Was My Visa Not Noticed By Immigration At The Airport

[whatchamacallit]

Once again - the OP has not done anything wrong. He has a valid visa - the officer gave him the wrong stamp!! The only thing he should have done is to check the stamp at the airport as this would have avoided his problem in the first place, but it is not a biggie. It's a simple and honest mistake. Technically he has not overstayed, had the officer given him the right stamp.

So go to the BKK immigration (name?) like we did for our son. Go directly to the "Wrong Stamp" booth, be polite and explain to him. I bet they will understand, no questions be asked and correct the mistake - off he goes. Good luck.

[Murgatroyd]

I arrived in 2008 with a multi entry O/A so called"Retirement" Visa obtained from the Thai embassy in London... on arrival the Immigration officer stamped my passport for 90 days, and told me I had to report to the immigration office in Bangkok each 90 days... I knew that I had to report every 90 days and so thought that this was normal proceedure...

When I arrived at the Immigration office to report I was told that my visa was no good, and that I had to apply for a whole new visa.... I was totally dumbfounded... My wife and I waited half a day in various queues and were given 2 days grace to get the required documentation together. I couldn't understand what could be wrong with my visa, as I has done considerable research into which visa was best for me, and had worked hard to assemble all the correct documentation to obtain it.

After scurrying around Bangkok getting umpteen photocopies, expensive letters from the UK embassy and opening a Thai bank account I returned to the immigration office to find that a very senior Immigration officer was at the front desk... he took one look at my passport and told me "You have the wrong stamp in your passport... take it to the wrong stamp desk and they will change it to a 1 year stamp... your visa is OK"... Much relieved I did so and was out of the building in 20 minutes, with the stamp changed to a 1 year stamp, (Counted from my day of entry), and my 90 day report done...

The only thing that I could imagine had caused the immigration officer on the first visit to tell me that my visa was no good was that she didn't want to admit that the Officer at the airport had given me the wrong stamp... that would have involved the department of immigration loosing face... much easier to turn the whole thing into my problem by telling me that I had the wrong visa. The senior officer I met on the second visit had no problem admitting that one of his underlings had made a mistake, and obviously looked forward to pointing the matter out to the officers concerned.

Throughout the whole proceedure I managed to keep my cool, and didn't allow anyone to realise how frustrated and angry I was... If I had allowed my frustration to show I very much doubt that the business would have come to such a happy ending.

So, whatever you do, keep your cool, and keep smiling. You may have to explain the course of events to several different immigration officers, and you may have to pay a fine... If you get cross things will go badly, and nobody will want to help you at all.

I hope that things go smoothly for you.

Edited May 30, 2010 by Murgatroyd

[lopburi3]

The officer is looking at your permitted to stay stamp and it was at day 90 so if you were here for retirement you had to extend your stay that day (not a visa). They gave you the requirements for that.

The person viewing your passport had probably never seen an OA visa and as you did not mention the stamp being wrong just believed you had the normal O visa entry for 90 days. Don't believe it was a case of trying to hide a mistake - it was not her mistake to hide. Immigration daily corrects mistakes made at airport. But that is a special desk.

[LivinLOS]

I have had this happen to me multiple times over the years.. They just stamp 30 days on my passport not 90 without thinking or looking..

Now I know I check, and they will scribble it out and restamp in the airport.. Once in the past I didnt and local immigration refused to fix it making me do a visa run, I wasnt on overstay.

[KunMatt]

OK, so we called the Ubon immigration office this morning and spoke to the duty out of hours officer and after explaining the situation he said just come down to the office in Ubon tomorrow and they will sort it out, no problem. Of course this does little to ease my worries as I know how quickly things can about face in Asia when dealing with a different person but I'm willing to give it a shot.

If the Ubon office cannot deal with this then I will probably go to BKK tommorow to the "wrong stamp" department. Worst case scenario realistically is I'm stung with a 20k fine for a simple oversight on my behalf, which would irk me more than slighty!!

Edited May 30, 2010 by UKMatt

[Lite Beer]

UKMatt. This may help you sleep better.

Post #11.

She stamped my 60day-visa and corrected the departure date to 16th of Nov. No word concerning overstay.

That's it - no need to worry.

[KunMatt]

Ok, I just got back from Ubon Immigration, no detention or deportation, so that's good!

First off I just want to say thanks for all the advice in here, it really helped me out, especially Maestro for the address in Thai and English and Lite Beer for the support.

For anyone in the future that has the same problem as me, and it seems like this happens regularly, I will detail the process I went through.

Incidently, when I got up this morning at 8am all of my gf's immediate family had come over and were having what looked suspiciously like a farewell party for me, not the best start to my day and the paranoia of what could happen today started to set in. I was shaved, shirted and gelled and honestly felt like I was about to go to court before we left.

Anyways, it all went very smoothly, my gf called the immigration at 9am just to make sure it could be done in Ubon so we weren't wasting our time driving for 2 hours just to be told we need to go to BKK, but they confirmed on the phone that although they have never had this problem before but they could rectify it.

The immigration is very easy to find, it's on the only main road that seems to run throughout Ubon.

At the immigration my gf explained to a very nice and friendly immigration officer the situation and I was all friendly smiles and "Khrap" and repeating or answering anything I understood in Thai. The guy photocopied most of my passport, wrote the situation beside the incorrect stamp and after crossing out the wrong date on the entry stamp re-stamped it so it would have been 90 days from entry. A supervisor also signed the statement he wrote in my passport then he photocopied most of my passport again which I then signed the copies of, and that was that, all corrected for free in about 10 minutes, he didn't even charge me for the photocopies but I gave him 200 Baht gratuity and we were both very happy men. He also told my gf I was very handsome which is something I still don't know how to respond to when a guy tells me this is Asia!

The stamp on my departure card still says the original date 30 days from my entry but he says it's supposed to be like this as the situation is explained next to the original stamp in my passport.

At the end of the day I think what happened today is what legally should happen but I was also lucky to have such a fair immigration officer. The thing I was worried about was being caught up in the system and getting some evil jobsworth who either wanted a heafty bribe, the full 20k fine or to deport me on the spot for technically being in Thailand beyond my Entry Stamp and therefore illegally.

If nothing else this experience has hopefully taught me to always check any stamps and paperwork from now on.

[Lite Beer]

Thanks for the update.

Time for a beer I think.

[Slip]

Glad it worked out properly UKMatt.

[Maestro]

Thank you for your report, Matt. Happy to hear that all went well. Other members in the service area of the Ubon Ratchathani immigration office will be glad to know of your positive experience and and the friendly service given by that office.

--

Maestro

[dogleg]

Just wanted to add - they wouldnt fix this for me at Jomtien Immigration. Exactly same situation as OP but I had to make the trek to Chaeng Wattana, where they sorted it in 2 minutes.

[Colabamumbai]

That Immigration in Ubon is about 2 hours from where I am.

I'm tempted to go to BKK airport today/tonight and go to this "wrong stamp" desk as I'm sure they will be more than aquainted with my situtation and probably be more helpful compared to the immigration at Ubon.

As I'm 40 days over my stamp already I really don't want to get collared with a 20k penalty, if I can avoid it by going to BKK and getting this rectified there I might do that.

I'm positive I wrote my visa number on the arrival card so if they wanted to check that I'm sure they would more likely have the facility to in BKK than Ubon too.

It's the fact that I've already overstayed the stamp in my passport that is worrying me even though I had a valid visa.

Go with your hat in you hand, so to say, I was on a month overstay and went to immigration and told them that I thought I had a problem, dressed professionally and apologetic, just wanting to obey the law and sort things out. They ran it around for an hour and a half, I thought they were going to wear my passport pages out. The boss finally said, just pay 1,900 Bhat and we will give you a 7 day extension. (My overstay was not cancelling a Non B and not applying for a new one when I changed jobs and provinces). We all make mistakes no matter how much we try to follow the law.