It finally happened! Denied entry at BKK on METV

[toolpush]

6 hours ago, steve187 said:

there is no non immigrant visa for a single 31 year old other than elite

Elite is NOT a non-immigrant visa. It is nothing more than a glorified tourist visa.

[sillyfool]

14 minutes ago, donnacha said:

No, I am talking very specifically about Thailand.

You might not have noticed, but other countries in the region, such as Vietnam, are mostly making it easier for tourists to give them money.

The current Thai government is getting this wrong and needlessly blowing a massive asset that previous Thai governments (some of them democratically elected) spent 50 years building up. There is nothing natural or logical about what they are doing to their reputation as the world's most famous easy-going and stress-free destination. 
 

can we agree that infrastructure wise the other countries you speak of are far behind thailand ? that might be a part of this very complex situation. to simply say the current government is to blame is kind of silly. 

 

i will target western men with this comment. 

 

do you really think the years of abuse of the thai system by westener's (albeit at the hands of corrupt officials) wouldn't catch up them ?

 

i left thailand about 11 years ago and just came back in july of this year. so much has changed with this place. to assume those old practices would continue.... head meet sand. 

 

i watched from home for the whole time (stupid wife wanted to go to canada) of the ever evolving and changing immigration system here. weather or not you agree or like it is irrelevant. times are changing.

sincerely 

mr sandman 

 

 

[Blue Muton]

13 hours ago, JamJar said:

"wearing a nice blazer and nice pants" is exactly what I wear when I'm going on holiday. ????

Why would your underwear make any difference?

[donnacha]

38 minutes ago, maxpower said:

In multimillion record databases searches are not made across all records.

 

Sure. For the unlikely hypothetical that the immigration officials are going to be primarily focusing on preventing dual passport holders from alternating them, we have to presume they will be searching for a name and d.o.b. match across ALL nationalities.

 

38 minutes ago, maxpower said:

A simple gender request would  provide significant start split. 

I agree but, again, in the unlikely perfectionist world that some members are suggesting, in which the immigration officials are determined to rule out all loopholes at any cost, a gender split would not be watertight as some visitors come from countries that allow their citizens to officially change their genders.

I think you would still have to run every new arrival's passport past all 200 million records (or more if you want to go back more than 5 years), and the IO would then be swimming in false positives, particularly for names that are common in many countries.
 

 

38 minutes ago, maxpower said:

We have single server systems with several million records each addressing cloud storage locations. An i486 computer could easily handle a search index.

Okay, so, the Immigration Department would somehow buy a similar cloud system to serve all their points of entry, and it happily serves up all these possible dual passport holders that they are apparently so eager to catch, but what about the poor swine IO who then has to manually stare at the photographs taken of each of those arrivals, some of them years apart, in order to rule out the possibility that the visitor standing impatiently in front of him might be a dual passport holder, and not just some guy with the same name and birthday as a load of previous visitors over the past 5, 10, 20 years?

It would take ages, and have you seen the queues they already have? It is not unknown for Chinese visitors to crouch down and go to the toilet right there, in the queue, while Korean visitors video them, because they've been left waiting so long. These are airports in which everyone knows, weeks ahead, when the planes full of passengers will be arriving, but it doesn't occur to anyone to schedule enough IO's to be on duty when the demand is highest. 

This obsession, that some members here have, with stopping dual passport holders is probably not shared by the actual Immigration Department. They will probably focus their limited resources on a system that splits by nationality.

That would be the logical thing to do, unless dual passport holders turn out to be a significant problem, which they have not so far appeared to be. The Immigration Department will almost certainly focus their resources on running name and d.o.b. against the far more limited indexes of people already blacklisted from Thailand and people wanted by Interpol, while also pulling up the previous records associated with the passport they have there right in front of them.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by donnacha

[StayinThailand2much]

6 hours ago, Yeahbutwhytho said:

(...)

If they wanted it to be a rule, then make it a rule with exact criteria on how many days are allowed, will stop the confusion that's for sure

(...)

With precise rules, how could individual IOs still collect bribes?

[spermwhale]

Must be more to the story. I've never heard of anyone having to show cash upon arrival, especially now with ATMs everywhere. I have friends who have been here on just tourist visas for a year staying a month getting an extension leaving and coming back and doing it all over again with not a problem. 

I've come in an out of the country too many times to remember and I've never been asked to show cash. You had to have been flagged for another reason. 

[spermwhale]

7 hours ago, cerox said:

Good luck for your next time. You should have accepted the offer for 100 USD for a neighboring country flight. Much better than an expensive/long flight back to Canada.

 

Lessons learned: do not fly into Thailand from far away unless you have retirement/marriage/Elite visa etc.

Fly to Malaysia or another neighboring country and then into TH so your way back is shorter if something goes wrong.

So what are you suggesting? That every tourist that arrives should get a long term visa in advance?  I've stood in the lines at the airports full of tourists and NOBODY ever gets pulled a side. They process and stamp. 

[mosan]

2 hours ago, tlandtday said:

not entirely true.  the reason is called a vacation whether it happens for an extended period.  i would be more concerned about the masses of "tourists" many young and broke arriving from china and india and trying to start businesses here and probably never reporting and on overstay.  

Why exactly, are you so worried about the Chinese and Indians?  Are they actually affecting your lifestyle in some way?

[yogi100]

3 hours ago, bbi1 said:

So being an asian on multiple METV's but holding a western passport gives a good chance of not getting rejected as opposed to being a westerner?

Actually Donnacha did refer to a trend against Westerners. He did not mention Asians.

[EricTh]

Does this prove that having  a new passport to fool the authorities doesn't help nowadays?

 

What's difference between section 12.2 and 12.9?

[yogi100]

2 hours ago, jacko45k said:

No, just means he sees Canada as 'home'..... and refers to it that way. In a way I still think of UK as 'home' and have not lived there for 4 decades.

Where in any of his posts does he indicate that he lives in Thailand. Many of us visit Thailand as a holiday destination a lot including myself but do not live let alone work there.

 

OP, clear this up please where do you live, where is your regular home?

 

 

[donnacha]

23 minutes ago, sillyfool said:

can we agree that infrastructure wise the other countries you speak of are far behind thailand ? that might be a part of this very complex situation.

 

Ultimately, infrastructure is a tool. A high-tech rifle is also a tool, but it is not necessarily a good thing if you are using it to blow off your own toes.

With their more basic infrastructures, these other countries are steadily chipping away at the huge mass of westerners who were previously happy to spend their money in Thailand alone. These more primitive countries can do this because they are not confused about what their goal is. They are absolutely clear that they want to attract more foreign money, and create more jobs, and business opportunities for their people.

In a relatively normal democratic situation, Thailand had the same goal. Now, however, in a situation where the government lacks legitimacy, their focus shifts rapidly to whatever they think might gain popular support: crackdowns on alcohol, crackdowns on westerners, crackdowns on terrorism (TM30), crackdowns on hospital pricing, and endless new layers of red tape unguided by any stable focus.
 

34 minutes ago, sillyfool said:

to simply say the current government is to blame is kind of silly. 

 

The current government is unequivocally to blame for far more than this. What is happening to the Thai economy as a whole is a needless catastrophe.

Generals: very good at getting men to march around a barracks. Not too great at anything beyond the barracks walls.
 

 

37 minutes ago, sillyfool said:

i will target western men with this comment. 

Why? Why be part of this virtue-signaling insanity that is enveloping the world?
 

 

39 minutes ago, sillyfool said:

do you really think the years of abuse of the thai system by westener's (albeit at the hands of corrupt officials) wouldn't catch up them ?

Again, just amazed at the self-hate. What the hell have we evil western men done apart from blow whatever money we had left after our divorces and funded entire generations of Thailand's poor until, today, they are rich enough to hate us?

 

[bbbbooboo]

Hmmm.... it’s almost like they don’t want us (aliens) here innit?

[StayinThailand2much]

4 minutes ago, bbbbooboo said:

Hmmm.... it’s almost like they don’t want us (aliens) here innit?

Calling visitors "aliens" says it all. Nuff said...

[Mattd]

There seems to be a lot of discussion about the immigration database etc. 

When a person goes to the desk and hands their passport to the IO, he scans the passport and the system compares the name, nationality, gender & DOB against what exists in the system, if there are matches with different passport nos. then the photo in the system can be compared by the IO to the person standing in front of them, if the two match the two passports are linked.

The photos will be replaced by fingerprints over time.

This doesn't take long at all in a properly managed DB.

[from the home of CC]

1 hour ago, 55Jay said:

Even in the 7 years I've lived here, looking at TVF and watching the trends in these Immigration Threads, I recall getting a new passport used to be Plan A for those with too many in/out stamps, or those who got bounced out and needed a clean slate.  Wasn't it also a fairly standard procedure among "Travellers" who consciously over-stayed, as a way to avoid Immigration enforcement/fines when they did finally leave the country via aiport?  Just report your passport lost/stolen/damaged to the Thai Keystone Cops, get a new one at your embassy, and you're pretty much good to go. 

 

These things were discussed openly all over the internet for years, including here on TVF.  TI tightened up on these starting a few years ago.

 

So despite their own failings and corruption, TI has seen you chumps 1,000 times before and sees you coming a mile away, like a zit on a prom queen's nose.  Fresh passport = quick cross-check.  Data match confirms their profiling was bang on, yet again, so they bounce the cheeky J-class farang in the blazer over to secondary inspection for your arrogance.  You play your game.  They play theirs - with an obvious Home Team advantage.

People have been cutting their own throats online in Thailand for years believing I guess they're no one in the country's government that can read English. Every scam/maneuver bragged about I'm sure is noted. As the country's progress is slowed by being 'management heavy' (the very problem of most western governments) they do eventually get around to corrective action. IMO most folks problems have been their own making.

[donnacha]

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

They are forecasting 80,000,000 visitors for 2030 and it will cover 30% of GDP.

All Thai figures regarding tourism are rectally-sourced.

Whatever the potential of those new markets, there was no credible economic reason to destroy their existing western tourist business, they could have developed their Chinese and Indian business alongside it. It is an act of stunning pique and short-sightedness.

Western tourism was remarkably consistent over half a century, even in years of downturn. It may yet transpire that the Chinese market is not as resilient in the face of domestic economic pressures. We also do not yet know if the average Chinese visitor will keep returning for years as Westerners have tended to.
 

 

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

Okay mostly from China and India, but at least they are expected to <deleted> off home after their holidays and not try and hang around whining about a sense of entitlement and how their sexpat antics support the local community!

Again, I do not understand the self-hate that seems to be sprouting up in western countries. I often wonder if the members who indulge in this form of virtue signaling are simply very young.

Human beings have sex and, yes, that does sometimes does result in one human providing support to another. This is universal.

Western tourism has been far more engaged with local communities than tour buses of Chinese tourists staying in Chinese-owned hotels will ever be. All those individual farangs, spread out into the remotest parts of the country, brought vital money with them. They absolutely DO support small businesses and families all over this country, mostly the very people that the Thai elites do not give a damn about.

Also, let's be clear: it is a good thing when relatively rich foreigners decide to stick around for years and spend all of their money in relatively poor communities. The elites who own large hotels in the cities might be excited about five-star tourists who stay for a week and drop huge wads of cash on luxury services, but a stall holder selling Pad Thai in Nakhon Nowhere is just happy for the 10% of his business that comes, like clockwork, from the wizened old farangs in his village. That 10% might not mean much to you but, for him, it might be his entire profit margin that week.

Whatever their reasons for harassing and shaking down western tourists, these Immigration Officers are inflicting real and permanent damage on sections of the Thai population who can least afford to lose income.

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by donnacha

[Will E Vormer]

Make appointment w thai embassy in your home country about visa application and explain what happened, worth a try. Maybe look to Vietnam for a few yrs. Loved it there.. you honestly wont miss thailand much

Edited September 26, 2019 by Will E Vormer

[SpanishExpat]

4 hours ago, donnacha said:

That worked great for a long time, right up until earlier this year, but some claim that the new computer system has ended that loophole.

I'm not so sure, that is true - a lot of members here will state, as a fact, their guess about how they feel something should work - but I would be interested in hearing from members who do alternate their passports. Are IOs now querying this? Does it seem to alarm them? Or do they accept that using different passports is legitimate and base their decisions on the combined record?

Well it`s 100% true. I have 2 EU Passports with slightly different surnames and alternated them. They can now easily link them. I saw the printed list by myself. However, in my case I just did it, as my german passport was already quite full and I needed to save pages.

[nrasmussen]

If the new computer system cross references ALL names and dates of birth against ALL other entry records for passports of ALL other nationalities, yes, they will get a match and may well query why you are travel on passports from different countries. It is entirely legal to do so, and accepted by pretty much all countries but, then again, T.I.T, in the current climate it could cause them to view you with more suspicion.

Personally, I have my doubts about whether they are throwing that much computing power at each entry, which is why I would like to hear from anyone with first-hand experience over the past six months.

Well, I personally don't see why they wouldn't do it. Unless, of course, it would result in an overwhelming amount of false positives in too many cases.

Additionally, I would expect all this data to be used for some kind of automated profiling.

[sillyfool]

29 minutes ago, donnacha said:

 

Ultimately, infrastructure is a tool. A high-tech rifle is also a tool, but it is not necessarily a good thing if you are using it to blow off your own toes.

With their more basic infrastructures, these other countries are steadily chipping away at the huge mass of westerners who were previously happy to spend their money in Thailand alone. These more primitive countries can do this because they are not confused about what their goal is. They are absolutely clear that they want to attract more foreign money, and create more jobs, and business opportunities for their people.

In a relatively normal democratic situation, Thailand had the same goal. Now, however, in a situation where the government lacks legitimacy, their focus shifts rapidly to whatever they think might gain popular support: crackdowns on alcohol, crackdowns on westerners, crackdowns on terrorism (TM30), crackdowns on hospital pricing, and endless new layers of red tape unguided by any stable focus.
 

The current government is unequivocally to blame for far more than this. What is happening to the Thai economy as a whole is a needless catastrophe.

Generals: very good at getting men to march around a barracks. Not too great at anything beyond the barracks walls.
 

 

Why? Why be part of this virtue-signaling insanity that is enveloping the world?
 

 

Again, just amazed at the self-hate. What the hell have we evil western men done apart from blow whatever money we had left after our divorces and funded entire generations of Thailand's poor until, today, they are rich enough to hate us?

 

i am not virtue signalling anything. in fact i can't stand liberals for the most part. face it the western idea of being a king in thailand is coming to an end. yet the attitude is still alive and well within some.

 

you have some white knightish feelings going on there no ? so western men funded entire generations of thais ? this is laughable. the majority of thai women have nothing to do with western men. so there's that. the actual percentage of western men married to thai women and taking care of things is pitiful compared to the entirety of the money flowing here. now if you are talking about working girls. well you do know that most of that here is thai on thai right ? like over 90%. so i hear. i have no literal experience in this matter at all. honest. 

 

i see similarities back home with canada. it's becoming another country. locals whine and complain about cost of living etc. home prices and what not. yet fail to realize that there are millions of people with millions of dollars trying to get a seat at the canadian table. with immigration numbers at 300k plus every year and the majority being non western...well you do the math.

 

western culture is a small percentage of the future.....get used to it.

 

jim morrison...the west is the best.....not anymore jim....the west used to be the best.

 

aaaaaand still no clarification from the op. me thinks he knows many posters here have nailed it. 

 

so until the op clarifies the questions posed to him. i'm betting he was trying to game the system.

 

are these kinds of visa tricks and extensions available in western countries ? if not why so ?

[donnacha]

5 minutes ago, nrasmussen said:

Unless, of course, it would result in an overwhelming amount of false positives in too many cases.

Well, how could it not?
 

 

5 minutes ago, nrasmussen said:

Additionally, I would expect all this data to be used for some kind of automated profiling.

I agree that would be smart, and am not saying there might not people in the government who are aware of that potential, but I am not aware of any Thai government schemes that have been that ambitious or executed with notable competence.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by donnacha

[spiekerjozef]

13 hours ago, timendres said:

Seems a little international press regarding this pattern is called for.

Totally agree!

[Selatan]

32 minutes ago, donnacha said:

All Thai figures regarding tourism are rectally-sourced.

Whatever the potential of those new markets, there was no credible economic reason to destroy their existing western tourist business, they could have developed their Chinese and Indian business alongside it. It is an act of stunning pique and short-sightedness.

Western tourism was remarkably consistent over half a century, even in years of downturn. It may yet transpire that the Chinese market is not as resilient in the face of domestic economic pressures. We also do not yet know if the average Chinese visitor will keep returning for years as Westerners have tended to.

China has a population of 1.4b whereas India has 1.3b people, which means billions of Chinese and Indians have never visited Thailand before. Thailand doesn't need repeat visitors from China and India to get 10 million Chinese and Indian tourists each year for the next 100 years.

[Langkawee]

What you are saying is not true. He was denied on means. There was no supporting evidence that he was working and neither was he denied for this reason. You need to speak to Ubon Joe. For visa matters he should be the only one to speak. He was denied because of a lie, insufficient means, yet he has 21,000 baht. No evidence to support he had insufficient means. Thai airports have become a circus. He had a METV for crying out loud. What dont you understand? They had no proof he wasn't a tourist, no evidence that could mean he was working. 

[Hoppyone]

15 hours ago, elviajero said:

It looks like you were denied under section 12.2. That is for not having the appropriate means of living in the country.

 

Having 20K satisfies 12.9 and doesn't stop you being denied under 12.2.

 

You are not banned.

 

You could try again, but given your history you have a high chance of being denied again.

Classified not a genuine tourist to Thailand I would imagine , too many recent trips to Thailand is usually the problem when denied entry

[JAG]

8 hours ago, Tayaout said:

The requirement for METV are pretty steep including proving you have a job in your home country so it can be surprising to get denied entry after getting this kind of visa. The reason he was denied is not because he did anything wrong. He was denied because they asked

Their suspicions may have been aroused by noticing the large number (7) of tourist visas with only a couple of months gaps between them. Not really the pattern of someone with a job in his home country?

[Selatan]

13 minutes ago, Hoppyone said:

Classified not a genuine tourist to Thailand I would imagine , too many recent trips to Thailand is usually the problem when denied entry

Not if you are a Malaysian or Singaporean that enters on a Friday and leaves 2 days later. No problem entering for the 52nd time of the same year, visa-exempt.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Selatan

[sanemax]

12 hours ago, Langkawee said:

What you are saying is not true. He was denied on means. There was no supporting evidence that he was working and neither was he denied for this reason. You need to speak to Ubon Joe. For visa matters he should be the only one to speak. He was denied because of a lie, insufficient means, yet he has 21,000 baht. No evidence to support he had insufficient means. Thai airports have become a circus. He had a METV for crying out loud. What dont you understand? They had no proof he wasn't a tourist, no evidence that could mean he was working. 

That was the official reason IO gave  , but the reason as to why he got refused was that he had been to Thailand too many times in the past and trying to enter Thailand on a tourist visa when he wasnt going for tourism 

[racket]

Sad story, but the title is misleading.

 

The reality is that you've obviously overused the SETV (single entry visa) among the visa exempts according to your description. A new passport won't help since their im-system will flag you based upon the entries you previously had. (they can't see your visa in the system, however they have an idea of your stay). With a METV, you can only get 3 entries per year if you are staying 8-9 months, and that won't bother them - at least for now. Plus, you mentioned that you had a few trips back home, and this will unnecessarily or potentially add more entries every time you're back to Thailand; So next time think of not stacking up a history of entries. The IM work fast and they only react if the system flags you, and they'll take the opportunity to ask for bribes. Lastly, it's the airlines' responsibility to get you back home without you having to incur charges for a ticket so I don't understand how that worked out. 

 

You can still get back into Thailand but take another route, some suggest land border through Malaysia which is probably the best bet you have. 

 

Good luck!