changes which would have encouraged tourism and relaxed the rules a little were the subject of a Thai visa Breaking News headline article back in November.............

Indeed, overlooked by me, thanks for the correction

[bwpage3]

And who said Thais aren't racists?

 

[connda]

7 hours ago, Small Joke said:

You know this is piss in the wind the minute you see the word 'new stamps'.

 

Most technically advanced countries dispensed with 'stamps'.

 

But then again, most countries don't track visitors on Win 95

 

Oh well, at least he's trying...

Actually I believe they have upgrade to Win98.  Our provincial hospital has.  No doubt, very secure from hackers now. 
/extreme sarc off

 

[BobbyL]

The man known as Big Joke even went so far as to specifically mention "people of color and South Africans" as a problem. 

 

Unbelievable. 

[DrTuner]

Maybe this need mentioning: The root cause of all these troubles is the difficulty in obtaining permanent residency. Fix that first.