Emergency help for British nationals in Thailand

[Just Weird]

11 hours ago, SteveK said:

No- embassy staff are uneducated, rude and ignorant people who almost certainly got the job through their dad who went to Eton. The great unwashed would never be able to get such a role.

 

But the joke's on them. The 16 year old spotty twerp who served me in McDonalds in London actually listened to me, did his job, and gave me what I asked for, for a small fee. The UK embassy does exactly the opposite. They don't care about you, don't want to help you, and want to charge you more than what most Thais spend in a month.

 

They could not give a rat's backside about British ex-pats in Thailand, not sure if it's because they are hungover from last night's gin-fest or because they are looking forward to this evening's BBQ, but in either case you are bothering them, and they are not scared about making that obvious! What a bunch of useless jobsworths!

 

As a hard-working, tax-paying British guy, I was expecting to be treated with a certain degree of respect by my embassy - how wrong I was. 

"No- embassy staff are uneducated, rude and ignorant people who almost certainly got the job through their dad who went to Eton. The great unwashed would never be able to get such a role.

 

But the joke's on them. The 16 year old spotty twerp who served me in McDonalds in London actually listened to me, did his job, and gave me what I asked for, for a small fee. The UK embassy does exactly the opposite. They don't care about you, don't want to help you, and want to charge you more than what most Thais spend in a month.

 

They could not give a rat's backside about British ex-pats in Thailand, not sure if it's because they are hungover from last night's gin-fest or because they are looking forward to this evening's BBQ, but in either case you are bothering them, and they are not scared about making that obvious! What a bunch of useless jobsworths!"

 

Apart from the part about your successful interaction with a McDonalds employee every word of that comment was nonsense. 

 

Being provided with services that the Embassy is obligated to provide to UK nationals is not means tested; the level of your small tax contribution to the British government is completely irrelevant.   Do you think, perhaps, that the alleged attitude shown to you by the Embassy staff could have been as a result of your treating that person as, to quote your words, "a 16-year old spotty twerp working at McDonald's"?

[simon43]

29 minutes ago, Pilotman said:

no, just very lucky. 

In that case, my luck must have been extremely high, (and my luck continues on each occasion that I visit the embassy).

 

Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket?  I'm bound to win.

[CharlieH]

I think, that suffice to say, that people have varying opinions based on their own experience.

That opinion doesnt make them right nor wrong, its just different based on their experience and interaction with a specific individual or department. 

 

Unless you have had the same requirement and dealt with the same dept and person, it would be wrong to suggest that anyone is wrong/lying as that would be disrespectful and just trolling.

 

[JaiLai]

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
 

I’ve noticed that This is your ‘go to’ reply when you’re wrong.


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[kevc]

Nonsense they are very good......at taking your money. I needed proof that I no longer resided in the UK they gave me an address for a Thai solicitor who in fifteen minutes printed me off a lovely certificate and charged me 9,000 baht for the priveledge, took that to the embassy who charged me 1,900 baht for the letter. What got me most is that a Thai person had to tell The British Embassy that a British citizen didn't live in Britain anymore.


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[simon43]

4 hours ago, kevc said:

Nonsense they are very good......at taking your money. .........

Sent from my SM-T900 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

So don't blame the embassy staff.  They don't set the charges.  The FCO in London does.  If the local embassy staff didn't implement the charges and rules imposed by the FCO, then I'd imagine those local embassy staff would be out of a job pretty quickly.

[stanleycoin]

This is the standard Uk government response to Ex-pats in Thailand.

 

[OJAS]

18 hours ago, simon43 said:

So don't blame the embassy staff.  They don't set the charges.  The FCO in London does.  If the local embassy staff didn't implement the charges and rules imposed by the FCO, then I'd imagine those local embassy staff would be out of a job pretty quickly.

But said local embassy staff are now out of a job in any case if they were solely responsible up untl last December for issuing income confirmation letters. It would therefore appear that they might well have had nothing to lose by being demob-happy and waiving the £50 charge altogether before the shutters came down (which, as far as I know, was not the case, though)!☹️

[Traubert]

20 hours ago, simon43 said:

So don't blame the embassy staff.  They don't set the charges.  The FCO in London does.  If the local embassy staff didn't implement the charges and rules imposed by the FCO, then I'd imagine those local embassy staff would be out of a job pretty quickly.

This is the crux of the matter. This entire thread is an exercise in shooting the messenger.

 

It's the stuffed shirts in Whitehall that set the policy and procedures. Rant at them.

[smutcakes]

On 5/23/2019 at 8:35 PM, evadgib said:

So you arrived ill prepared, asked questions outside their remit that could and have been challenged either legally or via a complaint, & it was their fault...?

 

Some of you need to get a grip.

Lol. And the temerity of embassy not letting Joe Bloggs walk in and stick his USB into their computers...  

 

I really do not know what planet some people live on..

[geoffbezoz]

On 5/25/2019 at 4:11 AM, Just Weird said:

"No- embassy staff are uneducated, rude and ignorant people who almost certainly got the job through their dad who went to Eton. The great unwashed would never be able to get such a role.

 

But the joke's on them. The 16 year old spotty twerp who served me in McDonalds in London actually listened to me, did his job, and gave me what I asked for, for a small fee. The UK embassy does exactly the opposite. They don't care about you, don't want to help you, and want to charge you more than what most Thais spend in a month.

 

They could not give a rat's backside about British ex-pats in Thailand, not sure if it's because they are hungover from last night's gin-fest or because they are looking forward to this evening's BBQ, but in either case you are bothering them, and they are not scared about making that obvious! What a bunch of useless jobsworths!"

 

Apart from the part about your successful interaction with a McDonalds employee every word of that comment was nonsense. 

 

Being provided with services that the Embassy is obligated to provide to UK nationals is not means tested; the level of your small tax contribution to the British government is completely irrelevant.   Do you think, perhaps, that the alleged attitude shown to you by the Embassy staff could have been as a result of your treating that person as, to quote your words, "a 16-year old spotty twerp working at McDonald's"?

But don't forget that one day those "16-year old spotty twerp working at McDonald's" eventually grow up and some become Ambassadors, who then instruct their staff to be as unhelpful as possible to any Brit, just in case it was the one that called him a spotty twerp all those years previous when he was earning pocket money in McDonalds ????????????

[sanemax]

On 5/25/2019 at 11:03 AM, homeseeker said:

Last year I needed some urgent advice from the British Embassy following a theft from my home including loss of passport . The next day I suffered at home a unconnected accidental bad leg injury rendering me temporarily unable to walk.

I needed some help and advice so I phoned the British Embassy.

The person I spoke to  was uncouth and impolite and even refused to give me the phone number or contact details of Trendy and he was sarcastic suggesting everyone knows Trendy deals with lost passports etc.

I was distressed by the treatment I received and I made a formal complaint but the response was in effect the staff member was following procedures, blah blah blah.

I was and continue to be appalled at the arrogant, lazy and useless people who appear to be employed by the British Embassy.

 

 

Surely you could do a websearch for "Trendy Bangkok" ?

I just did a websearch and it came up as the first result .

What else did you want or expect  from the UK Embassy ?

[Just Weird]

On ‎5‎/‎25‎/‎2019 at 11:03 AM, homeseeker said:

Last year I needed some urgent advice from the British Embassy following a theft from my home including loss of passport . The next day I suffered at home a unconnected accidental bad leg injury rendering me temporarily unable to walk.

I needed some help and advice so I phoned the British Embassy.

The person I spoke to  was uncouth and impolite and even refused to give me the phone number or contact details of Trendy and he was sarcastic suggesting everyone knows Trendy deals with lost passports etc.

I was distressed by the treatment I received and I made a formal complaint but the response was in effect the staff member was following procedures, blah blah blah.

I was and continue to be appalled at the arrogant, lazy and useless people who appear to be employed by the British Embassy.

 

 

"...refused to give me the phone number...".

That would have been because VFS in The Trendy does not accept phone calls, appointments have to be made by email!

[jayboy]

Wow - so many negative comments here.  The British Embassy are not hear to hold your hand.  But in times of crisis/emergency, they can and will certainly help or give advice, such as contacting relatives, providing a list of lawyers or (as I know from personal experience when working as a tourist police officer at Phuket Airport) - contacting a local TPV to visit a British national who has just been arrested.
 
 

I won’t be testing the number given since this would be irresponsible without having a genuine reason for doing so.

I do know however from an experience some 10 years ago that I spent a whole day trying to get through without anyone picking up.




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[evadgib]

On 5/27/2019 at 11:07 PM, jayboy said:

 

I won’t be testing the number given since this would be irresponsible without having a genuine reason for doing so.

I do know however from an experience some 10 years ago that I spent a whole day trying to get through without anyone picking up

 

10 years ago the number would either have been answered or directed to the duty officers mobile in bkk. More recently the calls are answered at a regional call center in HK and suitably screened. Genuine emergencies are swiftly directed to the appropriate Embassy in SE Asia and/or FCO (out of hours) whereas answers to much of the remainder are steered towards the appropriate section of their website which is regularly updated.

Anything not falling into either category is quite rightly discontinued or answered by email within acceptable timeframe (21 working days?) for routine enquiries.

Edited May 30, 2019 by evadgib

[jayboy]

2 hours ago, evadgib said:

10 years ago the number would either have been answered or directed to the duty officers mobile in bkk. More recently the calls are answered at a regional call center in HK and suitably screened. Genuine emergencies are swiftly directed to the appropriate Embassy in SE Asia and/or FCO (out of hours) whereas answers to much of the remainder are steered towards the appropriate section of their website which is regularly updated.

Anything not falling into either category is quite rightly discontinued or answered by email within acceptable timeframe (21 working days?) for routine enquiries.

This wants to make me laugh at loud.It reads exactly as if produced as an internal FCO document in which all contingencies are covered to the satisfaction of Embassy staff, but with no reference to the callers (or customers as they are absurdly described).I would bet quite a lot that this elaborate set of arrangements quite often doesn't work in practice and there are stlll callers (sorry, customers) hanging on for a long time.

 

I do however love the sheer insanity of routing calls to a regional call centre in Hong Kong where "filtering" takes place.What genius thought of that one?

[evadgib]

31 minutes ago, jayboy said:

This wants to make me laugh at loud.It reads exactly as if produced as an internal FCO document in which all contingencies are covered to the satisfaction of Embassy staff, but with no reference to the callers (or customers as they are absurdly described).I would bet quite a lot that this elaborate set of arrangements quite often doesn't work in practice and there are stlll callers (sorry, customers) hanging on for a long time.

 

I do however love the sheer insanity of routing calls to a regional call centre in Hong Kong where "filtering" takes place.What genius thought of that one?

I could perhaps have spelled out that the call center is (or was) located within the high commission rather than the sort of setup ridiculed in sitcoms, enabling (expensive) UK based staff to be replaced by locally recruited staff (inc expats) already living in the countries concerned & doing the job on considerably lower wages with little or no benefits.

Edited May 30, 2019 by evadgib

[OJAS]

On 5/24/2019 at 5:16 AM, Crossy said:

 

Err, it was the embassy that cut off the expat registration and information programme (sorry, it was so long ago that I forget the proper name), now they want someone else to do their communicating for them for free.

I think that you're referring to the long-discontinued LOCATE system.

 

On 5/24/2019 at 6:09 AM, simon43 said:

They implement the policy of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO).  If you want to moan about what the embassy does or doesn't do, go moan to the FCO.

Whilst I generally agree that most of the perceived ills of the Embassy as stated in this thread can be laid at the feet of their FCO mandarin masters sitting in their Whitehall ivory tower, I do, however, make an exception in the case of what was IMHO the disgraceful decision to cease issuing income confirmation letters. Bearing in mind that this was supposed to a purely self-financing service and thus have no impact on overall strategic FCO resource planning, it follows that said FCO mandarin masters would have had little - if any - interest in what was, in all likelihood, a purely local Embassy decision.

Edited May 31, 2019 by OJAS