Why Do You Even Drink?

[dirtyoldsoldier]

Short story, happend (is happening right now) to me.

I recently packed in life in Thailand for a multitude of reasons most of your are probably too familur with. me and the wife now live in the UK.

Prior to leaving, I rented out my house to a long term friend. He pays every month into my local SCB branch on Koh phangan.

Every month, I would log onto internet banking and transfer the money to my UK account for a fee of 300 THB, whole thing would take about 2 mins.

Last week, my international fund transfer option on my on-line banking SCB home page was no longer working. I phoned up thailand, spoke to their call center and asked them to re-active the option, as I need to get the rent money out of the country and into my UK bank account to pay for 'education and family support'.

They said sure, so long as I could provide scan of passport, scan of bank book, details of UK bank account and (here we go...), a scan of the latest payslip from the thai company I work for. I explained that I no longer work for a Thai company and they said that i couldn't have my money.

No amount of negotiation will sway them. My cash is stuck in Thailand until I fly over and get it out of the bank in person.

And no, I don't have an ATM card. That expired too.

They did email a form to fill in to get the money sent over which I completed and emailed back the same day. However, every time I phone them up, they start the whole process again, with no memory of any previous conversations recorded on their systems. This could go on forever.

Be warned. Another mind bogglingly stupid, anti-foreign process flow. Of course, getting your money into Thailand is really easy.

These people....jeesh.

[cmsally]

Why did they deactivate the payment option in the first place?

Personally, dealing with SCB this year (I have banked there over 10yrs) I have seen a drastic plunge in efficiency.

If you have a problem you will probably need to deal with head office and even then get hold of the right person.

What you really need is an answer to the question of why they deactivated it, in order to proceed.

At the moment they seem to be having a field day in deactivating things that don't get regular use. They are giving me the impression of becoming somewhat paranoid.

My Thai friends are all saying the same thing too, which seems to confirm it is not only me (and you) having the problems.

[aurelius]

If there is real logic behind their decision to withdraw the service, then most likely it is compliance controls in action, and these have been stepped up by the central bank and therefore affect all banks. The only way a foreigner is technically allowed to earn income in Thailand is through paid employment or investment earnings. These things are tracked by work permits, salary slips, tax receipts and through investment cash flow records. When those things are proven, the BOT allows the bank to allow the repatriation of funds. When the banks are audited, they have to show evidence of having collected these documents from customers, the BOT will insist on changes to the internal process if the process in place is not up to standard.

Thais however don't have to prove the source of funds but have to show that they have family or kids living abroad who will be the recipients of the money.

[mark5335]

If there is real logic behind their decision to withdraw the service, then most likely it is compliance controls in action, and these have been stepped up by the central bank and therefore affect all banks. The only way a foreigner is technically allowed to earn income in Thailand is through paid employment or investment earnings. These things are tracked by work permits, salary slips, tax receipts and through investment cash flow records. When those things are proven, the BOT allows the bank to allow the repatriation of funds. When the banks are audited, they have to show evidence of having collected these documents from customers, the BOT will insist on changes to the internal process if the process in place is not up to standard.

Thais however don't have to prove the source of funds but have to show that they have family or kids living abroad who will be the recipients of the money.

I concur that similar requirement exists with Bangkok Bank. Each December, I present BBL with signed copies of PP, WP, overseas account details, and employer letter so that they can continue to avail the online overseas remittance service.