Online 90 day reporting available from April 1st

[dave s]

The first image is the URL text box of the Brave browser (a derivative of Chrome that protects against ads jumping around), showing "Not secure" because the dead certificate prevents a secure connection, and the URL is abbreviated without the protocol word "http://". Clicking in the text box and hitting the HOME key shows the full URL, as in the second image. If you click on the "Advanced" button on this page, it shows the third image, which explains that the dead certificate is the problem, that the local desktop computer clock is OK, and so the problem at immigration STILL has not been fixed. If you click on the "Proceed" link on the last line, you can just go on working, which is OK here, but most of the time is a bad idea.

 

Then, talk about stupid, on the next page, you'll see that the 15 page User Guide for this site, which is only of interest to foreigners, is entirely in Thai.

 

Edited August 20, 2020 by dave s

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, dave s said:

It does make a difference. When people realized that using a secure connection ("https://") was better than a plain TCP connection, it was a problem that vast numbers of existing URLs still said to be insecure ("http://"). If your browser lets you install "add-on" code, it may have a package like

    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

which automatically makes the browser use a secure connection even though the URL is written as insecure. Your browser may or may not allow add-ons, it may or may not have one like this, the add-on may or may not be turned on by default, you may or may not remember turning it on yourself. If you're curious enough, install something like WireShark, and watch how each of your browsers actually connects to immigration. The EFF add-on gives you a visual indication on the web page when it "promotes" an insecure connection.

I wasn't writing about the SSL details, but the HTTP POST the browser send after filling the html form. It's very simple, open the dev console and take a look. If you can access the page with the form, you should be on https (port 443) already.

[dave s]

On 8/18/2020 at 9:43 AM, Advocate said:

I disagree with your contention that pre-2013 entry to Thailand is not in the database. When you go to the Immigration Bureau to do a 90-day report in person the official enters your application into a computer.

 

Therefore your data is in the computer. IB has excluded you from 90-day reporting by not enabling your reporting online.

There are 40 to 50 immigration offices. There may be more than one office in a province. Some offices serve several provinces that do not have an office of their own. So "just do it in person" may be right down the street you live on, or it may be a 6 or 7 hour drive each way. It is a serious error to refer to "the immigration database" (note the singular noun). "In a computer" (singular noun) is similarly wrong. There are in fact many: about 50 local ones, hopefully all backed up regularly and reliably by a computer expert at each provincial office, a "central" database with some fraction of immigration's data, a 90 day online reporting database, a database for land crossing and airport entry stations, ..... And these databases are not all continuously and reliably in touch with each other. Some may only have Windows 10 Professional, whereas others have the very latest version of dBase III running under version 3.1 of Windows. Some collect the other information that they do not have and so can automatically respond instantly when you do online reporting, while other offices only respond when Sleepy Somchai in the back corner remembers to manually check for requests, and some refuse to do online reporting at all, maybe not even accepting mail in requests. This fragmentation exists all through immigration's IT actions. What forms to I need to do a certain task? Well, there is no master copy: some offices have a crisp, modern PDF printout to give you that correctly lists the latest rules, and some have a blurry copy of a blurry copy of a locally typed page from 15 years ago where the right hand 6 cm of text was not even on the copy machine glass. This "facilitates" every police officer at every desk at every immigration office making up their own nonsense rules.  And on this forum we have to keep asking "Where do you live? What office do you go to?"

 

On 8/18/2020 at 10:05 AM, ubonjoe said:

I am only repeating what immigration told me by email shortly after online reporting first started.

What your local offices puts into their computer is not linked to the online reporting site. The database the online system checks when submitting page one of the application is created by entries to the country.

"best practices" today usually include "use cases". During the design process, write down, in great detail, everything a company does. Because if you miss anything at all, a computer system built for that company will not do all of that company's work -- it will be broken by design. Almost everything that the Thai government touches suffers from this fault. If the needed data for online reporting is currently scattered all over Thailand (which is a common historical situation in any environment), then part of the job is to go and collect it. "Oh, that's dull and boring and I'd rather go and play in Facebook all day." Well, then don't get a computer job. The Online Reporting in 2013 should have started with the list of existing expats living in Thailand. Or at least, the senior police officer at each office could have been given an account on the land/airport entry system that had access just to "enter" an old foreigner: in the years and years and years since then, they would have captured most of this data as people complained -- and those people would have stopped complaining. Maybe, during the weeks and weeks of boring lock-down, one or more people at immigration drove around Thailand and typed in the missing data from each local office (or more likely, some offices but not others), and that's why at least some foreigners who last entered before 2013 are now reporting that the system finally works for them.

 

Another best practice is "normalization": a given piece of data should be stored at one and only one place. Otherwise, every line of code that changes data must perfectly remember to make the exact same change for every copy of the data every single time a change happens. Bug avoidance. The problem with third normal form or Boyce-Codd normal form or fourth normal form is that it is not mechanical, it requires careful thought about the meaning of the data; it is not easily automated. So if you have 19 different copies of a piece of data, you are just begging for anomalies ..., um, bugs. "Oooo, I don't have time to make my program correct, I have to go into Facebook and update my status to say that I'm updating my Facebook status." This is Thailand, where instead of saying "TL;DR" about the database textbook, you say "IKGATSO" ("I Kinda Glanced At The Slides ... Once).

Edited August 20, 2020 by dave s

[dave s]

On 8/18/2020 at 1:59 PM, DrTuner said:

I don't see what difference IE/firefox/chrome does. If you trace the http calls, they are very simple HTTP POSTs. There's very little javascript there, too and no flash or ancient activex that I can see.

 

1 hour ago, DrTuner said:

I wasn't writing about the SSL details, but the HTTP POST the browser send after filling the html form. It's very simple, open the dev console and take a look. If you can access the page with the form, you should be on https (port 443) already.

 

But, the SSL details ARE the problem here.

 

The proper fix here, is for the government to hire competent staff, and not let their certificate expire. AGAIN.

 

Immigration is telling customers to always use an old browser that does not check, and so does not notice the bad certificate. That works, but is dangerous because some day it may really be a hacker.

 

Most modern browsers act like the EFF add-on: they promote plain TCP to (usually) TLS. Looking at the web page source with the debugger doesn't help, because the browser is NOT doing what the HTTP of the page says, it is promoting to SSL. And SSL checks the dead certificate, then properly complains. That is confusing some TVF members, because they do not know to click on "Advanced" and "Proceed" and just go on. And that doing so, in this one case, is safe. The error message is scaring people off. And as you very correctly note, the SSL details are probably too much info.

[DrTuner]

10 minutes ago, dave s said:

But, the SSL details ARE the problem here.

Currently, yes they are. I was referring to a more generic problem that seems to be the equivalent of a support desk's "Have you tried turning it off and on?".

 

The IE/Firefox/Chrome story, that's more of an urban legend than anything else, has been around before they let the certificate go old (For those who don't know, getting a new certificate takes an hour or so, or they could use letsencrypt if they are really lazy). The javascript that is on the page is nothing special, nor is the actual HTTP POST. It's the backend, that even in times when the certificate is valid, that is buggy as hell.

Edited August 20, 2020 by DrTuner

[UncleMhee]

Site still has expired certificate, though successfully applied and received approval today in four hours.

[KhunPeng]

Hi need any help that can clarify online reporting. My due date is on 06/09/2020 (Sunday) and 15 days prior to due date is 23/08/2020, can I apply online before or after? I.e. 22/08/2020 or 24/08/2020? Also does it matter if the application date falls on weekends?

Many thanks and cheers!

[Peter Denis]

17 minutes ago, KhunPeng said:

Hi need any help that can clarify online reporting. My due date is on 06/09/2020 (Sunday) and 15 days prior to due date is 23/08/2020, can I apply online before or after? I.e. 22/08/2020 or 24/08/2020? Also does it matter if the application date falls on weekends?

Many thanks and cheers!

You can file your 90-day report on-line any time between 15 days before till actual due date.

However, it is recommended to wait till due date approaches as your NEXT 90-day report due date will be exactly 90 days after submission/approval of your present one.

But don't wait till last day, but do it 2-3 days before due date expiry in case the site is down or you experience some unexpected errors when trying the on-line report.

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Peter Denis

[ubonjoe]

14 minutes ago, KhunPeng said:

Hi need any help that can clarify online reporting. My due date is on 06/09/2020 (Sunday) and 15 days prior to due date is 23/08/2020, can I apply online before or after? I.e. 22/08/2020 or 24/08/2020? Also does it matter if the application date falls on weekends?

The first day you can do the report is the 22nd of August. Weekends mean nothing when counting the days.

[KhunPeng]

18 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

You can file your 90-day report on-line any time between 15 days before till actual due date.

However, it is recommended to wait till due date approaches as your NEXT 90-day report due date will be exactly 90 days after submission/approval of your present one.

But don't wait till last day, but do it 2-3 days before due date expiry in case the site is down or you experience some unexpected errors when trying the on-line report.

 

Hi Peter, noted with many thanks.cheer!

[KhunPeng]

18 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

The first day you can do the report is the 22nd of August. Weekends mean nothing when counting the days.

Hi ubonjoe, noted, much appreciated. Cheers!

[Tanoshi]

20 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

The first day you can do the report is the 22nd of August. Weekends mean nothing when counting the days.

It's within 15 days before.

First date he can submit is Sunday 23rd August.

[Tanoshi]

37 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

You can file your 90-day report on-line any time between 15 days before till actual due date.

It is not 15 days before, it is within 15 days before.

It is only 15 days including the report date, but not before the report date.

 

The easiest way to calculate it, as in the OP's case.

His report date is Sunday 6th September, then the first date he can submit online is Sunday 23rd August.

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Tanoshi

[toHs]

Are we allowed to do a mail in for those that had it due during the amnesty period? What is required to mail in?

 

Thanks

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

15 hours ago, toHs said:

Are we allowed to do a mail in for those that had it due during the amnesty period? What is required to mail in?

 

Thanks

 

If you report to BKK Immigration, had a report due during the amnesty period and didn't file one then, then BKK Immigration right now will only accept in person filings at Muang Thong Thani for your next report.

 

For IOs other than BKK, dunno if they're following the same policy.

 

[ubonjoe]

10 minutes ago, toHs said:

Are we allowed to do a mail in for those that had it due during the amnesty period? What is required to mail in?

Other than Chaeng Wattana immigration in Bangkok you could do the report by mail.

Instructions are here but you will have to mail it to your local immigration office. https://www.immigration.go.th/en/?page_id=1666

[ubonjoe]

2 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

For IOs other than BKK, dunno if they're following the same policy.

Thus far the are the only one not following the official policy.

From the immigration notification.

"(2) Aliens whose residency report is due on 26 March 2020 onwards and has not reported
within prescribed period, may report their residency in person or by assigning a person or via
registered mail or electronic means from 1 August 2020 to 31 August 2020;"

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

15 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

Thus far the are the only one not following the official policy.

From the immigration notification.

"(2) Aliens whose residency report is due on 26 March 2020 onwards and has not reported
within prescribed period, may report their residency in person or by assigning a person or via
registered mail or electronic means from 1 August 2020 to 31 August 2020;"

 

It's a very strange situation.... Usually BKK CW follows the basic national rules, more or less... And it's some few of the outlying/upcountry IOs that go their own way with oddball policies.  But in this case, for some reason, it's BKK CW that's seemingly gone off the reservation.

 

[toHs]

12 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

If you report to BKK Immigration, had a report due during the amnesty period and didn't file one then, then BKK Immigration right now will only accept in person filings at Muang Thong Thani for your next report.

 

For IOs other than BKK, dunno if they're following the same policy.

Damn it! That's like an extra 17km further than CW for me

 

Thanks

12 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

 

[JimGant]

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

It's a very strange situation.... Usually BKK CW follows the basic national rules, more or less...

They're trying to justify the establishment of, and the related salaries of, Muang Thong Thani. In Thailand positive cost accounting sometimes (oftentimes?) involves unnecessary services or products.

[treetops]

Just submitted my first ever online report and status shows as pending.

 

1)  Do Jomtien send out emails when approved?

2)  How long have others experienced it takes to go from pending to approved (or whatever comes next) when submitted to Jomtien?

[pauleddy]

Dont know about Jomtien. CW does send 2 slips , or did so to me. pending and Approved I keep both but probably no need. Staple the important one in your PP.

 

The wait varies. Last time I started to panic after 4 days then it came. If you get a pending it means (unless you did something bad before) that you will get apprved in 2 days.

 

But I know people who got it all back in 3 hours and others in 7 days. Don't worry, it will come.

 

Eddy

[sabaijai]

I haven't done online reporting since the first year it began, 2015, because I'm usually in and out of the country within every 90 days. I tried online reporting today, 15 days before my deadline, didn't work. Should I wait another day and try again, or just go in to One Stop (where I renew my visa/work permit)? Has anyone here done 90-day reporting at One Stop lately? Thanks.

[Suzy]

I am totally confused. I submitted my 90 day report as usual by mail on the 8th August, more than 15 days before due date. I have not received any response with next reporting date. Nobody answers the telephone or hotline and online doesn't seem to work. I am prepared to go to immigration (tomorrow) but not sure whether I go to CW or MTT.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Suzy
additional info

[ubonjoe]

1 hour ago, Suzy said:

I am totally confused. I submitted my 90 day report as usual by mail on the 8th August, more than 15 days before due date. I have not received any response with next reporting date. Nobody answers the telephone or hotline and online doesn't seem to work. I am prepared to go to immigration (tomorrow) but not sure whether I go to CW or MTT.

Some people have waited for 5 weeks or more to get the receipt in the mail. The immigration website says to wait 30 dasy after your report date to contact them.

Ninety day reports are done at MTT now.

[ozgolfguy]

I just renewed my retirement extension for another year and ask the IO whether I needed to return on October 9th to do my 90-day report or did the extension reset the 90 day clock. She said that it did not and that I would need to come back in October to do my 90-day report. I have a few questions which I hope someone can assist:

 

1. I live in Rayong but will be visiting family in another province next month - can I do my 90-day report at an immigration office that is not my "home" office?

2. Alternatively, I can try to do it online but have read that this only works if it's the 2nd 90-day report after my extension was renewed as the 1st 90-day report needs to be done in person - is that the case?

3. I read a number of mixed experiences (success and failures) when it comes to 90-day online reporting - is there a specific combination of browser/OS that does work better than others?

 

Appreciate the support, thanks.

 

[NE1]

Do you have to return after 90 days to show proof of money has not dropped below the 800,000 baht requirement ?

 

This is of course if you have done the retirement ext. using this method.

[treetops]

1 hour ago, NE1 said:

Do you have to return after 90 days to show proof of money has not dropped below the 800,000 baht requirement ?

 

This is of course if you have done the retirement ext. using this method.

Depends on what office you attended.

[NE1]

8 minutes ago, treetops said:

Depends on what office you attended.

That was a question for him to answer.

[Yorkie]

13 hours ago, NE1 said:

Do you have to return after 90 days to show proof of money has not dropped below the 800,000 baht requirement ?

 

 

I have not been requested to do this (Surin Immigration). And my extension was granted in May 2020.