Denied tourist visa at Singapore - what a joke!

[Sabaisabai1]

Went to get a 2 month tourist visa as I was here anyways. She looks through my passport and says I've come to Thailand too many times and don't I know Bangkok is cracking down. I laughed and said don't you know my ex-wife is Thai and maybe I came here so many times because I wanted to visit my family. She then said I need a marriage visa but I said we have separated for 2 years. She then asked why I had an education visa and I explained I was studying Thai for a while. This seemed to put her off and then she asked about my plane tickets. I explained I was in Singapore to pick up my sailboat and was going to sail to Thailand Thursday. She then asks for the ship's registration papers which are on the boat and said I could have my passport back on Friday if I give her the ship's papers.

Then a comment about proof of funds...my damn boat is worth more than she will make in her lifetime. I just laughed and told her..."you really have no idea.". **deleted**. I can stay as long as I want....all I need to do is buy an Elite visa except I really don't want to give the Thai government 500,000 baht of my money.

So whatever....clear in Koh Samui on Saturday and get another 30 days.....maybe another education visa for a year after that until my company starts up boat charters. Who cares...you can buy anything here and people like her are just a mild annoyance. They think they are important but its all in their head.What a waste of 20 minutes of my life.

[themechanic]

Are you a troll or just a good example of how idiots can have money as well?

You seem to think that money is a fix-all magic bullet. It's not. There are many situations (such as the one in which you got exactly what you deserved) where common sense and politeness will go a long way farther than an arrogant, douchebag mindset.

Edited October 21, 2014 by themechanic

[mrtoad]

Still didn't get a visa either

[TheSpade]

If your attitude on here is anything like the way you acted with the immigration official I'm not surprised at the attitude and outcome you had from her.

[longstebe]

People letting their pride get in the way once again.

There's only one loser here.

[thehelmsman]

nah, posting on here was a bigger waste of time LOL

[MobileContent]

To the OP - Great work from the Thai Embassy in Singapore that they don't issue you a visa. With your attitude. Well done by the Thai Embassy in Singapore.

You must be a troll and your sailing boat as well. You have an ex which means you have no more family. If you have a child you can apply Non O if not try Tourist visa. You should have shown a bank account with money in it that you can afford sailing.

All you did is controversial so sail on to Indonesia or Malaysia.

[MrWorldwide]

Sorry to hear that you wasted 20 minutes of your life - clearly you're a high net worth individual and the Consulate staff need to brush up on their bowing and scraping skills for your next visit.

[MobileContent]

So whatever....clear in Koh Samui on Saturday and get another 30 days.....maybe another education visa for a year after that until my company starts up boat charters.

So one more year edu visas and then a company. Another illegal immigrant in the Land of Smiles. Hopefully the immig in Samui kick you back in the sea and you can try your luck in Langkawi also they want a Yacht and not some sailing boat.

[Songhua]

You left with nothing. Apparently she's more important than you think.

[daveAustin]

nah, posting on here was a bigger waste of time LOL

Thought you didn't like 'lols'? lol

Op, while I can understand the rhetoric to a degree (the whole immigration thing, having to answer questions for years on end etc), it really does pay to just play their game and suck it up. No need to bend over, but just smile a bit on the outside and try to keep any sarcasm or snarkiness in check. Things tend to move along a bit better then.

Edited October 21, 2014 by daveAustin

[mrtoad]

You left with nothing. Apparently she's more important than you think.

Oh so spot on.

[Soutpeel]

OP how dare the the natives at the Thai embassy in Sing turn your visa application down, don't they realise your a great white bwana, and they should kowtow down in your presence, you should contact London immediately and request the RN send a gun boat or two to sort out the natives in their former colony

[Yahooka]

Not surprising at all that they didn`t issue you a visa....try to be a tad more humble the next time .

[mrtoad]

OP how dare the the natives at the Thai embassy in Sing turn your visa application down, don't they realise your a great white bwana, and they should kowtow down in your presence, you should contact London immediately and request the RN send a gun boat or two to sort out the natives in their former colony

Is he British???

Please no.

[ToddinChonburi]

[noahvail]

Remind me not to charter the OP's boat. If he's true to form, he "bought" his safety stickers and Thai Captain's license...

[jacksam]

Would this be the most universally disliked posts on TV. Must be a troll....no one is that much of a moron. Hope your business never gets off ground.

Also I have always had a mental note re people and their money claims......bit same as sex....

The people that actually have it never talk about it.

[jacksam]

Is the username a new version of Thai for relax relax.

[mrtoad]

Remind me not to charter the OP's boat. If he's true to form, he "bought" his safety stickers and Thai Captain's license...

It's probably a pedlo.

[ldiablo]

You people all of you are so negative. It's a wonder why the world is what it is today with all the negatively and ignorance.

[Misterwhisper]

I only have one word: Prick!

[WitawatWatawit]

Imagine that! Sucks being an alpha male these days.

[Tokay]

You seem to think that money is a fix-all magic bullet. It's not.

His only problem was that he was in Singapore, not Thailand.

In Thailand, money fixes just about everything. 13 years here has taught me that there isn't a problem I've come across yet that I can't buy my way out of, fix an issue, grease a wheel, or make a NO turn into a YES. Money is now and always will be #1 in Thailand. Corruption can be your enemy, or your friend. It's up to how you use it. People even buy their way out of murder here on a regular basis.

[scavenger]

15 days by land if you are not from a G7 country, 30 days at the airport, and who knows how many days by sea? I would play it safe, leave the sailboat in Singapore and fly in with my private jet.

[ukrules]

I think most of you are missing the point. Regardless of the OP's 'slightly off' attitude there is not meant to be any 'crackdown' on tourism. This is going to annoy some people in the TAT.

What are they trying to do ? What are they cracking down on, tourism ? Are they trying to reduce the revenue generated by each Embassy ? I've read similar reports from other Embassies, some as far away as Europe.

It defies logic.

Are there too many tourists for Thailand to handle so they've started turning people away by refusing to sell the entrance tickets ?

If the arrival numbers go real low this year (which they already have) then when they do return to normal someone will be claiming to have turned the tourism industry around. Who will it be and who stands to gain from this scenario I wonder.

[pmarlin]

I think most of you are missing the point. Regardless of the OP's 'slightly off' attitude there is not meant to be any 'crackdown' on tourism. This is going to annoy some people in the TAT.

What are they trying to do ? What are they cracking down on, tourism ? Are they trying to reduce the revenue generated by each Embassy ? I've read similar reports from other Embassies, some as far away as Europe.

It defies logic.

Are there too many tourists for Thailand to handle so they've started turning people away by refusing to sell the entrance tickets ?

If the arrival numbers go real low this year (which they already have) then when they do return to normal someone will be claiming to have turned the tourism industry around. Who will it be and who stands to gain from this scenario I wonder.

Because the OP is clearly NOT a tourist. He is milking the system.

[ukrules]

I think most of you are missing the point. Regardless of the OP's 'slightly off' attitude there is not meant to be any 'crackdown' on tourism. This is going to annoy some people in the TAT.

What are they trying to do ? What are they cracking down on, tourism ? Are they trying to reduce the revenue generated by each Embassy ? I've read similar reports from other Embassies, some as far away as Europe.

It defies logic.

Are there too many tourists for Thailand to handle so they've started turning people away by refusing to sell the entrance tickets ?

If the arrival numbers go real low this year (which they already have) then when they do return to normal someone will be claiming to have turned the tourism industry around. Who will it be and who stands to gain from this scenario I wonder.

Because the OP is clearly NOT a tourist. He is milking the system.

There is no crackdown so there can be no milking the system. Everthing changed when the head of immigration who was planning these 'crackdowns' was fired days after the coup.

The crackdowns were all about visa exempt entries.

Now we are seeing increasing reports about 'too many tourist visas' from various embassies - there's no such thing as too many tourist visas unless there's a new and unannounced active crackdown in place right now.

Which is it - crackdown or not ? I've read no official announcements so I can only assume they're already doing this 'on the sly' without announcing it.

Edited October 21, 2014 by ukrules

[MrWorldwide]

ukrules, I'm not going to get into a quoting war with you, but you and I seem to have a different understanding of the 'crackdown' - numerous threads in this forum discussing the various phases but this is my understanding -

- the civilian government initiated it to target overstayers and those who were exploiting the visa exemptions, particularly illegal workers from Russia, VN and South Korea.

- the military continued the push and we were told that it would be implemented in early August, but overly zealous Immigration Officers and Consulate staff quickly made it apparent that they intended to please their new masters in Bangkok by enforcing the rules as they saw fit. People were left stranded at land crossings and - a few weeks later - turned away at the airports.

The net result was that anyone with 'too many stamps' or 'too many Tourist Visas' ran the risk of being denied a tourist visa - no shortage of threads on that one - or granted a visa only to be denied entry at a border. This was particularly bad at the southern land crossings from Malaysia where it seems that IOs expected a 500-baht note to be inserted into any passports they deigned to open. They had the power and they weren't going to pass up a golden opportunity.

The Ed visa crackdown has been extensively discussed here and - FWIR - it has been considerably tougher to get a new Ed visa in the wake of the crackdown. This has absolutely nothing to do with tourism and it's a dead horse flogged far too many times so I'll leave it there - suffice it to say that the same people who are given summary power over who can and cant stay in Thailand for more than 30 days oversee that process.

While there has been no shortage of complaints from English speakers here on TV, the missing piece of the puzzle for me has been the impact on Thailand's near neighbours and largest tourist markets - while it's unlikely that tour groups from China are filled with people who visit Thailand several times a year, I doubt that we'll ever see any stats on the number of Chinese turned around at the airports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Thailand#Top_20_arrivals_by_nationality

In the OP's case, he chose a Consulate which was notorious for rejecting applications for tourist visas before the current crackdown - from memory, they still had the outdated 90-day rule on their website. Penang may have been an entirely different story, but with a winning personality like that I'd recommend one of the many 'agents' on the island - they employ people to smile on your behalf.

There are several places in SEA that I wouldnt bother applying for a tourist visa, but KL and Sillypore are at the top of that list. Fortunately, that's no longer an issue, but I dont take any liaison with Immigration lightly.

[ukrules]

The net result was that anyone with 'too many stamps' or 'too many Tourist Visas' ran the risk of being denied a tourist visa - no shortage of threads on that one - or granted a visa only to be denied entry at a border. This was particularly bad at the southern land crossings from Malaysia where it seems that IOs expected a 500-baht note to be inserted into any passports they deigned to open. They had the power and they weren't going to pass up a golden opportunity.

The only problem as I see it is that any crackdown is only meant to be on Visa Exempt arrivals but it's turning out that this is not the case. The reason I'm currently pointing this out is that I have long suspected tourist visas will also be affected by this 'non crackdown' and this now appears to be showing up.

Someone somewhere has decided to prevent tourist visas being issued at various Embassies around the world by apparently implementing unknown limits on recent visits.

To me it looks like a new crackdown by stealth. They're doing it but didn't let anyone know about it. It's very underhand.