Question For Work Permit Application

[phazey]

Hi all, i'm posting on behalf of a friend who has just recently got a job. The company has had the persons passport for 7 days now, and demanding a 5000THB fee for processing a 3 months work permit. So this person is walking around BKK with no legit ID and/or proof of stay visa. Is this normal circumstances ?

They've also had to sign a Power of Attorny - at first we assumed to process the work Permit, but since discussing with a friend, as the PoA has no direct instruction and seems a general thing, should this also be a cause for concern.

I know this next question is more work related, but i dont want to cross post threads - hope it's not minded i post here ;

They've also signed a "Internal Contract" that states "If any regulations are broken, you will have to pay a fee" no mention of regulations or fee there. There is only one copy of this and they will not offer a copy for my friends records.

If the above is deemed unsuitable for this subforum - get a mod to let us know and i'll remove it and post in the jobs forum.

Should my friend be hearing alarm bells ?

Thanks in advance.

[raro]

My passport is also for a week now with my new employer to arrange the work permit (it's technically a new employer, in fact we work for more than two years together....this would be a long story to explain that....) for convenience. They run with the passport to labour and Immigration without me and save a great deal of time.

I signed possibly 200 papers, among them also PoAs for f%#-knows-what. Yes, most of the time they were not even filled in but in all my years in Thailand I realized that it is pointless to explain to Thais that you shouldn't sign blank forms...I rather don't want to point them anymore to the posibility of abuse for not giving them ideas...

As I said I know those people for more than two years and I know that I can trust them. That makes maybe a different story.

The "fee" in the internal contract is indeed a bit fishy, I would ask to specify this and of course the employee should get a signed contract copy.