New passport does not solve your problem

[capoth]

Imho a new passport does not solve your problem. At least not, if the immigration is checking in their computer.

There they have all records about you, whenever you came or left the Kingdom. So if only one stamp is fake and not registered in the immigration computer, than you are in deep sh....

If you get a new passport from your embassy, you need to go to the immigration immediately. Even when your last entry date is legitime, they can see if, e.g. some years ago a stamp has not been registered. Therefore you are on overstay. Or let's say, the entry stamp is fake, but later you left the country in person. Then they can also see in their computer, that you might have used a Visa Agent once. But sure, you can tell them, that it might also be their fault, that they simply forgot to put it in their computer. This might work, but maybe it doesn't.

So as long as they do not check in their computer, a new passport will be fine. But if you go to the immigration and you need to do that after receiving a new passport (within Thailand) then they check their computer for sure.

Or am I completely wrong now ?

[buasaard]

Yes, maybe with the thai immigration it works like this. But without the old passport and the evidence of fake stamp, a good lawyer could solve the problem. Without the fake stamp on the passport a good lawyer could say that it's immigration mistake that they could have forgotten to register the entry.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I'd expect that right now brand new passports might undergo a closer immigration inspection than it might have a couple of weeks ago. Immigration will see an epidemic of brand new passports.

[ovenman]

This question about the use of new passports highlights something that's been nagging at me since all of this controversy began.  Consider the following make-believe example:

I enter Thailand on the first of Setpember 2002 for an extended holiday in Phuket.  I receive a 30 day entry stamp from an immigrations officer at Don Muang.  I continue on to Phuket and then proceed to laze about in the sun.  End of the month approaches and my 30 day entry nears its end.  I don't want to leave Phuket.  I notice that a tour agency along the Beach Road offers a service that will extend my stay in Thailand without me actually having to make a run to the border.  Great!  I shell over some money, my passport comes back in a few days and I'm "good" 'til the end of October.  Unbeknownst to me, the new stamps in my passport are fakes (or maybe I just don't want to know).  This scenario repeats itself for several months.  At the end of March 2003, it's finally time for me to return home to farangland.  I return to Bangkok, exit via Don Muang and fly home full of happy memories of my seven months in Thailand.  Sound like a plausible scenario prior to the present crackdown?

What bothers me about this is how were such people able to exit Thailand without running afoul of immigrations?  If the computer is all-knowing as people surmise and my interim stamps merely clever fakes, shouldn't I be flagged as having entered Thailand in September 2002 and having never exited?  For the above scenario, this would be a six-month overstay by the end of March.  (Note that I assume fake stamps means just that, immigrations never touched my passport while I was in Phuket and I was never nominally entered in/out of the Kingdon).

My questions (please note that the questions I pose refer to what occurred by officialdom prior to the current crackdown):

Is the computer not considered all-knowing by immigrations and thefore such discrepencies were not (previously) thought of as a big deal, perhaps because entry/exit data does not always get entered ?

Did immigrations know the score immediately, but nonetheless simply looked the other way?.  This seems odd because they're missing out on revenue from a six-month overstay.

Is the fake stamp phenomema such a recent thing that my make-believe scenario could not have occurred even within the last year?

Am I misunderstanding what a fake stamp means (i.e. chop done by whomever, passport never touched by an immigrations official)?

Were people in this situation apprehended by immigrations and we just never heard of it before now?

[easymoney]

I wish I didn't have to address this but you have maybe a week to ten days at most on the lost passport leaving country w/o trouble

[taxexile]

my belief/understanding is that some agents actually sent the pasports to the border,the passports were stamped out,entered into the computer,sent across and stamped in and out,and back into thailand and stamped in,entered into the computer again,all with the aid of immigration officers who were being paid for their trouble.some passports may have been sent on to neighbouring countries thai embassies and valid visas entered before heading back to the borders etc.

in other words all is "legal"(except the passport went without its owner) according to the computer records.

some agents just stamped away in the back room with fake stamps,the passports never left the country and no details exist on the computer.

some interesting personal experiences about this scare over on ajarn.com    much less doom and gloom about it.

at the end of the day though, real facts are hard to come by and substantiate and all involved are enduring sleepless nights and edgy days.

[bazza]

great point ovenman.....

the strange thing is that i have a friend from england who arrived here in dec 2002 and left in may 2003 and all the time he was here he just used a company in K.san.rd to extend his visa every month. when he left he had no problems. so its really weird isnt it ??

[ovenman]

at the end of the day though, real facts are hard to come by and substantiate and all involved are enduring sleepless nights and edgy days.

Indeed.  What I inquired about is a somewhat moot point now but it does have some potential implications for those considering the new passport route.

[easymoney]

People please listen it doesn't matter pre last thursday . Period

[JT65]

People please listen it doesn't matter pre last thursday . Period

Easymoney

I may have missed a post of yours but can you please explain to me the above comment and your previous one. Why doesnt it help getting a new passport and what happened pre last Thursday?

[bazza]

yes can you explain what you mean , do you know something we dont. why doesnt it matter and what is the signifigance of last thursday ???. fill us in