Let's get this out of the way first; visas/extensions that are agent gotten (even ones where they bank the funds for you for a matter of minutes) are REAL immigration stamps, from REAL immigration offices by REAL immigration officers and they are indeed valid.. Now to answer the question, do people have issues later with agent/gotten stamps. That is not as easy to answer. If you use an agent to bank the funds for you and have no problem using an agent year after year, no, you'll be fine HOWEVER with that being said If you ever wanna jump off the slippery slope of agent gotten visa/extensions and 'push your own paper' (get your own extension) you can indeed find 'issues'. First if an agent banked the funds for you for the extension you're on, EVEN if you start transferring in 65K baht a month each month every month for the next 12 months, OR decide to bank your own money a couple months before your next extension comes due you will run into problems. That's because most all immigration offices are now requiring you to provide a year transaction detail report printed by the bank <- and that shows the balance of the account for every transaction done the previous year. It's this report that will show your agent banked the money for just a matter of hours and you did NOT meet the required seasoning <- which is keeping the 800K in the account for 3 months after the extension is granted and then never letting the balance get below 400K for the rest of the year.. That's what catches people out Obviously if you bank your own money and just use an agent to get the extension you'd be in a better position to do your own extension the following year Another issue that comes up is agents that do those "one-&-done" visa/extensions all in one day <- where you go, get the 90 day Non-O issued and then immediately get the year extension issued the same day (usually done at Chaengwattana Bangkok). That is a GIANT red flag to any immigration office in the country and it's 100% a tip off that you used an agent because you as a "normal human being) couldn't show up and pull that off. You'd have to show up, apply for the Non-O, pay the 2000 baht, come back 2 weeks later, get it inked into your passport then wait until you had 30 days or less left on that 90 day stamp before you applied for the year extension. I know people who did the one-&-done, and then the following year tried to push their own paper at the immigration office and were denied being told go talk to the person who helped you last year.. Another issue that people have is those "no go/no show" extensions <-that's where you just give your passport / bank book to the agent and it comes back with the year extension in it. Usually those stamps come from some back water out of the way immigration office. From a province you have never lived in, set foot in and most likely you couldn't find on a map of thailand if the provinces were labeled. Even filing a new TM30 at your immigration office, once you got that extension filing 90 day reports at your office doesn't guarantee that you'd be able to push your own paper the following year.. The above 'issues' are the reason the Pattaya agents are the best to deal with. They HOLD your passport so that the Non-O, then the year extension stamps are spread out so it is not immediately apparent to anyone looking at the stamps that they were agent gotten. AND not to mention the high number of foreigners who live/stay in Pattaya so those stamps are NOT always indicative of having used an agent. As far as using "shepherd" <- someone to "herd" you thru the process with you meeting the financial requirements on your own. As a rule those "Hand Holders" are usually okay, and the following year if you don't wanna use them it's not an issue pushing your own paper. Sorry this was a long response. Hope this was somewhat helpful.
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