Whats really going on with Thailand immigration?

[Max69xl]

2 hours ago, lamyai3 said:

There's a word that's come into common parlance in the UK in recent decades "jobsworth", as in "sorry I can't do that, it's more than my job's worth." The phrase is often applied to low ranking officials and ineffectual middle management. Listening to interviews with the embassy staff, it's clear that the long suffering British expat has run into exactly that attitude on the income letters issue. Much of the handwashing was blamed on cost cutting and streamlining of procedures, but it was evident that in the documents that were no longer being accepted, the UK embassy were either being held to a higher set of standards than other countries or they were leaned on much more heavily than most. This is why I say they were hoodwinked by immigration, who most certainly led them to believe they would be the first in a long line of of embassies that would be stopping the letters, something that never materialised. 

"the UK embassy were either being held to a higher set of standards than other countries". That's BS. You don't know what you are talking about. 

The UK Embassy income letter wasn't reliable enough in the eyes of Immigration. Haven't you read the threads about people from the UK complaining about problems with 1 year extensions based on income/retirement without the income letter. Some doesn't have the >65k monthly,and never did, and now might have to pay 25k for the extension. If they have the money or can borrow it from a friend.

[Max69xl]

2 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

In my opinion there is a difference between an Affidavit and a Letter of Income.

 

Again my experience as belgian :

My embassy issue an Affidavit, they only confirm my signature, not my pension amount, they even don't want to see any supporting document.

 

The Austrian Consulate in Pattaya, which deal with Austrians, Belgians, Duch, Germans, French, is checking, in my case, my tax letter, my list of monthly income from my office of pension with the amount and reference on my belgian bank book.

 

They issue and undersign than a letter with the words : " we hereby certify " with my monthly income in Euro and ThB ( according to the value of the day.

 

Quite a difference in my opinion.

Yes,and that's the problem. I think (I'm not sure) the US embassy used to issue affidavits,not bank letters based on documents from for example the office of pension. I have to hand over stamped and signed documents from government, 2 insurance companies and my bank,a total of 4 letters based on retirement. Those papers are 100% reliable and the embassy/consulate knows that. It then takes less than 30min to issue the income letter for Immigration. Immigration looks at it for 5 seconds,no more. I totally understand Immigration when they don't accept "sworn statements" or affidavits. Why would they? 

[perconrad]

1 hour ago, Max69xl said:

Just 3 embassies, the Danish Embassy started issuing them again,but just based on government pension. Which can be a huge problem if they get a big chunk of pension from an insurance company or bank.

The Danish Embassy accept all pension documents you get from the government or from private pensions companies and banks, but the documents shall be in the English language not in Danish and that can be tricky to have them in English. 

If you have the documents sent directly from the issuers to the embassy it cost THB 1000 pr document for verification, if you send them yourself to the embassy they charge you THB 5000 pr document, because then the embassy have to contact the issuer to control for it to be true.

[55Jay]

3 minutes ago, Max69xl said:

Don't you understand that an income letter has be a trustworthy document showing your actual income/pension, not a false document based on lies? 

In the final analysis, even the Brits' "verification" of documents process, in reality, rose to the same level as that of the Yanks and Ozzies.   Bupkis.  To their credit, the Yanks and Roos had always been upfront about what their affadavits were, and were not.

 

Which is what the Thais are happy with, apparently, as foreign embassies continue to operate in the same way.  So much for the virtuous notion of "trustworthy documents" based on a suggestion there is some level of meaningful due diligence being done in the background.

 

In the end, I think the Thais let it swirl for a while then simply moved on to the next item on their To Do List.  The 400k/800k money-in-the-bank turd; another one foreigners, and Thai companies, had been rubbing Thai Immigration's nose in for years.

[lamyai3]

3 hours ago, Max69xl said:

"the UK embassy were either being held to a higher set of standards than other countries". That's BS. You don't know what you are talking about. 

It's you who's talking out of your hat here. @luckyluke has already disproven your claim that there are no EU countries providing income affidavits, I'm sure there are several others.

 

On what do you base your contention that EU document verifications are of a higher standard than UK ones? How can your embassy be any more certain that your own submitted documents are any more genuine than those of a UK citizen? Surely the data protection rules in Europe are similar to those in the UK, meaning that if immigration's order is taken literally, no country can truly verify all pension or income statements across the board. 

 

Immigration has proved on many occasions that they can be fickle, retributive and arbitrary in their policy, and they're certainly much closer in their agenda to the current regime than they ought to be - if you're in doubt about this just look at what they're doing currently with TM30s. 

[lamyai3]

On 8/23/2019 at 10:40 AM, 55Jay said:

On 8/23/2019 at 10:04 AM, Genmai said:

What's more likely - that there is some kind of hidden agenda of making life harder for white people to which all immigration is conspiring, or that all of this is yet another example of Thai people stuffing up even the most simple matters out of neglect/stupidity? Don't forget that we live in a country where the capital city floods because "city officials could not find the key to the sluice gates". 

On board with Occam's razor but indeed, this is Thailand, after all, where truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Right - in Thailand both explanations could easily be true at the same time. When you've got schemers in government much too close to immigration, coupled with an antiquated system with inefficient and slapdash administrative procedures it becomes all the more plausible. 

[Number 6]

On 8/22/2019 at 7:21 PM, jimmiejackson said:

On the other hand, the king just signed 2 emergency protocols to make the life of business owners easier. 

People say the officers are nervous and start to realize they where too hard, and change things.

 

Really? I must have missed this. Does anyone have any links or info?

Were those to recruit manufacturing? Well they lost some Japanese manufacturing due to doing nothing to prevent potential flooding as in years past. Imagine importing parts and components and tax might be issues.

[NoshowJones]

On 8/23/2019 at 1:41 PM, Pilotman said:

Maybe not as many as should impose such laws.  I would fully support such a set of rules in the UK, it would atop all the Chinese billionaires and Russian oligarch criminals buying up half of London and more than half of the UK football world. so I can hardly complain at them here. Actually, the rules/restrictions don't bother me much at all.  Not my country, so their gig, their rules. 

This is not answering any of my questions.

[Pilotman]

12 minutes ago, possum1931 said:

This is not answering any of my questions.

I didn't know that it was a test.  You get the answer that I am prepared to give, what you then do with it, or not, is a matter for you. 

[luckyluke]

3 hours ago, lamyai3 said:

How can your embassy be any more certain that your own submitted documents are any more genuine than those of a UK citizen?

They can't, but the approach can be different.

 

 An embassy/consulate can assume that every documents their citizens present are falsifications, and thus not trusting no one of their citizen, and no any document.

 

Or they can assume that most of the documents presented are genuine, and maybe only a few are falsifications.

 

The majority of good people should not be punished for the bad behavior of a minority. 

 

At the Austrian Consulate in Pattaya you have to present yourself with your documents.

 

It is something like 20 years that the Consul and Vice Consul are in this business, they know very well what is genuine.

 

Now it is of course possible that a master falsifier can present false documents.

 

I can only think he will do that for the "kick", some kind of proving himself he can cheat people.

 

Let us not forget that, certainly in Pattaya and also other places, one can obtain an extension for a not so high price, via an agent, without the need of falsifying anything. 

[lamyai3]

1 hour ago, luckyluke said:

It is something like 20 years that the Consul and Vice Consul are in this business, they know very well what is genuine.

 

Let us not forget that, certainly in Pattaya and also other places, one can obtain an extension for a not so high price, via an agent, without the need of falsifying anything. 

The same was the case with the UK, a great number of the documents presented were regular statements from high street banks etc - consular staff would have known exactly what they were looking at. The British embassy could have insisted that documents be stamped and signed by the bank (as the Thai embassy does for visa applications), but they never gave people the option. They could also have requested an in-person check, involving the person logging on to their mobile banking to verify their statement history on the spot, but again no dice. 

 

The fact that agents remain active 10 months later and are free to circumvent the financial rules around extensions makes a mockery of everything immigration was trying to argue. 

Edited August 24, 2019 by lamyai3

[sunnyboy2018]

14 hours ago, Sheryl said:

 

I don't think there is any such obsession. TI tends to use the term "pension: as shorthand for "retirement income". But they are concerned to see guaranteed, regular income, which not all non-pension sources are.

 

The problem for Embassies in issuing letters for income that is inclusive of non-govt sources is that, these other income streams may involve multiple documents from multiple sources. Whereas for an Embassy to confirm government pension income or equivalent, if they are so inclined, should be pretty straightfoward, this could involve having to look over many documents some of which the Embassy official might not be familiar with.

 

For those whose Embassies no longer issue letters, it doesn't matter what the income course is, TI after hearing from Embassies about all the multiple sources a retired person might have, decided there was no way they were going to look at all that and opted instead just on proof of bringing funds in from abroad.

 

And of coiurse for those using the money in the bank method, makes no difference at all how they finance their retirement.

You would think that Tax return details would suffice to indicate Income.

[Max69xl]

18 hours ago, luckyluke said:

They can't, but the approach can be different.

 

 An embassy/consulate can assume that every documents their citizens present are falsifications, and thus not trusting no one of their citizen, and no any document.

 

Or they can assume that most of the documents presented are genuine, and maybe only a few are falsifications.

 

The majority of good people should not be punished for the bad behavior of a minority. 

 

At the Austrian Consulate in Pattaya you have to present yourself with your documents.

 

It is something like 20 years that the Consul and Vice Consul are in this business, they know very well what is genuine.

 

Now it is of course possible that a master falsifier can present false documents.

 

I can only think he will do that for the "kick", some kind of proving himself he can cheat people.

 

Let us not forget that, certainly in Pattaya and also other places, one can obtain an extension for a not so high price, via an agent, without the need of falsifying anything. 

You don't even need an agent. You can pay straight to Immigration in some immigration offices.

[NoshowJones]

50 minutes ago, Max69xl said:

You don't even need an agent. You can pay straight to Immigration in some immigration offices.

That is the word "some".

[Max69xl]

4 minutes ago, possum1931 said:

That is the word "some".

Jomtien office is one of them. 

[scubascuba3]

Jomtien office is one of them. 

Do you think it's better than using an agent? not much difference in cost