I'm curious if those "urgent" VISA services you see are legit or not? For example, just outside the Vientiene embassy, there's loads of people with tables setup offering these "urgent" VISA services. I didn't use them, but I will next time if I know it still goes through the proper channels, and the VISA is legitimately approved by the government. I read the warnings about them located in the embassy, and the biggest warning was basically, "don't get pissed off at us if your documentation is incomplete, and your VISA is declined because of it". The warnings didn't say anything about scams, fake VISAs or anything though.

So I don't really know, but as far as I can gather it's probably legitimate, otherwise they wouldn't be able to operate directly outside the embassy. Only difference is instead of standing in line for hours yourself, you pay a little extra money and they hand it to their friend in the embassy through the backdoor. That, and your paperwork isn't checked for completeness by an embassy official. The application still goes through the embassy though, and the VISA is still issued by the Thai government.

Is that about right, or am I wrong? If right, I'll definitely be using that next time. I'd rather pay a little extra to save myself from waiting for hours in the heat while wearing heavy clothes to look good for immigration. Anyone know?

Edited February 28, 201313 yr by Nautilus05

You are correct, visa agents have existed long time.

In Penang the consulate prefers the agents as they have already cleared the paperwork once.

Any idea what the costs are for this "Urgent" VISA services through those agents?

I'm going to Vientiane next week to issue my Non-Immigrant B Visa.

Any idea what the costs are for this "Urgent" VISA services through those agents?

I'm going to Vientiane next week to issue my Non-Immigrant B Visa.

Most of them charge b5,000 for a double entry tourist visa, which seems to be basically the visa fee plus a $100 'tip'. For this they'll pick up your pp from your hotel and deliver it back to you next day at noon.

ICBW but I think they're more geared up towards smoothing the path for tourist visas and lazy b'stards like me (I gladly pay $100 to avoid 2 days of queues and bureacracy), than for non-o or non-b types.

Totally over the top in my view. Penang fee was about the same as it would cost for taxi service so made some sense but to willing pay 2.5 times the normal price to have someone fill in a few words on a form I would not consider good value no matter how lazy I might be.

You are correct, visa agents have existed long time.

In Penang the consulate prefers the agents as they have already cleared the paperwork once.

Ohhh, and it just clicked. That's why the Thai government doesn't add a couple staff to the embassies to help speed up VISA applications. They want us to use these private VISA agents. The Thai govt still gets the same fee, but without the hassle of checking and correcting the paperwork of everyone. Alright, that makes sense now!