Us Consular Visit 21 Sept

[sbk]

Received in the email today:

Dear Phuket and Pattaya Area American Citizens,

The Consular Section of the American Embassy in Bangkok is pleased to inform you of three upcoming Embassy consular visits to Phuket and Pattaya. Please mark your calendars!

Consular staff will be available to provide consular services at the following dates and locations:

Friday, September 14, 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM in Phuket at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort & Spa in the Coconet Grove Room of the hotel. The hotel is at Karon Beach. Their contact information is: Tel: (076) 396433-4, Fax: (076) 396136.

Friday, September 21, 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM in Pattaya at the Dusit Resort Pattaya in the Dusit 2 Meeting Room. The hotel is at 240/2 Pattaya Beach Rd, Pattaya City, Chonburi. Their contact telephone number is: 038-425-611 upto 7).

The following consular services will be available during our outreach visits:

# Passport renewal applications ($67.00 or Baht 2546 for adult passports, and $82 or Baht 3116 for a child’s passport)

# Notarial Services and Certified Copies ($30.00 or Baht 1140)

# Absentee ballot application and voting abroad information

# Social security, VA or other federal benefits question will be limited, but we will try to provide forms and answers

(Please bring exact change!)

NOTE: Unfortunately, a recent upgrade to the ACS systems software requires additional processing for applications for extra visa pages. As a result, we will no longer be able to complete processing of extra visa pages during our outreach trips. We can accept applications, but the passports will have to be brought back to the Embassy for final processing the next day. The passports will then have to be picked up in person (or by a friend upon presentation of a letter of authorization signed by the applicant) at the Embassy. We regret any inconvenience caused by this change in procedure, and we are still working on gaining authorization to begin mailing passports back to applicants.

Additionally, Consular Reports of Birth cannot be processed during consular outreach trips.

If you have any questions, please e-mail: [email protected] or call the American Citizen Services Unit at: 02-205-4049.

Below are two additional announcements:

1. Regarding translations for the Social Security Administration (SSA): Please be informed that SSA will now only need a photocopy of Thai and English translation stamped by our office for SSN or S.S. benefits applications. These documents will no longer need to be legalized by Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).

MFA’s stamp had previously been required on the assumption that MFA verifies the correctness of the translation. Since that is not the case, SSA Baltimore will then get the translation verified by their authorized contractor.

2. The Online Versions of the Federal Post Card Application and Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot can now be saved once completed! Visitors to the FVAP (Federal Voting Assistance Program) website at www.fvap.gov are now able to save their completed Online Federal Post Card Application (OFPCA) and Online Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (OFWAB) to their computer for future use, using an Adobe Acrobat Reader version of 7.0 or higher.

This could be useful for someone who may expect to move frequently between now and the November 4, 2008 election to be prepared for sending mailing address updates to the local election official.

The FVAP can be contacted from the United States, Canada, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands with any questions via our toll-free telephone service at 1-800-438-8683 and from 67 countries using the specific international toll-free numbers listed on the FVAP website, www.fvap.gov. Questions regarding the above may also be referred to the Director, Federal Voting Assistance Program, Department of Defense, 1155 Defense Pentagon,

email: [email protected] and on the World Wide Web at www.fvap.gov.

We look forward to seeing you in Phuket on September 14th or Pattaya on September 21st or in Bangkok anytime anytime Monday through Friday, 7:30-11:00 and 1:00-2:00.

Sincerely,

American Citizen Services

U.S. Embassy

Bangkok, Thailand