Yesterdays experience at immigration

[BB1955]

Went yesterday to renew my yearly marrage extention . Got there at 4 am 5 th in line was called up at 9 am done passport in hand and out the door 10 30 am . Place was not the usual mad house I have been used to seeing .

[nikmar]

4 am? seriously?

[LivinLOS]

Having been in the airport office recently I would echo that its actually a manageable amount of people. Spare seats, not the bedlam of the last 2 years or so..

[NotEinstein]

4 am? seriously?

Yep, if you don't want to have to wait there all morning and not be seen until after lunch you need to be in the first 5 queuing for a marriage extension. You could of course go at 6 and hope you will get in for that afternoon. If you go after 7 there is a good chance you will be turned away.

[BB1955]

4 am? seriously?

yes 4 am I was lucky there was a visa agent in front of me with a stack of files. I thought I was doomed . But was the first one called for extention based on marrage. The line for student and others at 4 am was about 20 deep at 4 am . I also got the last parking space . Great thing is the new 711 across the road ......

[lovelomsak]

You were in immigration for 6 1/2 hours to renew a marriage extension? You feel that is quick good service? I think it is terrible service.

Ever year for my retirement renewal I drive from Lomsak to Pitsanulok get renewal drive back and that takes 6 1/2 hours. Immigration time about 1/2 hour.

i leave the house after breakfast and home for lunch and drive 300 kilometers.

[CMNightRider]

After reading how this guy showed up to immigration at 0400 hours in the morning, and had to wait until 1030 hours to obtain his yearly marriage extension, almost made me want to vomit. This kind of nonsense is way over the top. There is no way people should have to report to immigration at this ridicules hour in the morning to fulfil immigrations yearly requirements.

What is equally troubling, is the guy seemed happy about this, and was even pleased immigration wasn't the usual mad house. Wow, you just can't make stuff like this up.

[luke000]

When I went to the airport Immigration two years to get an extension, I arrived at 4 AM and waiting in the queue and got a number at 8 PM , some people behind me got tuurned away and were told to come back another day .

I went to the new immigration office a few weeks ago to get an extension and fromr there, again at 4 AM, after walking there from Tapae gate .

I was second in the queue , at the opening time of 8 PM. there were only a handful of people behind me .

I was in and there there within 15 minutes

[CMNightRider]

When I went to the airport Immigration two years to get an extension, I arrived at 4 AM and waiting in the queue and got a number at 8 PM , some people behind me got tuurned away and were told to come back another day .

I went to the new immigration office a few weeks ago to get an extension and fromr there, again at 4 AM, after walking there from Tapae gate .

I was second in the queue , at the opening time of 8 PM. there were only a handful of people behind me .

I was in and there there within 15 minutes

Lol, you write as if you are Thai, posting as a foreigner.

[luke000]

When I went to the airport Immigration two years to get an extension, I arrived at 4 AM and waiting in the queue and got a number at 8 PM , some people behind me got tuurned away and were told to come back another day .

I went to the new immigration office a few weeks ago to get an extension and fromr there, again at 4 AM, after walking there from Tapae gate .

I was second in the queue , at the opening time of 8 PM. there were only a handful of people behind me .

I was in and there there within 15 minutes

Lol, you write as if you are Thai, posting as a foreigner.

In what way ?

[billd766]

You were in immigration for 6 1/2 hours to renew a marriage extension? You feel that is quick good service? I think it is terrible service.

Ever year for my retirement renewal I drive from Lomsak to Pitsanulok get renewal drive back and that takes 6 1/2 hours. Immigration time about 1/2 hour.

i leave the house after breakfast and home for lunch and drive 300 kilometers.

I live next to the Mae Wong national park in Khampaeng Phet province and have to drive to Nakhon Sawan, 125km away to renew my extension.

I get there around 10 am after a 1 hour 45 minute drive and I am usually finished with a retirement extension inside the hour. If I went straight home again it would be a 4 1/2 hour turn around but I normally have lunch and a poke around N/S and make a day out of it.

For a 90 day report the longest has been about 15 minutes when the place was full and the shortest was just over 1 minute.

All the front office staff are ladies, most of whom speak English and are farang friendly. They rarely wear uniforms and medals just ordinary clothes and in the school holidays there are usually 2 or 3 children there as well.

[moe666]

You were in immigration for 6 1/2 hours to renew a marriage extension? You feel that is quick good service? I think it is terrible service.

Ever year for my retirement renewal I drive from Lomsak to Pitsanulok get renewal drive back and that takes 6 1/2 hours. Immigration time about 1/2 hour.

i leave the house after breakfast and home for lunch and drive 300 kilometers.

I live next to the Mae Wong national park in Khampaeng Phet province and have to drive to Nakhon Sawan, 125km away to renew my extension.

I get there around 10 am after a 1 hour 45 minute drive and I am usually finished with a retirement extension inside the hour. If I went straight home again it would be a 4 1/2 hour turn around but I normally have lunch and a poke around N/S and make a day out of it.

For a 90 day report the longest has been about 15 minutes when the place was full and the shortest was just over 1 minute.

All the front office staff are ladies, most of whom speak English and are farang friendly. They rarely wear uniforms and medals just ordinary clothes and in the school holidays there are usually 2 or 3 children there as well.

You have to remember Chiang Mai has a huge expat community requireing services and the office is not on the most liked list inBangkok. request for more staff refused, request for a better office refused. Just consider yourself lucky

[lovelomsak]

You were in immigration for 6 1/2 hours to renew a marriage extension? You feel that is quick good service? I think it is terrible service.

Ever year for my retirement renewal I drive from Lomsak to Pitsanulok get renewal drive back and that takes 6 1/2 hours. Immigration time about 1/2 hour.

i leave the house after breakfast and home for lunch and drive 300 kilometers.

I live next to the Mae Wong national park in Khampaeng Phet province and have to drive to Nakhon Sawan, 125km away to renew my extension.

I get there around 10 am after a 1 hour 45 minute drive and I am usually finished with a retirement extension inside the hour. If I went straight home again it would be a 4 1/2 hour turn around but I normally have lunch and a poke around N/S and make a day out of it.

For a 90 day report the longest has been about 15 minutes when the place was full and the shortest was just over 1 minute.

All the front office staff are ladies, most of whom speak English and are farang friendly. They rarely wear uniforms and medals just ordinary clothes and in the school holidays there are usually 2 or 3 children there as well.

Yes sounds the same as Pitsanulok.I think my trip would be about the same time as yours i cannot understand why so long in CM I just used 6 1/2 hours for a rough figure.Sometimes i hang around Pitsanulok and make a day of it to. go to Central have lunch etc.

[northernjohn]

You were in immigration for 6 1/2 hours to renew a marriage extension? You feel that is quick good service? I think it is terrible service.

Ever year for my retirement renewal I drive from Lomsak to Pitsanulok get renewal drive back and that takes 6 1/2 hours. Immigration time about 1/2 hour.

i leave the house after breakfast and home for lunch and drive 300 kilometers.

I live next to the Mae Wong national park in Khampaeng Phet province and have to drive to Nakhon Sawan, 125km away to renew my extension.

I get there around 10 am after a 1 hour 45 minute drive and I am usually finished with a retirement extension inside the hour. If I went straight home again it would be a 4 1/2 hour turn around but I normally have lunch and a poke around N/S and make a day out of it.

For a 90 day report the longest has been about 15 minutes when the place was full and the shortest was just over 1 minute.

All the front office staff are ladies, most of whom speak English and are farang friendly. They rarely wear uniforms and medals just ordinary clothes and in the school holidays there are usually 2 or 3 children there as well.

Your experience in immigration are not the same as mine but I like you make a day of it. It is much more enjoyable that way. did my 90 day the other day had a nice Italian meal and saw a good movie as well as a little shopping at Rimping.

I don't have to go near as far as you but it is still a chance to do some thing else for a day.

[steven100]

you need to do like the folks do waiting for the bargain sale ... like waiting for the doors to open !!

you should camp out on the footpath for the night .....

[BB1955]

Well again it would be nice to be able to walk up to the door at 8 am get a number see the office have her stamp my passport and be home by 10 am. But that aint happening anytime soon , and it appears from all the posts in the past bitching about it doesnt do any good . Kind of like being in the army . It helps me to remember im a guest here in someone elses country .. Thailand owes me nothing .....

[HooHaa]

4 am? seriously?

sadly yes.

[wanderingstray]

I have a double entry (issued 13 Oct, Arrived 28Oct) I have to get a 30 day extension before 28 Dec, leave TH and return before 13 Jan. Will my experience to get said extension be hours/days or is it simpler than OP's experience ?

BTW was working out how much my visa costs per 6 month....Initial 2 entry visa from Canada 2,000 Bht=.... 2 x 30 day extensions (2 x 1900 Bht) = 5,800 Bht or about 1,000Bht per month. There has to be another way !

Another question...Can you go to either the Airport Imm (I've seen it mentioned on this forum) or Promenada ?

[eyecatcher]

I was in the line behind you.....I arrived at 5.30 after being laughed away at 9am the previous day. I was pretty disappointed that all the chairs were taken. I was 12th in line, and by the time I arrived the teacher/student queue was 30 long.

I think I remember the OP, lucky enough to be able to have a kip in the car, was it you who made the slip up as you were about to get your number ?...that was at 6.50 as I remember, when they give the numbers. I wasnt impressed getting number 425 I knew it was going to be a long day.

That was the longest day of my life. I too was there for the marriage stuff, I thought I was first in line as I was first up for the document check. I had 3 things to obtain, a hand drawn map, instead of the excellent one printed via the internet, and the letter from the bank to say the statement printed off was more upto date than the previous afternoon and an original wifes name change certificate.

With that I was told to come back at about 10am.

So having pissed about for 3hrs, going back home, back to the bank, more drawings, more photocopies, we arrived back just 2 numbers before ours.

they take 30 minutes to process each couple it seemed. I wondered why?? but at 11am we were called,

When it was our turn, it was a case of watching her shuffle papers around the desk, to make 2 neat piles. the 20 of the 30 minutes was me signing every damn photocopy and printing my name. 5 minutes of the time was interrupted by the adjacent couple whos' officer was insisting they had the red stamped translated divorce document and ours was the example to show them.....followed by the wifes advice on how to get there.

Then with ours, and by this time it was 11.30 ish she found something else to query. the bank account thats not been touched since early october, now needs some money putting in it to show its correct as of now. f.f.s. So we were dismissed and told to come back at 1.30, no problem just wave and I will see you.

Two hours wandering around central, went to the bank and was laughed at for putting 50bt into the account but job done. Came back early, 1.20 and was beaten in to the chair by a korean couple, so another 45 minutes waiting, stressing, wife needs to be at work, I am well pissed off by now.

Agents, coming in and out, on a regular basis, having the run of the place, the priority, just darting to the next available desk, whereas we have to wait for "our" officer......got me thinking, the agents have the priority,probably because they are getting 2k extra.....and next time I dont want to be fannying about like this all day.

Finally we were up....5 minute job to look at the photocopied new bank account, yellow highlighter and then a conversation with the wife about what I am getting...not with me...

So during the whole of this process, not one word of English was spoken, a few questions to the wife I understood about where we met, where she works, how much she earns,.............then right at the end, this must be in their plan.....she spoke perfect English to me, about her extending my current visa for an extra month whilst they do checks on me, and probably to check my deceased fathers name was correct?? and that I have to come back in 2 months, just walk in and ask if all ok; then 90 day reporting, blah blah, she acted like dumbarse the whole process.

Oh I forgot to add, we had to do the TM38 form, reporting, well the missus did; I was so desperately trying to remember LivinLos tale about how to confuse them should a fine be mentioned; however it wasnt.

Not finished yet..........after all that we were advised photos required from the back so went to sit down. This was pathetic, it took 5 minutes of talking to the wife, that they would call us when required in the meantime I am trying to hold the longest smile in history.

I mean i was sat in the chair, all she has to do is put her finger on the camera and done....no....they want to be in control, they want to make everyone wait....well fkt off by now, wife also, she asked if she needed photo, when they said no, i didnt see her for dust, no goodbye, nothing she was off!!

Muggins here, had to sit down again for 30 minutes waiting to be called for the photo, why??

I know what your thinking, when is Eyecatcher going to finish his tale, yes agree boring isnt it, as I was, to death..... Finally photograph done, go and wait, another 10 minutes, passport returned.

3.30 I walked out of that door. 5am the alarm was set, 5.30 I joined the Q.

WHATS THE ANSWER? i don't know.

This 5/6am queuing; we; farangs, tourists have created a rod for our own back. immig dont say wait at that time, but we know that they only see say 10 marriage/10 retirement/30 others visas a day.

there are only 12 or so officers, demand is exceeding supply (an economics principle to raise the price)

so because of this we have to be selfish and make sure we get our visa sorted before anyone else.

This is hows wars start!

[brewsterbudgen]

Wow. I hate Chaengwattana but at least you can get there at 9am, renew your Extension of Stay and be out by midday!

[steven100]

pay the extra ... get it done hassle free ... no stress ..... seems the choice to me .

[Denim]

Note to self. Never contemplate moving to anywhere with a high expat population.

Last time I was up at 4.00 am was coming home from Thermaes with one of the cheap dregs. And that was 20 years ago. If the Lord had wanted me up at that ungodly hour he would have sent an angel to tell me so.

[eyecatcher]

pay the extra ... get it done hassle free ... no stress ..... seems the choice to me .

My guess is that everyone who uses an Agent has been through a similar first time or even second time experience as me, so the more Agent trips you see now reflects on the numbers of unhappy customers.

unless you have had a bad experience then no one goes to an agent the first time, as me....i just didnt believe all the stories I read.

[saakura]

I feel so sorry to hear about such inhuman and degrading treatment meted out to elderly retirees. Hope things change for the better soon.

[OneZero]

pay the extra ... get it done hassle free ... no stress ..... seems the choice to me .

My guess is that everyone who uses an Agent has been through a similar first time or even second time experience as me, so the more Agent trips you see now reflects on the numbers of unhappy customers.

unless you have had a bad experience then no one goes to an agent the first time, as me....i just didnt believe all the stories I read.

It's obvious that CM Immigration is purposely making the experience bad so that farangs will pay to make things easier. G4T is so convenient, surprise surprise & can do an extension anytime. 500 THB for what should be a free timely resident certificate. A year ago I thought it was extreme administrative incompetence. How wrong I was. It's all on purpose.

[rossabout]

Perhaps I am more lucky.

I live in Rayong. arrived at 10:30 am to Rayong immagration office, was out the door 20 minutes later. The past 2 times it has been that way. My first time going took the longest as i did not have all my paperwork correct. My google map was not good enough, they wanted a hand drawn map of how to get to my house from there office. No fees not issues and in and out quicky. I have to renew in the first 2 weeks of Jan. I expect it will be the same

[sendbaht]

I'm up and about anyway at 4am ( I go to sleep early) so sitting in front of my computer at home, playing my guitar, sitting in my car drinking coffee, or hanging out at a 7/11 one morning is all the same. Besides it's one day. So, I look at it as "this guy" was in and out of there in 2 1/2 hours...not to shappy...Just my take.

[northernjohn]

pay the extra ... get it done hassle free ... no stress ..... seems the choice to me .

My guess is that everyone who uses an Agent has been through a similar first time or even second time experience as me, so the more Agent trips you see now reflects on the numbers of unhappy customers.

unless you have had a bad experience then no one goes to an agent the first time, as me....i just didnt believe all the stories I read.

It's obvious that CM Immigration is purposely making the experience bad so that farangs will pay to make things easier. G4T is so convenient, surprise surprise & can do an extension anytime. 500 THB for what should be a free timely resident certificate. A year ago I thought it was extreme administrative incompetence. How wrong I was. It's all on purpose.

G4T doesn't do married extensions that is done at the airport office A completely different show. As eyecatcher said the agents just go in and out there. Far easier to do the simple retirement one if you have the money in the bank or the guaranteed income.

[BB1955]

I was in the line behind you.....I arrived at 5.30 after being laughed away at 9am the previous day. I was pretty disappointed that all the chairs were taken. I was 12th in line, and by the time I arrived the teacher/student queue was 30 long.

I think I remember the OP, lucky enough to be able to have a kip in the car, was it you who made the slip up as you were about to get your number ?...that was at 6.50 as I remember, when they give the numbers. I wasnt impressed getting number 425 I knew it was going to be a long day.

That was the longest day of my life. I too was there for the marriage stuff, I thought I was first in line as I was first up for the document check. I had 3 things to obtain, a hand drawn map, instead of the excellent one printed via the internet, and the letter from the bank to say the statement printed off was more upto date than the previous afternoon and an original wifes name change certificate.

With that I was told to come back at about 10am.

So having pissed about for 3hrs, going back home, back to the bank, more drawings, more photocopies, we arrived back just 2 numbers before ours.

they take 30 minutes to process each couple it seemed. I wondered why?? but at 11am we were called,

When it was our turn, it was a case of watching her shuffle papers around the desk, to make 2 neat piles. the 20 of the 30 minutes was me signing every damn photocopy and printing my name. 5 minutes of the time was interrupted by the adjacent couple whos' officer was insisting they had the red stamped translated divorce document and ours was the example to show them.....followed by the wifes advice on how to get there.

Then with ours, and by this time it was 11.30 ish she found something else to query. the bank account thats not been touched since early october, now needs some money putting in it to show its correct as of now. f.f.s. So we were dismissed and told to come back at 1.30, no problem just wave and I will see you.

Two hours wandering around central, went to the bank and was laughed at for putting 50bt into the account but job done. Came back early, 1.20 and was beaten in to the chair by a korean couple, so another 45 minutes waiting, stressing, wife needs to be at work, I am well pissed off by now.

Agents, coming in and out, on a regular basis, having the run of the place, the priority, just darting to the next available desk, whereas we have to wait for "our" officer......got me thinking, the agents have the priority,probably because they are getting 2k extra.....and next time I dont want to be fannying about like this all day.

Finally we were up....5 minute job to look at the photocopied new bank account, yellow highlighter and then a conversation with the wife about what I am getting...not with me...

So during the whole of this process, not one word of English was spoken, a few questions to the wife I understood about where we met, where she works, how much she earns,.............then right at the end, this must be in their plan.....she spoke perfect English to me, about her extending my current visa for an extra month whilst they do checks on me, and probably to check my deceased fathers name was correct?? and that I have to come back in 2 months, just walk in and ask if all ok; then 90 day reporting, blah blah, she acted like dumbarse the whole process.

Oh I forgot to add, we had to do the TM38 form, reporting, well the missus did; I was so desperately trying to remember LivinLos tale about how to confuse them should a fine be mentioned; however it wasnt.

Not finished yet..........after all that we were advised photos required from the back so went to sit down. This was pathetic, it took 5 minutes of talking to the wife, that they would call us when required in the meantime I am trying to hold the longest smile in history.

I mean i was sat in the chair, all she has to do is put her finger on the camera and done....no....they want to be in control, they want to make everyone wait....well fkt off by now, wife also, she asked if she needed photo, when they said no, i didnt see her for dust, no goodbye, nothing she was off!!

Muggins here, had to sit down again for 30 minutes waiting to be called for the photo, why??

I know what your thinking, when is Eyecatcher going to finish his tale, yes agree boring isnt it, as I was, to death..... Finally photograph done, go and wait, another 10 minutes, passport returned.

3.30 I walked out of that door. 5am the alarm was set, 5.30 I joined the Q.

WHATS THE ANSWER? i don't know.

This 5/6am queuing; we; farangs, tourists have created a rod for our own back. immig dont say wait at that time, but we know that they only see say 10 marriage/10 retirement/30 others visas a day.

there are only 12 or so officers, demand is exceeding supply (an economics principle to raise the price)

so because of this we have to be selfish and make sure we get our visa sorted before anyone else.

This is hows wars start!

yup that was me had to return to the car to get my passport , lucky for me she held the number I was to have gotten , I wasnt quite expecting things to go that fast . The girl infront of me was a visa agent had about 20 files I though for sure I was doomed . Still had to make three trips to the copy machine after I was sure I had everything covered ...... it over now thank god for another year .... we asked if retirement visa would be easier , she said no the times were much longer to wait .. oh well ....

[elektrified]

4 am? seriously?

It's hilarious. There is absolutely no need to arrive before 8:00.