Not a word spoken

[brianthainess]

13 hours ago, koratkarlos said:

They took four.  They were 5 x 7 inches and had to be glued to a piece of paper across the street.

I will pass that info on to my friend, but maybe they waive the photos coz it an agent At my I O i took my photos already printed on A4. They then had to be cut out and glued to Their A4s, it gets madder by the minute.    They ignore me too which i like, but they interrogated my wife and witness at a separate table for about 30 min. If i ever get stopped by the cops, and they ask do you speak Thai, i always answer no, then get waved on. 

[hotchilli]

On 8/21/2020 at 6:00 PM, OJAS said:

As far as I am concerned, the less direct verbal interraction I need to have with immigration officers with a rudimentary comprehension of the English language at annual extension of stay time the better. More than happy to leave all the yakking on my behalf to the wife!

 

I don't take the missus, she's a pain in the backside on the drive there and at the immigration office.

I take all the paperwork, hand it over, let them look at it all then pay the fee. 

Smile and say thanks.

They must sit and look at a hundred faces every day, being polite to everyone in the most monotonous job going must be hard.

I let them do their job and get out as soon as possible.

[steven100]

exactly hotchilli, they have to put up with farang after farang day in day out and some I expect wouldn't be the most hospitable folks to answer questions. 

So it's just get in ... be polite .... get out.  

[brianthainess]

22 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

I don't take the missus, she's a pain in the backside on the drive there and at the immigration office.

How can you not take the missus for a MARRIAGE visa.

[hotchilli]

2 hours ago, brianthainess said:

How can you not take the missus for a MARRIAGE visa.

Retirement visa... ????

[4MyEgo]

20 hours ago, rumak said:

just might have a chance that he/she  remembers that "thank you gift"  from last time .   thai's have

an excellent memory when it comes to  a. perceived slights      b. thank you's received

much easier when they remember (b)

To be honest last time was the first time I slipped them anything, apart from a time the wife forgot the photos, so we sent them to them on LINE for 500 baht, saving us a 3 hour round trip, and the first house visit 4 years ago 1,500 baht for fuel, outside of that, they haven't really asked, like I said, chump change, and being a man of principals, I have had to stand upside down here to be able to survive, or let go for a better word ????

 

If it cost me 500 baht each year for the service these guys give me, smiles and a welcoming, it's worth it, but I have to admit, they treat each farang and others well for an immigration office from what I have heard from others.

[rumak]

Just now, 4MyEgo said:

To be honest last time was the first time I slipped them anything, apart from a time the wife forgot the photos, so we sent them to them on LINE for 500 baht, saving us a 3 hour round trip, and the first house visit 4 years ago 1,500 baht for fuel, outside of that, they haven't really asked, like I said, chump change, and being a man of principals, I have had to stand upside down here to be able to survive, or let go for a better word ????

 

If it cost me 500 baht each year for the service these guys give me, smiles and a welcoming, it's worth it, but I have to admit, they treat each farang and others well for an immigration office from what I have heard from others.

It is interesting how our perspectives ( and principles)  bend and soften a bit as we go through

the ageing process.   I remember arguing with a songtaew driver over 10 baht . Its the principal !

Now its all about :  stress !   the less the better, and i will save my energy for when i have to deal

with something much more important .    yes, survival is another good word.

 

I never used to give a "tip".... and still don't.   My retirement extension is pretty straight forward.

But ..... i have used an envelope for something else recently.   Ahhh,  Land of Smiles.

[4MyEgo]

12 minutes ago, rumak said:

It is interesting how our perspectives ( and principles)  bend and soften a bit as we go through

the ageing process.   I remember arguing with a songtaew driver over 10 baht . Its the principal !

Now its all about :  stress !   the less the better, and i will save my energy for when i have to deal

with something much more important .    yes, survival is another good word.

 

I never used to give a "tip".... and still don't.   My retirement extension is pretty straight forward.

But ..... i have used an envelope for something else recently.   Ahhh,  Land of Smiles.

Lol, yes frustration is another word, recently when in Bangkok I argued with 3 cops about them wanting to book me for changing lanes at a T-section, their police box was right in front of us on the other side, I reversed, no cars behind us at all or approaching, there were two cars to our left in the lane next to us, it was an easy reverse maneuver, then as the lights went green two double boggy's went through the red light braking heavily to avoid crashing into all of us, and then proceeded, they had no number plates on their trucks and the cops who were out of their office were only focused on pulling my car over, not even looking at the trucks or what just transpired, long of the short, they flagged me down, asked for my license and then walked into the police booth, I parked the car and walked in with the wife, argument after argument ensued, my wife freaking out and telling me to calm down, I said if these guys were "real cops" they would be throwing the book at those truck drivers, and then the cops said, oh Mr but they cannot stop in time, they have heavy load, oh I said, so let them kill us all, but stop me for reversing to change lanes, is that your argument, now you either book me and I will see you all in court or you will give me my license back, I was livered, my wife kept pinching me in the back, until I turned and said to her touch me one more time and you will be walking home, the cops could see I was a live wire, handed me my license back and said Mr take it easy, I took my license and said, I will now and exited.

 

When we got in the car my wife said, good one honey.....lol, but seriously you should leave it to me she said, two minutes later up the road same thing happened, damn sat nav, cops pulls me over, 500 baht at police station or 300 cash, paid him and left, and said to my wife my the hell did I get worked up before, Mr Principal she said.

 

True story.

[CANSIAM]

On 8/21/2020 at 4:00 AM, OJAS said:

As far as I am concerned, the less direct verbal interraction I need to have with immigration officers with a rudimentary comprehension of the English language at annual extension of stay time the better. More than happy to leave all the yakking on my behalf to the wife!

 

Sadly all IO's want to see you there with an agent if you don't have a wife.  

[NancyL]

Yup, I've "softened" as I've aged.  Back when I was a crusader at Chiang Mai Immigration was when they moved to Promenada Mall and changed up all the rules and the Consular Corp asked me as the president of Chiang Mai Expats Club to "monitor" the situation which I did much too diligently and got myself into a world of hurt, discovering that while the Consular Corp where more than happy to arrange meetings for me with high Thai gov't officials to show the data I'd derived, they weren't ready to protect me from the fallout.   

 

Needless to say, Hubby and I were on the brink of relocating to Malaysia in 2017 when we discovered the wonders of the Thai-US Tax Treaty and how it handles U.S. private pension income.  No similar treaty exists with Malaysia.  You can file amended returns for the previous three years and when we received sizable tax refunds, we decided to stay and Thailand and keep our mouths shut.  At that point, the 2017 board of the Chiang Mai Expats Club had decided they didn't want me around in an advisory role, so what was the point in making a fuss any longer about what was going on?  For a time with it got better with at CM Immigration, but iIve lost track

.  I think it got worse, but now it's better.

 

It's no longer my circus or my monkeys.  I'll keep using a legitimate agent even though I could do it myself.  I don't want to look them in the eye.

 

 

[NancyL]

Yes, I've been interrogated by U.S. customs/border patrol personnel.  It was very surreal.  This was back in the late 70s or 80s when Hubby and I took holidays to Thailand every two or three years and other countries on alternate years.  Remember this was before the internet.  

 

It was my practice to have my secretary bundle up all my incoming business mail and send it to our final hotel via courier so I could wade through two weeks of correspondence on the flight home.

 

When we got into LAX, we were pulled over and asked the purpose of our trip to Thailand.  Vacation, we said.  We had bought jewelry and had the jewelry and receipts in our carry-on to show them.  They weren't interested.  Instead they asked why we go to Thailand so often.   We like it.  Then they asked about all the documents in my carry-on and I explained about how it was my business mail from home.  I thought you said this was a vacation, was their reply.  Hubby jokingly said "you don't know my wife, she got next year's marketing plan done on the beach at Koh Samui".  That wasn't very helpful and they proceeded to take us to a room and looked over every piece of paper in our possession until they decided they had nothing to do with business dealings in Thailand.