I’ve been living here for nearly 30 years and I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Now been living with my Thai girlfriend in our own home in Phetchaburi province for over 15 years I have held a retirement extension for more than 20 years and, until three years ago, I always made use of the 800K scheme. Due to personal circumstances, I stopped using this scheme three years ago and started using an agent. This agent is staying in Bangkok, so he uses IO in that area, or in a neighbouring province, as a result, my retirement extension was also granted there. For convenience’s sake, I’m using the internet for the 90-day notification, but I do have to submit the initial notification to the IO in my province. I wasn’t aware of that at first, and when I first went to my local IO office, I was sent away – I had to prove my home address again using the T.M. 30 form, so I went to collect the ‘tambien baan’ and a copy of my girlfriend’s identity card, and that was accepted. A year later, yesterday, things turned out differently; this time I was sent back again – the owner of the property had to be there in person, so off I went again, this time with my girlfriend. But the official on duty clearly couldn’t be bothered to issue me with a 90-day extension, The retirement extension wasn’t issued at his office, so why should he have to include that 90-day reference? I was told to go to the IO, where the retirement stamp had been issued. When I pointed out that I would still have to report to the provincial office where I live, he confirmed this, but he wanted the agents telephone number so that he could speak to him – though, of course, I didn’t have that to hand; I did, however, have countless copies of everything – you never know what they’ll come up with next. He handed over the documents and my passport, and I was free to go; my girlfriend couldn’t accept it and carried on arguing with him for another ten minutes, but he stood his ground and even threatened to revoke my extension of stay – she even recorded it on her phone. Yes, I know, this country is riddled with corruption, but I haven’t done anything wrong; he even admitted to using a agent but refuses to help me any further. This is for your edification and entertainment; make the most of it.
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