there hospitality is first rate, but i didnt realise until today it is only open between 9.30-11.30, but the considerate thai lady opened up shop just for me, bless her, to collect our young uns first passport.

now all i have to do is get back to the toon and sort that fat <deleted> ashley out.

there hospitality is first rate

I agree, this is a very friendly and helpful little office.

now all i have to do is get back to the toon and sort that fat <deleted> ashley out.

Well thank god for that. We were all wondering when you were going to get around to Ashley

Aitch

Just another example of rip-off Britain.

I go for an "affirmation of freedom to marry", cost 3000bht, typed in English (by Thai office staff) then I have to pay for it to be translated into Thai, then pay for the translation to be confirmed by the Thai ministry of foreign affairs in Bangkok.

All they do is stamp a form I wrote then sign it. £60 for a signature on a form!

Friend goes for Death certificate, they provide it in THAI, then he has to pay to get it translated into English. What sort of silly game is this?

(a making money from backhanders by approved translation services is my best guess)

All the staff are Thai, paid very low wages, yet the morning I was there they charged about 20,000bht over the period or about 90 minutes.

Surely they are there to help Uk citizens, not make a fat wadge of cash from us.

Just another example of rip-off Britain.

I go for an "affirmation of freedom to marry", cost 3000bht, typed in English (by Thai office staff) then I have to pay for it to be translated into Thai, then pay for the translation to be confirmed by the Thai ministry of foreign affairs in Bangkok.

All they do is stamp a form I wrote then sign it. £60 for a signature on a form!

Friend goes for Death certificate, they provide it in THAI, then he has to pay to get it translated into English. What sort of silly game is this?

(a making money from backhanders by approved translation services is my best guess)

All the staff are Thai, paid very low wages, yet the morning I was there they charged about 20,000bht over the period or about 90 minutes.

Surely they are there to help Uk citizens, not make a fat wadge of cash from us.

i suspect that thailand dictates an awful lot of the stuff to the b consul, i guess the consul has to do what the thais say, afterall it is their country.

This whole business of requiring signatures, getting copies, getting translations and paying fees is a nonsense - the UK government is raking it in faster and more inappropriately than the their Thai counterparts, it's just not on.

The Thai government may insist on you getting letters and the like from the consulate but it is the UK governments decision as to how much is charged.

The rate of salary paid in Thailand does not come into the equation, it is the same the world over. I bet the staff in the consulate wished they got even 1% of the amount paid.

Complain to your MP but don't expect them to listen.

I agree that the British Consulate in CM is well setup as a lucrative money making machine and that it's fees are outrageous. However, that doesn't alter the fact that the Thai staff there are indeed very informative and friendly. Maybe gripes and grudges should go into a separate thread as i believe this one was to promote the helpfulness and efficiency of the consulate in Chiang Mai.

With this thread potentially going off on a tangent after only the third post, it's easy to see how lots of useful information gets buried in forums and difficult to retrieve when folks are told to 'Use the Search Function' to find archived data.

Aitch