Less Perks For Thailand Elite Card Holders

[sriracha john]

The Philippines projects are answering. Found the ad on CNN. Inspirations ... A goverment tourism and foreign resident project. What a difference ...

http://www.liveyourdreams.ph/

I see property values there have gone up since I bought a 10,000 sq. meters of beachfront for US$125 in 1978.

Edited June 4, 2009 by sriracha john

[SNGLIFE]

I thought this one was funny also:

"TPC has also learned many cardholders are now living in Thailand, which is against the membership criteria and pushes up the operating costs."

So what's the point of paying for a 5 year visa if you only want tourists to come for a week or two?  I thought one of the main benefits was that cardholders didn't have to do the normal visa hurdles......Silly me for thinking that.

Co-signed.

and this one made me laugh: "Limousine service for members will also be provided in Toyota Camrys rather than BMW 7 Series."

WTH? They gave members a 5 year visa AND limo service in a luxury car and expected them not to abuse it...and now members who forked over US$25,000+ for the card are being told they get to ride in a Toyota??? Genius. TIT.

Edited June 4, 2009 by SNGLIFE

[lor]

Guide to business in Thailand :

1.Make a set of rules.

2.Market to people.

3.Charge a one-time fee.

4.Revoke priviledges.

5.Blame the customer.

6.Repeat.

So true...If the Elite card is gutted then the sovereign country of Thailand is perpetrating a 3 billion baht scam on the 3,000 innocent citizens of other nations. I was pitched this program by the Thai Consulate in HK with the clear intention and knowledge that I was buying the card for purpose of living in Thailand. I bought in based on this promise... that my immediate family (me, wife and children) could live in Thailand. I was assured that I could not be cheated as this was a Thai govt program...not a private company. Within 3 months of them getting my 1MM baht, they took away my wife and children's visas. Now they are gutting the rest of the program. This is completely unbelievable. I am not wealthy. It took us a long time to save the membership fee cost. Now the government tells me simply we changed our minds ??? Disgraceful, shameful if it comes to be. I am waiting to hear what happens.

I am sorry to hear what happened. I hope you and your family find a way find a way to continue to stay in Thailand. However, if you know Thailand at all, when you were told it was a Thai government program alarm bells should have started ringing! You cannot trust the Thai government to do anything except grab what they can for themselves.

Chris

[basjke]

I assume there are also no free cookies served anymore at the elite card headoffice then.

[steffi]

This should trickle down to any investment or asset that you decide to purchase in Thailand.

Any day they can come and take it away from you any time they please.

Caveat Emptor

Investors should feel they have absolutely no confidence in Thailand or it's officials.

I say that as someone who is married to a Thai national who had a green card and now how US citizenship and doesn't have a cross a border every six months.

It's only a matter of time until somebody steps in and comments that it's their country and they can set the rules and you are the risk taker so som nam na

<br />

as risky as the thailand elite card was, its sad to see so many farangs excited at the misfortunes of other farangs in thailand. there arent many options for long stay (over 3 years) for people who dont want to get married and arent close to retirement, if the program collapses it will be another door shut into thailand.

<br />you can stay in thailand as long as you want as long as you obey their laws and go get a real visa,shut that door on those spoiled toes please,thailand is awsome<br />

what legal option would you recommend?

[brahmburgers]

TPC has also learned many cardholders are now living in Thailand, which is against the membership criteria and pushes up the operating costs.

No, It was meant for people not living here as they dont know how things are managed in this fun fair-country. Only people without this knowledge will be buyers.

This is what Thais want:

farang either send tubs of money here by mail, no strings attached - as many already do - sending money to bar girls galore (...and to Pussy Galore?).

Or, rich farang show up, stay at sequestered resorts, see a wat, get a mud facial. Spend tubs of money, leave big tips, then leave soon. Bye bye, sawadee crap, come back when you have lots more money. Kittung tee rak.

Edited June 5, 2009 by brahmburgers

[Ricardo]

I think the Thailand Elite Card Scheme should be considered a success, in that it has brought many hours of mirth & fun, to many posters on ThaiVisa.com !

While the scheme has to be wound-up, because economically it just doesn't work, the current government (who are lumbered with the task) should seriously-consider awarding life-time 5-year-Visa rights to all who paid for their cards, IMHO.

[Misty]

When I first heard about the Elite card I worked through the maths with my lawyer.

The Elite card is, and always has been, the absolutely most expensive way to get a 5 year visa anyway, and I did not want any of the crappy Spa, Golf or Limo services.

The next most expensive option is to try and go for PR off the back of a Work Permit and a period of uninterrupted trouble free residence in Thailand.

By far the easiest and cheapest way to stay here is to make a company, and do yearly visa renewals, employ a decent Thai lawyer and follow the rules...

So it really is a case of a fool and his money IMO.

The analysis depends on how long you plan to stay. If as you say you're following the rules in the third option, you're hiring 4 Thai employees for that yearly visa renewal. Their salaries can add up over a period of time--balance that against the PR with Work Permit option and at some point there's a breakeven and the PR looks better.

Until they change the rules again, of course.

[piet pompies]

Yes we all got taken.

I am trying to paste some of the original correspondence from TPC in 2003 to us, but am not succesful.

Thailand can hardly afford more negative publicity, but as there seem to be an interest in this subject there must be more Elite members than myself reading this. Is anyone interested in litigation and PR against TPC? If so count me in. I will be happy to make a contibution to legal fees and PR fees.

[xbusman]

I for one will be sorry to see it die an ignoble death. It has been such great fun at so many many levels. The good news is that something bizarre will replace it in a year or two and we can watch a new group set out to conquer the inscrutable ways of Southeast Asia.

It is an appropriate time to recap "lessons learned" that unfortunately are hidden on almost every page of this forum in some form or another.

1. We are guests here. Not citizens.

2. There is no semblance of rule of law, laws are entirely arbitrary and capricious and at best do little to protect citizens. Guests are not even part of the equation.

3. Knowing that status, NEVER INVEST MORE THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO WALK AWAY FROM

There are those who got great benefit from the TE card for the paltry and insignificant sum of 1M baht for over five years. Good on ya, wish I had that kind of spare change in my sock drawer. I would have bought it too.

There are those that scraped together their life savings to buy into this Ponzi. To those we should extend our sympathy but be comforted in the fact that its only 1 million baht. Madoff was able to fool far more people for far more staggering sums. While your money is never coming back, its a good time to reevaluate your basic understanding of how things work and protect yourself in the future. While this was stunning obvious to most of us, we should take a moment and reassess the ones that may not be. Perhaps buying a house with a bogus company might fall into the same category....

[midas]

The good news is that something bizarre will replace it in a year or two and we can watch a new group set out to conquer the inscrutable ways of Southeast Asia.

It is an appropriate time to recap "lessons learned" that unfortunately are hidden on almost every page of this forum in some form or another.

1. We are guests here. Not citizens.

2. There is no semblance of rule of law, laws are entirely arbitrary and capricious and at best do little to protect citizens. Guests are not even part of the equation.

3. Knowing that status, NEVER INVEST MORE THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO WALK AWAY FROM

Perhaps buying a house with a bogus company might fall into the same category....

I don't believe Thai's regard contractual obligations particularly between a Thai and a Farang

( as opposed to between a Thai and a Thai ) the same way we do.

Three months ago at a restaurant owned by Central Group of Companies ( reputable enough I thought ),

I was given the hardsell to purchase a discount card which purportedly allowed

discounts throughout their pretty large restaurant chain. Two weeks ago when I presented

my credit card and the discount card the waiter then returned to advise me that particular

restaurant no longer honoured the card even though it still carried the logo and the chain name.

Of course this hadn't involved expenditure of 1 million baht but I regard it as just

symbolic of the mindset here regarding honouring obligations to do anything

after making an advance payment. This is just peanuts but I can also cite an absolute horror story

involving someone else I know who contracted to have a house built for them

in Chonburi where that has resulted in a total fiasco involving millions of baht.

Its all around you here and I've always maintained while Thailand is a real fun place

to live -I would never invest anything substantial here.

[asiawatcher]

The Elite Card was a boon for business travellers into Thailand and those who could afford to retire with one. Play golf at no green fees an fabulous courses, ring for a pick up and deliver to the airport, call in for assistance to get a drivers licence and they picked you up, took your out to Chatuchak, walked you through in minimal time and the 5 years with guaranteed automatic renewal.

No the proponent who went through this with his lawyer ad said this was expensive - both need to go back to school!

Golf once a week (if only) at 2,000 Baht a premium course is 10% of the value of the card x by 5 years bingo - Limo to the airport, walk thru diplomat lanes both leaving and returning - hmm put a value on that?

Limo cost alone is 900 Baht each way so there is 1800 say 1 business trip a month = 22,800 p.a. x 5 years - another 100,000 spent. Then of course there is the day at immigration every 90 days for the first year and then annually after that if you are on Non Imm B and work permit et al. Forgetting all the discounts for all the other privileges, that alone in my book says the card is cheap!

Time is money. Business people spend 200,000 Baht a year (the initial cost of the card) and that is cheap as chips for what it gives back - but the whole issue comes down to the scammers in the Govt who are 'controlling' the budgets. If ever anyone of us normal people felt like doing a desktop audit - you may well get the answers. In the interim, leave it alone. There is nothing any of us with one can do but hope it continues.

[JoeThePoster]

This is what Thais want:

farang either send tubs of money here by mail, no strings attached - as many already do - sending money to bar girls galore (...and to Pussy Galore?).

Or, rich farang show up, stay at sequestered resorts, see a wat, get a mud facial. Spend tubs of money, leave big tips, then leave soon. Bye bye, sawadee crap, come back when you have lots more money. Kittung tee rak.

Absolutely spot-on.

[hoozer]

I guess what I find most distasteful of all is those running the TPC show now seem to be slowly trying to twist it to portray all the Thailand Elite members as the "scammers" - they are doing this with the "100 million baht for visa" and the "living in Thailand" comments etc.

Isn't this classic?

Current problems can be mitigated by a little sensible business planning and limiting services to the most basic and popular.

Of course that is not what will happen - the real scammers will first completely drain what is left in the coffers, milk it just a little bit beyond that, then let it go completely belly up.

[Rockefeller]

call in for assistance to get a drivers licence and they picked you up, took your out to Chatuchak, walked you through in minimal time and the 5 years with guaranteed automatic renewal.

This is not true. I would like to provide accurate information based on the Elite policy and my experience.

A 5 year license is not offered with the Elite visa--ever, just ask them. You are stuck doing 1 year temporary licenses back to back which has many limitations and inconveniences like an annual trip to the doctor, the embassy, Chatuchak and all the paper work. A 1 year license does not allow social drinking (blood alcohol must be near 0). A 1 year license does not allow international DL either. As can be seen, what elite gives you for a license is fairly useless. If one instead has a non-imm visa then yes a 5 year would of course be possible, but presumably this is extremely rare for an elite member to have and has nothing to do with the elite program anyway.

Second of all, it is disingenuous to say someone picks you up and walks you through the DL process for free. You get just one free service assist in the lifetime of the card. They recommend new members blow this on getting the 5 year visa so that's gone. So if you want your hand held every year to get the temp license, you must fork out another 2000 baht out of pocket each time in addition to all the other license and document costs.

I blew my elite liaison on the visa per their recommendation. No one picked me up. As far as I can tell all the elite girl did was take my forms and hand them to the official. I had to wait around in the queue and for the processing as she disappeared somewhere else the whole time. I was not impressed. It was not a good way to start a relationship with a customer.

[cutter007]

I drive a Camry, I guess that makes me elite now.

I don't think that the program fleeced that many farangs, I think they mainly ripped off

Asian foreigners.

I loved the comment about the TPC pitching the benefit that you won't be

ripped off because it is supported by the Thai government

and not a private company....................there is no way I could have held a straight

face if they had told me that.

[otton]

This place is truly scary. It does not seem to matter, if history is any indication, whether you are lawfully wed to a person you love, set up a family residence, put your kids through school and university, help the extended family, break no laws, always report on time and professionally, and bring in millions of hard earned baht which get spent directly into the economy at all levels - from local village to the national, if the powers that be decide too bad for you, they seem to have no problem F&^$ing your life over if it suits a whim somewhere.

Do most agree?

Clued up old-hands of course agree thus most here on ThaiVisa do not.

This country, this people and this culture are not to be taken seriously.

[bangon04]

People ridicule the powers in Thailand for being idiots. Once you stop accepting the face saving facade and realize all the schemes have the same goal - enriching the powerful and maintaining power - you realize that the Thai leaders are not idiots, but geniuses. Just don't go too far like Taksin. The airport was an amazing success, the new train line is already a success and has not even opened yet. Name your haha TIT folly and if you ask around you will find people in power who benefited from it being built and others who benefit from having it fail. If you want a project to succeed, it needs to continue raking in the cash after it is completed and you have to make it worth while to the competing concession holders so it doesn't get torpedoed.

Enter stage left the Bangkok Bus fiasco - guess who is making the most money out of this.....

[Busy]

Oh,what a shock!

I never ever thought they would do something like that,really i'm shocked,really.......no really.....mmmmmmm.Yes, really shocked.

I can’t see the attraction anymore, why would people want to be here anymore.

Through visa’s changing from month to month, and now this!

There are other countries out there that offer long term stability.

Can’t people honestly read through the lines.

Let me spell it out for you, THEY DON’T WANT US HERE. GO HOME is what I think they are trying to say.

I know i'm not going to be here when the .

I want to be in a county where i wake up in the morning and not have to worry about things.After all you only have one life,don't use it up worrying about your stability in life.

[bangon04]

I guess what I find most distasteful of all is those running the TPC show now seem to be slowly trying to twist it to portray all the Thailand Elite members as the "scammers" - they are doing this with the "100 million baht for visa" and the "living in Thailand" comments etc.

Isn't this classic?

Are there any Thai members of the TEC scam. Surely they would not be abusing the system, because they would of course pay full price for the card, would not use the freebie golf/limo etc and they would have no need to abuse the visa system....

So really this is one more example of the foreigners ruining a perfectly good Thai initiative.

[piet pompies]

Just walked off the plane, three Elite members from Hong Kong, one from Singapore on same flight. Same meet and greet service as before, we were given a form stating we will now be transferred by a NEW Toyota Camry. The staff was embarrassed by all this. Waiting for the response from Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese members who are all in it for the golf. I do not think they will post on Thaivisa due to language, but wait and see.

We still get 25% discount on Domestic TG fares, this will probably go soon, as well as lounge priviledges. Sorry for the guys who bought in last year, all are upset.

[MeetJohnDoe]

Don't forget...the skim is all in a Singapore bank

[peecee]

TPC has also learned many cardholders are now living in Thailand, which is against the membership criteria and pushes up the operating costs.

"We need to control all of our costs, as well as the number of new members. The more members we have, the higher our costs. Members are granted five-year visas, which could not normally be bought even for Bt100 million or Bt200 million."

Jeez, talk about disingenuous. It wasn't all that long ago that Thailand Elite was advertising this long-term visa as being a great benefit to the card and a ready-made end run around the endless changes in visa laws. Anybody recall their banner ad on this forum???

Me thinks there were big kickback's from the TV ad's to the guy's running the elite programme, cynical I know but probably true!

[Jingthing]

The writing has been on the wall on this card a long time now. Remember the Thaksin connection to this card. What country is he in now, on what passport?

[hoozer]

Me thinks there were big kickback's from the TV ad's to the guy's running the elite programme, cynical I know but probably true!

I think this was indeed part of an "in the family" business deal, and already the subject of scrutiny and disgust

[alyx]

We've had card holders in our business, waving their card in my face and expecting massive discounts and priveleges. Didn't get them very far....

Well if they did so it can only be for three reasons:

Either your business has registered with the TEC program at one point or another

Or they were not members as I know that TEC provides all members with an updated list of the participating businesses

Or simply they presented you with their cards ( waving...you are near by the sea?) asking you whether this card entitled them to any kind of privileges

I do have a Duty free card and I have asked some shops around (at the beginning) if it woeked: I was turned down but neither of us got upset about it

[alyx]

Not stupid but I could never understand why more of these people who

considered themselves to be " Elite " were so easily persuaded

Why does everyone thinks (at least th one who post here) think that buyng into the program has/had something to do with the name

When one enters a membership it has to be paid upfront

Look at some health club (although I am not comparing TEC to theses places) selling life memberships.....what does it mean? How long will these businessess stay around ( not talk about the life expectancy of these members) It can cost hundrded of thousands

Please do understand that people buy a product they believe in - at least at the time they do so - and not for the brand name but for the quality (even if it turns out it could have been a rotten deal)

[brahmburgers]

It's plausible that many of the cards were bought by (or given gratis to) Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Singaporeans. Chances are, the 'free' golf was a big lure. If a considerable number of those card holders chose to use their golfing privileges as often as possible (along with limousine services to and from the airport, then the billings from golf courses and limousine services could add up considerably - at the TEC office. Of course, this being Thailand, none of those services would scam the system, and bill for services not actually given - ha ha.

It's like at the 'all-you-can-eat' buffet. A certain % of customers will eat a pick-up truckload. Now imagine the offer of 'all-you-can-eat' day after day - 'til you drop' (TEC called theirs a 'lifetime membership).

[midas]

Not stupid but I could never understand why more of these people who

considered themselves to be " Elite " were so easily persuaded

Why does everyone thinks (at least th one who post here) think that buyng into the program has/had something to do with the name

When one enters a membership it has to be paid upfront

Look at some health club (although I am not comparing TEC to theses places) selling life memberships.....what does it mean? How long will these businessess stay around ( not talk about the life expectancy of these members) It can cost hundrded of thousands

Please do understand that people buy a product they believe in - at least at the time they do so - and not for the brand name but for the quality (even if it turns out it could have been a rotten deal)

Oh no you are wrong ! It has a great deal to do with the name

because the term " Elite " implies a cut above the rest and ones

you would expect to be able to differentiate between a scam

and a sound business proposition.

And memberships do not have to be paid upfront

I have been an American Express member sine 1982 but

if they tried to charge me a hefty

sum upfront I will tell them where to put their card.

And here your talking about a Thai goverment

sponsored scam .....oops sorry scheme........... what on

earth would have convinced anyone to believe in that?

[porky8pig]

when i first discovered this card i thought this was a joke from notthenation.com

still can't believe it even existed.

That wins comment of the year for me!