TM30: “It’s really not that hard”, immigration official tells foreigners

[Peterw42]

8 minutes ago, Sonhia said:

Typical Thai response.

 

Terrorism, that old chestnut again, used by many nations as simply an excuse.

 

Thai immigration law is not helping the Thai nation, that is obvious to see, plus it is not uniform, consistent, fair, in line with inflation and very unfair!

For example, free tourist visas to Chinese and Indians but the main spenders, Westerners, are basically told to F off. Racism without a doubt. If only my Government treated Thai in that manner...

 

 

I think you will find its a free visa exempt, the same thing westerners have had for years. To date its actually been racism against Indians or Chinese, requiring them to pay for a visa on arrival when we hoped off the plane for free.

[BimBoon]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

My country had bilateral agreement for visa free 90 day entry with Thailand. My country cancelled it unilaterally for reasons I don't want to put on here, so the Thai government reciprocated.

Fair enough in my opinion, though I was sad to lose the ease of entry.

If it's good enough for the Thais to put hurdles in our way living in LOS, I can't see why it would be bad to put them on Thais in western countries. 

Nothing to do with "revenge". More about fairness.

If it's about fairness why can Thais own property in my country but I can't here. Why they can even own football clubs.

[pookondee]

8 minutes ago, Nickymaster said:

You really didn't get what I was trying to say? Again, if you are a "bad Guy" and want to avoid doing any reporting you can rent through Airbnb. Right? As long as there are many possibilities not to do any reporting, TM30 is useless. 

ok got ya.

I guess another point is that the bad guy can always pay the fine and walk away a happy chappy unless he is on overstay.

 

This reporting business and the accountability it brings with every move will certainly help weed out a few of em.

 

Maybe thats what its all about, but they dont want to admit as much, since someone has gone on record to

say "we caught all the overstayers already".

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, TG911 said:

No it's not relevant, because 5000 people are barking up the wrong tree ;-))

Google tells me 35 million tourists visited LOS in 2017. Why would they give the time of day to 5,000 disgruntled farang expats?

Where expats go wrong is believing that they are important in Thailand. The only Thais to whom long stay expats are important are those that live off them.

[khunpa]

My wife and I used the Section 38 app for iOS to register. After sending the form it said “check your email”, but nothing there yet (after 4 days).. Do we now just wait??

 

How do we know if they even have received the form? Why not send a confirmation mail?

 

[Guderian]

They've never wanted us here but were sort-of-content to ignore us until 2014. Now we have a military government, apparently forever more, and it's not surprising they are a lot more suspicious of aliens than civilian administrations were. In other words, they've never wanted us here but now they're going to keep us under a microscope or force us to leave. Simples.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 minutes ago, BimBoon said:

If it's about fairness why can Thais own property in my country but I can't here. Why they can even own football clubs.

IMO that's because they see what damage foreigners buying land has caused in western countries has caused and sensibly don't want any of that in LOS. 

If I could, not a single foreigner would be able to buy land in my country.

I don't put it down to unfairness, but to common sense. Allowing foreigners to buy land in my country has been a disaster for poor people that can't even dream of owning property now.

[inThailand]

The petition only made them dig in deeper. They ain't going to bend because of some whining falangs.

 

thanks!

[MadMac]

People used to ignore the 90 days (TM47) all the years, it was and is not enforced unless you have to deal with immigration. Same with that TM30 hocuspocus. Travel the country, let the hotels do it for you. And if you really have to go to the immi, pay the 800B they charge in Chaeng Wattana or 1600B in Chiang Mai and Phuket. Not worth the time to travel to their office and waste half a day every time.

 

Online? No, it is not working, even if you get an account registered after several weeks, the documentation they ask for (Excel sheets) is a nitemare. Not worth the effort.

[khunpa]

4 minutes ago, pookondee said:

ok got ya.

I guess another point is that the bad guy can always pay the fine and walk away a happy chappy unless he is on overstay.

 

This reporting business and the accountability it brings with every move will certainly help weed out a few of em.

 

Maybe thats what its all about, but they dont want to admit as much, since someone has gone on record to

say "we caught all the overstayers already".

I doubt very much they will be even able to handle the data. Sure they just print and store it somewhere. They already have a lot of info from 90 day reporting, which they are obviously not able to process.

 

 

[PatOngo]

Eighteen pages and counting on this thread alone....are we making any progress???

[carabaothai]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

suggested that immigration should make the pink ID card more accessible to foreigners

It is very very easy to get one and not expensive at all.

But I don't understand how it could replace the TM 30.... The ID card doesn't give information about the place you stay now. 

[transam]

1 minute ago, inThailand said:

The petition only made them dig in deeper. They ain't going to bend because of some whining falangs.

 

thanks!

"Thanks" for what..?

[paulbrow]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Ignorance of the law is never an excuse. It is the responsibility of a farang to aquaint themselves with the regulations of a country in which they CHOOSE to live.

I've known about TM 30 for as long as I can remember, so it wasn't a secret.

Well, you are one of the few that knew about it. I've been here since 2000, making visas, extensions, all my 90 day reports, and had never heard of the TM-30. Read about it here at TV in June for the first time. I've been trying to get my wife's home registered so I can report as required ever since. After the email verification from immigration, I haven't heard another word. 57 days later still have heard nothing. I want to follow the law, but immigration makes it difficult to do. Immigration tells me about having to do a 90 day report in my passport. There is NO notation about having to report every time I return to my home after being gone for over 24 hours. If this is so critical shouldn't there be something mentioned on the 90 requirement slip or entering stamps or extension stamps to tell us about the TM-30? I truly believe most of us want to follow the law, but need at least some help from immigration for us to follow through. Okay, that's my 2 cents worth.

[hotchilli]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Pol Col. Thatchapong Sarawannangkul said that filing a TM30 was “really not that hard”.

Next month my mother-in-law will be having surgery, when she's released and back home she will require a visit every Saturday with my wife to check on her and deliver supplies for the week ahead, stay the night and return to my home Sunday as my wife has a full time job.

That means Monday morning I have to go to my immigration office to state that i'm back home & she (who is very infirm) has to go to her nearest immigration office which is very far from her to register that I stayed at her house as a guest !!!

She cannot do it online as she has no concept of computers/mobile apps or the internet as she is 89 years old !

How is it "not really that hard for her"?

Or how are we a threat to national security?

I've told my wife she will have to go alone & I will chat with mother-in-law via my wifes mobile phone !

Thank you very much immigration

 

[ChipButty]

4 minutes ago, khunpa said:

My wife and I used the Section 38 app for iOS to register. After sending the form it said “check your email”, but nothing there yet (after 4 days).. Do we now just wait??

 

How do we know if they even have received the form? Why not send a confirmation mail?

 

My friend almost 3 weeks and nothing I wondering did it go through in the first place

[Peterw42]

2 minutes ago, MadMac said:

People used to ignore the 90 days (TM47) all the years, it was and is not enforced unless you have to deal with immigration. Same with that TM30 hocuspocus. Travel the country, let the hotels do it for you. And if you really have to go to the immi, pay the 800B they charge in Chaeng Wattana or 1600B in Chiang Mai and Phuket. Not worth the time to travel to their office and waste half a day every time.

 

Online? No, it is not working, even if you get an account registered after several weeks, the documentation they ask for (Excel sheets) is a nitemare. Not worth the effort.

When you pay the fine, you still need to queue up and do a TM30 report, so you are still wasting half a day etc.

 

The excel spreadsheet is if you are reporting multiple people at once (like a hotel would do) a normal report for a single person doesnt require the excel ss

[holy cow cm]

11 minutes ago, TG911 said:

No it's not relevant, because 5000 people are barking up the wrong tree

 

You can see it, and read the response, right in front of your eyes

5000 signatures is quite a lot of complaints and does mean something being relevant. You are actually in the small tiny minority of liking the system and not going for fair change.

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, BimBoon said:

A 140km round trip is a huge inconvenience. But then again they only enforce laws when it comes to foreigners. When it comes to there own you find the police at the local gold shop doing selfies or asleep in there station while motorcycle after motorcycle rider passes without a helmet.

They probably wonder why the farang doesn't move closer to the immigration office.

Had I stayed in the village, I'd have had to stay overnight to do an extension, assuming I had all the paperwork. I solved that by moving to Lamphun.

Obviously there are those that don't want to leave the village, but in the end, that's their choice, be it hard or not to do so. When they married someone living far away from an immigration office they must have known it would be hard to extend their visas.

[puchooay]

3 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Next month my mother-in-law will be having surgery, when she's released and back home she will require a visit every Saturday with my wife to check on her and deliver supplies for the week ahead, stay the night and return to my home Sunday as my wife has a full time job.

That means Monday morning I have to go to my immigration office to state that i'm back home & she (who is very infirm) has to go to her nearest immigration office which is very far from her to register that I stayed at her house as a guest !!!

She cannot do it online as she has no concept of computers/mobile apps or the internet as she is 89 years old !

How is it "not really that hard for her"?

Or how are we a threat to national security?

I've told my wife she will have to go alone & I will chat with mother-in-law via my wifes mobile phone !

Thank you very much immigration

 

If she does no report you were there then you do not have to report your return. Who will ever know???? No one.

[HaoleBoy]

3 minutes ago, khunpa said:

I doubt very much they will be even able to handle the data. Sure they just print and store it somewhere. They already have a lot of info from 90 day reporting, which they are obviously not able to process.

 

 

Is it another option for those that have registered for online usage or can do it themselves, to just start "reporting" every few days.  Went to stay at a Thai friends house and am reporting back ???? ...
Inundate Immigration offices with paperwork.
 

And for those provinces that aren't going by the strict policies that BKK does - CM, Korat, ??? - report anyways.  Flood them with paperwork.

[tomartoh]

1 hour ago, stephehr said:

What a bunch of BS  Why was this not done years ago?  Daah stupid

Because the they need the easy money now to help national security

[Time to grow]

I think what this comes down to is that foreigners simply don't like the additional hassle but maybe more importantly, the increased invasion of privacy. As guests in Thailand, we foreigners don't necessarily have a case for civil rights under this regime. Take it or leave it, it's our individual choice to stay in Thailand but I don't think we have a seat at the table for reform. Besides, privacy is being eviscerated most everywhere, especially in my home country. To a much greater degree than Thailand will ever be capable of.

 

The governments stance that the policy has been strengthened for reasons of better terrorism and crime fighting is difficult to swallow. "We are doing this for your own health" has always been a red flag for me. No one is better equipped to look out for my own health than me, thank you very much. It is unlikely the terrorist bombings in Bangkok recently were perpetrated by a foreigner. Which brings us full circle.

[wealthychef]

16 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

My country had bilateral agreement for visa free 90 day entry with Thailand. My country cancelled it unilaterally for reasons I don't want to put on here, so the Thai government reciprocated.

Fair enough in my opinion, though I was sad to lose the ease of entry.

If it's good enough for the Thais to put hurdles in our way living in LOS, I can't see why it would be bad to put them on Thais in western countries. 

Nothing to do with "revenge". More about fairness.

 

So just for the sake of fairness, you want to put in place a policy in your own country that the idiotic Thai government thought of?  I think it's best to avoid advocating most policies I've seen in the LOS, even if it means some Thai people get treated better than I myself do at times. 

[CMNightRider]

I had to laugh when I read this article about the Foreign Correspondents Club meeting with immigration officials, and the comment immigration made about the TM30 not really being that hard.  If all Thais had to comply with this idoitic requirement it would be a whole different story.

 

If the TM30 wasn't over the top, there would have never been a petition to stop it, and you wouldn't have people posting negative comments daily about how stupid and unnecessary it is.  

 

Come on immigration, wake up.  If you don't want westerners here, just kick them out and close your borders.  Maybe ask North Korea how that is working out for them.  

 

I want to thank the Foreign Correspondents Club and other expats who took the time to meet with immigration officials.  I don't know how you were able to keep a straight face, while listening to immigration attempting to defend their restrictive rules and regulations directed towards foreigners.

 

 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

5 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

she (who is very infirm) has to go to her nearest immigration office which is very far from her to register that I stayed at her house as a guest !!!

No, she doesn't. It's in the regulations that she can do it at her local police station. That's what I used to do at the village.

[Salerno]

48 minutes ago, charliebadenhop said:

I cannot find the TM30 app in the Apple App Store. Anyone else?

https://apps.apple.com/th/app/section38/id1451853492?l=th

 

48 minutes ago, charliebadenhop said:

And why in the world does it show up as Section38 in the link that the article has?

Because a TM30 is required per Section 38 of the Act.

[RBOP]

31 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Considering that I used to get to the office at 4 am just to be able to get an appointment I don't think that I wasn't bothered. What I'm saying is that it is what it is and we either abide by it or leave LOS. Bitchin' on here isn't going to make them change their minds. There are thousands of farangs living on extensions and only a few dozen on here. Most are not complaining.

 

Your situation seems unfortunate, but it is of your own choosing. No one forced you to buy a condo in another province and unless you bought it before TM 30 existed you would have known of the implications. Just because TM 30 was not enforced did not mean that it never would be.

I was doing TM 30 many years ago so my wife didn't have to take time off work.

There are many laws still on the books that are not enforced anymore. Like there is a law in Canada to install a horse post must be installed in front of your business (to tie up horses)  but its no longer enforced. I bought my condo 25 years ago and second one 9 years ago. Its was announced on 28 March 2019 that TM30 would be enforcement of an existing 1979 regulation.  I put my condo up for sale already. 

 

Furthermore, your posts take up 90% of this forum. Enough already. Let people bitch without you bitching back. 

[Peterw42]

5 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Next month my mother-in-law will be having surgery, when she's released and back home she will require a visit every Saturday with my wife to check on her and deliver supplies for the week ahead, stay the night and return to my home Sunday as my wife has a full time job.

That means Monday morning I have to go to my immigration office to state that i'm back home & she (who is very infirm) has to go to her nearest immigration office which is very far from her to register that I stayed at her house as a guest !!!

She cannot do it online as she has no concept of computers/mobile apps or the internet as she is 89 years old !

How is it "not really that hard for her"?

Or how are we a threat to national security?

I've told my wife she will have to go alone & I will chat with mother-in-law via my wifes mobile phone !

Thank you very much immigration

 

unless you will be visiting immigration at the mothers house, there is no need to do a TM30, nobody will ever know you visited the mother.

Why do a report that will never be asked for ?

You realise that you can operate the computer and report online. nobody is checking that it was the mother who typed in the information.

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, khunpa said:

I doubt very much they will be even able to handle the data. Sure they just print and store it somewhere. They already have a lot of info from 90 day reporting, which they are obviously not able to process.

 

 

I'm sure that you are out of date thinking. A modern computer will be able to process all the information and flag any that have not complied for the immigration officer.

Of course previously you would have been correct, which is how I stayed for years in guest houses that did not require my passport to register.