Crackdown On Back-to-back Tourist Visa Applications

[tropo]

2) Thailand gets constantly bashed for harbouring high profile criminals who are on the run. Clearly, this represents only a tiny fraction of one percent of all the good people who bend the rules with back-to-back tourist visas, but it has been a source of national embarassment nonetheless, as we have seen in the newspapers. Forcing people to return to their home countries once in a while, screening them in this way, solves this problem

I'm glad to see you found a good thread to voice your opinions on the politics of the latest crackdowns.

Why would you mention criminals on the run in the same thread as back-to-back tourist visa recepients? Criminals come here because it's a great place to hang out, not because they are making it easy. It's far easier to get into and stay in other SE Asian contries. Eg Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia etc.

People who are issued back-to-back tourist visas are not bending rules. If the system allows people to obtain back-to-back tourist visas, then they are working legally within the system. Obviously if people are working on tourist visas they are doing so illegally, but there are people abusing most types of available visas.

Perhaps you could explain why people with back-to-back tourist visas in their passports are still able to get another visa in many consulates. You seem more concerned about this than the Thai Consuls are. We all know they will constantly change the rules and we work within the rules. That's the reason why many of us keep our eyes glued to this forum.

You're just starting to come across like an irritating do-gooder with nothing better to do than bother other people with visa problems.

[tijnebijn]

Consulates do not care and should not care at all how many visas you got in your passports ,

its a fact that those consulates main income comes from those .

Even read somewhere they are worried after the free handouts of tourist visas , some will have to close cause of

small revenue , consulate of Canada I believe made a statement on thaivisa a while back , think about that .

Thailand is making a big mistake when they are able to execute what some of those generals have in mind at immigration police .

If people are not able to obtain visas at consulates (which mostly are managed by locals) , the Royal Thai embasseys is what you've got left , and they don't have to generate enough income to survive at all .

We all know how friendly they are ...not

If that is what they want , tourist arrivals will drop more and more and as Texas pointed out regularly Thailand neighbours

are laughing out loud , and they will make things better and quick they will be , so things will get only more interesting ,

its time Thailand wakes up of their ignorance of reality .

[tropo]

so how does one stay if he cant qualify for some visa's, like 200,000 baht or whatever it may take? i am moving to the philippines but rather live in Thailand. i dont want to travel every 30 days.

oh yeah im not over 50 and i have an internet business

with a work permit ofcourse !

Working on an Internet business in Thailand is still considered work in Thailand (obviously because you're in Thailand) and is illegal on a tourist visa.

You could get at least another double entry tourist visa, which will give you 6 months. After that, if or when they get too difficult you could consider getting an Ed visa for studying Thai for at least 4 hours a week. That'll get you 14 months with Walen School and you will not have to leave Thailand at all over that period.

[tropo]

Friend just got back from Penang. 11 on the bus, 7 refused tourist visas. They consider that applying for a visa counts towards the final count of your total visas allowed. If that makes any sense, let me know.

Suggest to your friends to read this forum regularly. If they had they would have known not to go there in the first place, because Penang's policy on not issuing tourist visas to repeat applicants has been known for quite some time.

[hhgz]

"Usually if something is affected, there is a cause. 'Cause and Effect'"

There's a big difference between "affect" and "effect". Thanks for the chuckle.

[thaiphoon]

Consulates do not care and should not care at all how many visas you got in your passports ,

its a fact that those consulates main income comes from those .

Income steams for honorary consulates comes from the number of visas issued; funding for embassies and consulates comes from Thai government.

[Smile4u]

Just in the door now, from Laos.

Got my new 2 entry TR without any red stamp.

Had 3 back to back TR (2-entry) from Laos before this, in previous passport!

Remark : I had a brand new Passport this time !

We was a group of 15, only 2 got the red stamp, all the others did not.

Remark2: driver told me most got red stamp on the previous trip earlier this week.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Smile4u

[thaiphoon]

Just in the door now, from Laos.

Got my new 2 entry TR without any red stamp.

Had 3 back to back TR (2-entry) from Laos before this, in previous passport!

Remark : I had a brand new Passport this time !

We was a group of 15, only 2 got the red stamp, all the others did not.

Remark2: driver told me most got red stamp on the previous trip earlier this week.

Thanks for your report. I suspect your new passport may have been your saviour! All reports to date on 'entry count' seem to only relate to the current passport only.

[tropo]

Just in the door now, from Laos.

Got my new 2 entry TR without any red stamp.

Had 3 back to back TR (2-entry) from Laos before this, in previous passport!

Remark : I had a brand new Passport this time !

We was a group of 15, only 2 got the red stamp, all the others did not.

Remark2: driver told me most got red stamp on the previous trip earlier this week.

Thanks for the report!

Did you get a new passport especially to avoid the red stamp, or did you need a new one anyway? If not, I bet you wished you used your old passport and kept the new one for next time around.

[ukrules]

Thanks for your report. I suspect your new passport may have been your saviour! All reports to date on 'entry count' seem to only relate to the current passport only.

I imagine this will be because they won't have access to the live immigration databases. I suspect it would be a different story at an official Embassy, if they checked correctly.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi.

I for one had NEVER had any trouble understanding a Filipino. However i do occasionally struggle figuring out what people from certain areas of the U.S. or the U.K. have just said.

Oh i'm German by the way.

Kind regards.....

Thanh

[ericthai]

i'm glad to have a three years non-B!

Is this something new???

CS

No.. Three year visa has was started a few years ago.

[thaiphoon]

Thanks for your report. I suspect your new passport may have been your saviour! All reports to date on 'entry count' seem to only relate to the current passport only.

I imagine this will be because they won't have access to the live immigration databases. I suspect it would be a different story at an official Embassy, if they checked correctly.

All embassies and consulates have access to the immigration database which includes the blacklist.

[ukrules]

Thanks for your report. I suspect your new passport may have been your saviour! All reports to date on 'entry count' seem to only relate to the current passport only.

I imagine this will be because they won't have access to the live immigration databases. I suspect it would be a different story at an official Embassy, if they checked correctly.

All embassies and consulates have access to the immigration database which includes the blacklist.

They clearly aren't using them then.

[thaiphoon]

Thanks for your report. I suspect your new passport may have been your saviour! All reports to date on 'entry count' seem to only relate to the current passport only.

I imagine this will be because they won't have access to the live immigration databases. I suspect it would be a different story at an official Embassy, if they checked correctly.

All embassies and consulates have access to the immigration database which includes the blacklist.

They clearly aren't using them then.

I think it is more of a question whether the countries issuing passports link the old and new passport numbers which would give full travel history. On the basis of reports in this thread, that would seem not to be the case.

[cdnvic]

You guys really like to make us work hard

Several posts mis-attributed a somewhat racist remark to Tropo. These have now been fixed to show the actual source of the remark. The poster of said racist remark actually flamed Tropo as being a racist for the comment he himself made (yeah, I know ) and at least one other member joined in.

For the record, Tropo made no racist comment about anyone.

The quotes have been fixed, the flames deleted, people were warned about flaming.

We now return you to your regular topic, already in progress......

[cdnvic]

I just deleted two more flames. People who cannot address other members with respect have been sent off.

I tried to be nice and just give verbal warnings but it seems some people cannot help themselves.

[Smile4u]

Immigration do link the old and the new passport.

On first page in new passport, Immigration have a stamp where they fill in the old passport number, date of issue, date of entry to Thailand, visa class and previous enter Thailand + last Passport issued in Thailand. This should be a giveaway to the Consulate that this is a "long stayer".

Guys I talked with had 3-6 TR visa from Laos already in their passport.

Tropo: old passport was full, was ordered 2 months ago. Only 1page left there. Would have missed my 2nd entry if I had used old one.

Doesn't make sense that they make a new Consulate in Laos and free visa's - then start to issue red stamps again. Tourism is down big time all over the world - have they missed that?

Well, I should be ok for 1 more trip up there (unless they change again before I wake up in the morning).

TIT.

Bring umbrella if going soon, rain up there now.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Smile4u

[thaiphoon]

Immigration do link the old and the new passport.

On first page in new passport, Immigration have a stamp where they fill in the old passport number, date of issue, date of entry to Thailand, visa class and previous enter Thailand + last Passport issued in Thailand. This should be a giveaway to the Consulate that this is a "long stayer".

Agree immigration can link passports if new one obtained in Thailand. But if new passport was obtained from home country, I suspect immigration would not know (unless you showed them both passports). Maybe herein lies a solution??

[ukrules]

Immigration do link the old and the new passport.

On first page in new passport, Immigration have a stamp where they fill in the old passport number, date of issue, date of entry to Thailand, visa class and previous enter Thailand + last Passport issued in Thailand. This should be a giveaway to the Consulate that this is a "long stayer".

Agree immigration can link passports if new one obtained in Thailand. But if new passport was obtained from home country, I suspect immigration would not know (unless you showed them both passports). Maybe herein lies a solution??

I was operating under the assumption that they could 'look up' your previous entries into the country and old passport numbers by entering your name / date of birth. This would be the easiest way to find it as details like this are given to immigration when entering the country.

This way they wouldn't need to be notified that you've been issued a new passport, they would already have your history regardless of your passport number. This is why I suspected they either don't look up these details or don't have access to them.

Your name and date of birth makes a good unique / semi-unique index in a large database and is present in the machine readable characters along the bottom of the photo page of modern passports. All entries from all historical passports you have ever had could be looked up and displayed in a fraction of a second if they have the right systems in place.

[Phatcharanan]

Immigration do link the old and the new passport.

On first page in new passport, Immigration have a stamp where they fill in the old passport number, date of issue, date of entry to Thailand, visa class and previous enter Thailand + last Passport issued in Thailand. This should be a giveaway to the Consulate that this is a "long stayer".

Agree immigration can link passports if new one obtained in Thailand. But if new passport was obtained from home country, I suspect immigration would not know (unless you showed them both passports). Maybe herein lies a solution??

You are both getting confused.

That information in a 'new' passport is inserted when an existing visa is transferred from old to new passport.

Thai Immigration cannot possibly insert this info into a new passport, issued overseas, used for a fresh entry.

[Smile4u]

Excuse me, I am not confused.

I am a expat living in Thailand 10 years and what I wrote about consern my Passport.

This topic is about "crackdown on back-to-back visa applications" = long stayers = expats.

Most of us do apply for a new passport here in LOS, and must go to Immigration to get the old Visa transfered to new Passport. We all get the mentioned stamps in the first page of new passport!

Not many go home to make a new passport, as the total cost would tenfold.

Again, this topic name is "crackdown on back to back visa applications" and are not about the tourist who comes here 1 or twice a year only.

Who was confused?

Edited October 2, 2009 by Smile4u

[loong]

Crackdown,,??

..... .................. .................

most extensions, ad infinitum, can be done at Immigration IN thailand,,,,a smile and good manners work wonders......

Are you trying to tell us that you, for some reason are able to continue to extend a single tourist visa for month after month and so never have to leave the country?

You must have a really dazzling smile

[RandyWhite]

Friend just got back from Penang. 11 on the bus, 7 refused tourist visas. They consider that applying for a visa counts towards the final count of your total visas allowed. If that makes any sense, let me know.

Suggest to your friends to read this forum regularly. If they had they would have known not to go there in the first place, because Penang's policy on not issuing tourist visas to repeat applicants has been known for quite some time.

Clarification: Penang's policy eased off (60 days, no fee and no red stamps) about 12 months ago with the global recession and slump in tourism. However, apparently this year's crackdown began during the first part of September (i.e. last month).

RAW.

[Krap]

This time i choose to enter on a 30 day visa given at entry, planned to extend with 30 days in penang but now reading that you will only be given 15 days wich is a big problem since i allready changed the trip home...Does this 15 day extension limit only apply to border checkpoints and if u fly out u get 30 days on return? How to do? Have to leave in a few days.

[lopburi3]

If you are going to Penang and don't have tourist visas/extensions you could probably obtain a tourist visa free allowing a 60 day entry. You can always fly back from Penang and obtain a new 30 day visa exempt entry - the 15 day is for land/sea entry.

[Tywais]

Post removed for discussing illegal activities. Keep the forum rules in mind when posting please.

[clockworkorange]

Why would you mention criminals on the run in the same thread as back-to-back tourist visa recepients? Criminals come here because it's a great place to hang out, not because they are making it easy. It's far easier to get into and stay in other SE Asian contries. Eg Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia etc.

People who are issued back-to-back tourist visas are not bending rules. If the system allows people to obtain back-to-back tourist visas, then they are working legally within the system. Obviously if people are working on tourist visas they are doing so illegally, but there are people abusing most types of available visas.

Perhaps you could explain why people with back-to-back tourist visas in their passports are still able to get another visa in many consulates. You seem more concerned about this than the Thai Consuls are. We all know they will constantly change the rules and we work within the rules. That's the reason why many of us keep our eyes glued to this forum.

You're just starting to come across like an irritating do-gooder with nothing better to do than bother other people with visa problems.

Noted that the other point that I made about the Thai authorities expecting people who live in Thailand to pay income tax was ignored. It's the same the world over. I have paid a lot of tax in Thailand, and to be honest I do resent freeloaders who dodge their civic responsibilities by evading their taxes via the endless tourist visa route. Taxes in Thailand are a one way street - all outgoing and nothing back. But I have to pay them, so why on earth shouldn't you?

However one may look at it, living in a country on tourist visas is immigration fraud. However people might like to dress it up, to justify it, checking in to Thailand while declaring that one is a tourist is fraud unless one really is a tourist. Thailand has laws that very clearly provide criminal sanctions for making false declarations on official documents. The fact that various consulates are slow to pick up on this for the time being, dishinng out endless tourist visas to people who really are resident and who are in effect evading the tax system (or any other screening that applies to residents) is irrelevant, and does not alter the fact that one is breaking the law by making a false declaration to the authorities on a landing card or visa application form. People should be aware of this, and should view the current crackdown as an enforcement of rules that are already in existence. Don't build a house on foundations of sand.

Some may get upset to see their 'automatic' entitlement to endless tourist visas questioned, but that is no excuse for disregarding the rule of law. There is nothing at all that can be interpreted as 'do gooding' in respecting the law of the land, laws that are sanctioned by the highest authority, so I don't in any legal way have to justify nor aplologise for my lawful posiition to you nor anyone else by the slightest jot whatsoever.

Edited October 3, 2009 by clockworkorange

[tropo]

Noted that the other point that I made about the Thai authorities expecting people who live in Thailand to pay income tax was ignored. It's the same the world over. I have paid a lot of tax in Thailand, and to be honest I do resent freeloaders who dodge their civic responsibilities by evading their taxes via the endless tourist visa route. Taxes in Thailand are a one way street - all outgoing and nothing back. But I have to pay them, so why on earth shouldn't you?

However you look at it, living in a country on tourist visas is immigration fraud. However people like you might like to dress it up, justify it, checking in to Thailand while declaring that you are a tourist is fraud unless you really are a tourist. Thailand has laws that very clearly provide criminal sanctions for making false declarations on official documents. The fact that that various consulates are slow to pick up on this for the time being does not alter the fact that one is breaking the law by making a false declaration to the authorities on a landing card or visa application form. People should be aware of this, and should view the current crackdown as an enforcement of rules that are already in existence. Don't build a house on foundations of sand.

Some may get upset to see their 'automatic' entitlement to endless tourist visas questioned, but that is no excuse for disregarding the rule of law. There is nothing at all 'do gooding' in respecting the law of the land, laws that are sanctioned by the highest authority, so I don't need to justify nor aplologise for my lawful posiition to you one jot.

OK, now we know why you're upset that other people can stay in Thailand on tourist visas and why you offer endless advice and warnings ...because people like you have to pay taxes and you resent that others do not. Thanks for making it clear.

I'm 50, retired and have enough offshore income to allow me to stay in Thailand without working, unlike people like you who need to work and pay taxes. I'm eligible for a retirement visa, but don't wish to take that route right now for reasons I shall not discuss here.

I don't envy you having to work in Thailand and pay taxes.

Don't delude yourself that all people who stay here on tourist visas are working. I'd hate to have to work in a 3rd world country. That's not why I live in Thailand.

Edited October 3, 2009 by tropo

[mussen]

All people who are in Thailand pay taxes, either directly or indirectly. Whether it's income tax, or tax on the beer you buy from 7-11 on a 2 day holiday, we all pay tax! End of story.