Immigration Promenada One Stop Service 2016-2017

[Lizard2010]

Some of the long old timers

Always have to have their nag say

I also find it amusing to read the posts

I dont post much as its just feeding them through the the trough  lol

Just like this one

[cusanus]

9 hours ago, NancyL said:

After a difficult day of explaining to yet another 75+ year old on long overstay in a hospital why he has to leave the country and then working with the Consulates on yet another "managed deportation". 

Dang, it's hell to be getting old. Even though I barely made it out of the USA alive, though, I'm very fortunate with great health and plenty of bucks/bahts and a good Thai wife and family to ensure that I live out my days in comfort and finally spread my ashes over the flower garden out front.  Mostly, I'm hoping I haven't blown the deal I made with the big fella 38 years ago.  Also hope my dental implants hold out. Most of my enemies are long dead from alcohol and cigarettes, and I do figure I should be able to do better than my sad, bad old dad who should be 91 this year. 

[NancyL]

Be sure to train your Thai wife/girlfriend how to handle your annual visa extension because some day you may be relying on her to do the thinking for you.   Many think it's like the driver's license renewal process, where you wait until a few days after it expires to go to apply for a new one.

[meechai]

10 hours ago, NancyL said:

After a difficult day of explaining to yet another 75+ year old on long overstay in a hospital why he has to leave the country and then working with the Consulates on yet another "managed deportation".  Maybe this is why Immigration is liking me so much now.  I'm helping to get all the old "criminals" out of the country.  You see, the local care facilities won't accept anyone on overstay any more because of pressure from Imm.  (TM 30, you know, the care facilities have to file them), so people who can't even sit long enough for take-off and landing to be taken back their home countries have to be loaded on planes. 

 

The good news is I finally decided to buy a multiple re-entry permit because I've been the escort on so many of these flights that I've decided the "thrill" of going out to Imm. Prom. to see how things were going was no longer worth it.  

 

That is rough Nancy but nice that those guys had you there to help in some way.

 

Not easy I'm sure. I remember sitting at Imm near airport years ago & watching a care home van bring 2-3 guys in wheelchairs to Imm for I guess their renewal/extension

 

 I was a bit surprised. I guess I had wrongly assumed when they got that bad in health or that far along in age they might be allowed to just send a rep in their place.

Some of them did not look well at all as they waited out near that coffee stand outside & it was HOT that day for sure.

 

So when you say escort are you having to fly all the way back to the deported persons country with them? That cannot be easy either.

 

Take Care

[colinneil]

32 minutes ago, NancyL said:

Be sure to train your Thai wife/girlfriend how to handle your annual visa extension because some day you may be relying on her to do the thinking for you.   Many think it's like the driver's license renewal process, where you wait until a few days after it expires to go to apply for a new one.

Good point Nancy, only thing is sometimes immigration officers can make things difficult.

Now Khonkaen immigration know my case.

Last week we went to immigration for my annual retirement extension, wife went in i stayed in the pickup, ( as it takes 2 men to lift me out).

Same officer who did my extension 2 years ago, came out to the pickup to check my wife was telling the truth, again took my photo, wanted to see me in person.

So not always easy for another person to do your extension.

[Trujillo]

"Be sure to train your Thai wife/girlfriend how to handle your annual visa extension...."

 

I like that. Sort of like a circus monkey...or teaching a chihuahua to roll over and play dead. 

 

FYI, tried to do the 90-day report online and, SHOCKINGLY, it doesn't work. 

 

I honestly believe that someone, somewhere higher up in the department has mandated that the website not be made workable so that the detested foreign interlopers must be inconvenienced every three months -- even if they are old and infirm. 

It slots in nicely with the, "Thais pay 20 baht for the entry fee to the Chiang Mai National Museum, while the foreign guavas pay 100 baht (as one example among many)."

 

Doing the rough math, I reckon that immigration has just about 200 photocopies of my passport/immigration card/visa stamp/entry stamp in their possession from my reportings -- and that's just for 90-day reports alone!

Add another 200 or so pages for annual extensions. ...

 

It would be fascinating if we had a national newspaper here that had any form of investigative reporting; what a cracker of a story that would be. 

 

According to the 2010 census in Thailand (obviously out of date now), excluding the Laotians, Cambodians and Burmese, there are about 700,000 expats living in the country. So given you need to copy about 30 pages a year for immigration, that makes about 21 million pages of photocopies (and that does not cover company papers or education papers, etc.) per year!

 

I want to see these ginormous stacks of paper.

[Caspersfriend]

1 hour ago, Trujillo said:

FYI, tried to do the 90-day report online and, SHOCKINGLY, it doesn't work. 

 

I honestly believe that someone, somewhere higher up in the department has mandated that the website not be made workable so that the detested foreign interlopers must be inconvenienced every three months -- even if they are old and infirm.

 

Equally shockingly, I did mine at 10:13 this morning and it was approved [with confirmation email] within an hour!

[meechai]

2 hours ago, Trujillo said:

I want to see these ginormous stacks of paper.

 

Have you never been given paper with others pictures & passport info on the back?

 

I have.

 

So it made me realize they probably keep the most recent

The fact that they do not protect your info is scary as they seem to use all old reports  for scrap paper later

 

[Dante99]

44 minutes ago, meechai said:

 

Have you never been given paper with others pictures & passport info on the back?

 

I have.

 

So it made me realize they probably keep the most recent

The fact that they do not protect your info is scary as they seem to use all old reports  for scrap paper later

 

Scary that people can not just put a few diagonal lines on the backs of the papers they submit so they can not be used like that.

[Sparkles]

1 hour ago, Dante99 said:

Scary that people can not just put a few diagonal lines on the backs of the papers they submit so they can not be used like that.

Won't work ,they have cartons and cartons of white out

 

I got a receipt back through the mail a while ago and on the back was the face page of a French citizen.Whole box and dice

 

It is scary in these days of so called passport security, ironically encouraged by Thai authorities

 

My 90 day mail back receipt received today was blank on the back,4 working days,pretty consistent for now

[Mark1066]

4 hours ago, Trujillo said:

"Be sure to train your Thai wife/girlfriend how to handle your annual visa extension...."

 

I like that. Sort of like a circus monkey...or teaching a chihuahua to roll over and play dead. 

Yeah, sounded vaguely offensive to me too. I don't need to 'train my wife' to do anything. She isn't dumb. She's certainly more intelligent than the last Western gf I had before leaving to live here. And besides, I have agencies like Tian and Best Friend to do all the work for me :) Thank goodness we have the choice of using agencies instead of being forced to spend all day at Promenada or the airport office once a year for the rest of our lives. :)

[NancyL]

5 minutes ago, Mark1066 said:

Yeah, sounded vaguely offensive to me too. I don't need to 'train my wife' to do anything. She isn't dumb. She's certainly more intelligent than the last Western gf I had before leaving to live here. And besides, I have agencies like Tian and Best Friend to do all the work for me :) Thank goodness we have the choice of using agencies instead of being forced to spend all day at Promenada or the airport office once a year for the rest of our lives. :)

I didn't mean for it to seem offensive.  I've tried to train my husband (western like me) on how to do internet banking to pay bills and transfer money over to Bangkok Bank from our home country, but he doesn't seem interested.  Instead, he wanted me to write detailed instructions in a special notebook so he could attempt to do it if I become incapacitated. 

 

By the same token, he tried to "train" me on how to reinstall the software so our computers can "talk" with the printers over the wifi because every time we have a power interruption the laptops lose the ability to print documents when the power returns.  I told him that if something happened to him and we had a power outage, I'd call Suchart the computer guy and either have him fix the problem permanently or ask him to buy a new printer for me that doesn't have this problem. 

 

So, I'd be using Suchart to fix my computer problems in much the same way your Thai wife/girlfriend would use a visa agency to take care of your visa extension if you became incapacitated.  But your Thai wife/girlfriend needs to know to contact them well in advance of expiration of your permission to stay and which agency to use.  Just yesterday, I assisted a man who  had a stroke a few months ago and had taken care of his visa himself in the past.  Now his Thai girlfriend is struggling to do his extension, even though a visa agency is involved. 

[Mark1066]

4 minutes ago, NancyL said:

I didn't mean for it to seem offensive.  I've tried to train my husband (western like me) on how to do internet banking to pay bills and transfer money over to Bangkok Bank from our home country, but he doesn't seem interested.  Instead, he wanted me to write detailed instructions in a special notebook so he could attempt to do it if I become incapacitated. 

 

By the same token, he tried to "train" me on how to reinstall the software so our computers can "talk" with the printers over the wifi because every time we have a power interruption the laptops lose the ability to print documents when the power returns.  I told him that if something happened to him and we had a power outage, I'd call Suchart the computer guy and either have him fix the problem permanently or ask him to buy a new printer for me that doesn't have this problem. 

 

So, I'd be using Suchart to fix my computer problems in much the same way your Thai wife/girlfriend would use a visa agency to take care of your visa extension if you became incapacitated.  But your Thai wife/girlfriend needs to know to contact them well in advance of expiration of your permission to stay and which agency to use.  Just yesterday, I assisted a man who  had a stroke a few months ago and had taken care of his visa himself in the past.  Now his Thai girlfriend is struggling to do his extension, even though a visa agency is involved. 

To be honest I am quite lazy so my wife tends to handle all communications with my visa agent already. I have very little to do with the whole process, which is good as I'm quite a disagreeable fellow. I think she is as enthusiastic about the whole process as I am but has a little more patience when dealing with 'the locals' (she deals with local government bodies quite a lot during the course of her work so perhaps she has learned to be patient).

Edited February 20, 2018 by Mark1066

[evenstevens]

19 minutes ago, NancyL said:

.  Just yesterday, I assisted a man who  had a stroke a few months ago and had taken care of his visa himself in the past.  Now his Thai girlfriend is struggling to do his extension, even though a visa agency is involved. 

My dealings with Visa Agents are well known on this board,  and i  find your  above remarks , rather extroadinary, taking into consideration your much herald trumpeting how good you are,   blah blah ,  on handling  such cases as the above,  Nancy L  there is a number of reputable Visa Agency,s in C/mai  who can handle your case with good care etc etc (of course  with a small fee)   perhaps  a good start would be with your Hubby,s one , In my view you are deadset against Thai Girl Friends and Visa  Agencys in any shape or form, your constant berating of both parties on this board is well noted , but in saying that you are fully entitled to  your  ???????views, have a nice early evening

[Fore Man]

20 hours ago, NancyL said:

No, they're just having fun, and I'm having a good laff. 

 

After a difficult day of explaining to yet another 75+ year old on long overstay in a hospital why he has to leave the country and then working with the Consulates on yet another "managed deportation".  Maybe this is why Immigration is liking me so much now.  I'm helping to get all the old "criminals" out of the country.  You see, the local care facilities won't accept anyone on overstay any more because of pressure from Imm.  (TM 30, you know, the care facilities have to file them), so people who can't even sit long enough for take-off and landing to be taken back their home countries have to be loaded on planes. 

 

The good news is I finally decided to buy a multiple re-entry permit because I've been the escort on so many of these flights that I've decided the "thrill" of going out to Imm. Prom. to see how things were going was no longer worth it.  

Bravo, Nancy. Touché!  This is most ridiculous series of meatheaded

posts I’ve ever seen on TV.  Glad to see you stand up to them!  Initially, I appreciated what I considered to be well-intentioned information but watched it steadily go downhill from there. Grown men ought to be able to moderate themselves, but obviously there are several here who were shorted that ability in their Neanderthaloid genome set. 

[Lizard2010]

The old male nags cant help it

Its always open season on NancyL

She does so much for the Expat community

Much of what goes on without being posted

But we always have the regulars complainers

 

[jeffandgop]

Went to Promenada yesterday just before noon to have lunch & obtain a Re-entry permit. Received que #0526; which was #2 for the after lunch processing.  Had lunch then returned to Imm at 1:10pm & I was called up 1 minute later. 10 minutes later I was out the door with the Re-Entry permit.  Staff was attentive and polite and even delivered my completed passport to me directly while I was sitting in a chair waiting for my name to be called to pick it up.....

 

As I will be doing my Extension of Stay based on Retirement in May, I asked the staff how long a Proof of Income Affidavit is considered valid by Imm and the response was 6 months....

[Lannathaijohn]

Retirement extension in advance 

 

My retirement extension expires on 1st April and due to travel plans I went early this last Monday. They confirmed that a renewal can be done up to 45 days in advance in cases of being out of town ( note the air ticket confirming my planned absence is to Bangkok only )

Went  to Promenada at 07.15 and was 4th in queue. Completed and out by 10.15 with an extension to 1st April 2019.  Very quiet these days for retirement extensions as NancyL already noted. Other queues were much longer though.

Did my 90 day report by mail the week previous week - sent on Monday and received back on Saturday.

[scottiejohn]

1 hour ago, Lannathaijohn said:

45 days in advance in cases of being out of town ( note the air ticket confirming my planned absence is to Bangkok only )

45 days in advance is normal and has no connection with your travel movements.

[JimGant]

Quote

45 days in advance is normal and has no connection with your travel movements.

Used to be 30 days was the norm. 45 days with extenuating circumstances. But, possibly this has now become the norm.

[Genericnic]

Does anyone have a link to the current form to apply for Certificate of Residence? Searched and did not find anything.

 

Thanks

 

David

 

[rawhod]

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/631223-immigration-templates/

 

Maybe this is the one you want...

[sqwakvfr]

From the Nation:  

"The Cabinet on Tuesday gave the green light for the five-day "Songkran Festival" holiday from April 12 to 16.

To accommodate people travelling up-country to visit their hometowns, and to stimulate nationwide tourism, the Cabinet allowed Thursday, April 12, as an additional holiday on top of the festival time from April 13 to 16."

 

The Chaing Mai Immigration Calendar has not been updated yet but I would assume(you know what happens when you assume?) is that the office will be closed Thursday, Friday and the subsequent Monday.  Maybe going on Tuesday on the 17th could be bad idea?  

[evenstevens]

arrived immgr dept to morning at 6am for my ret visa renewal as a d.i.y. and was out the door at 10.30.am  .excellent service was provided by the immgr officers and interns.  sure has come a long way since the old zoo days(airport)

[elektrified]

2 hours ago, evenstevens said:

arrived immgr dept to morning at 6am for my ret visa renewal as a d.i.y. and was out the door at 10.30.am  .excellent service was provided by the immgr officers and interns.  sure has come a long way since the old zoo days(airport)

Can't comment on the 6:00 A.M. business as I've never been up at that hour in the 11 years I've lived here..........but I was there yesterday to see what happened to my 90-day return date as it had been almost 4 weeks since I sent it. I got there at 13:20 and was back at my car ready to leave by 13:26. Very few people there with the exception of the big room (counter No. 8).

 

Has anyone else been able to track their 90-day post recently? In about 9 months now, I can no longer track the return (new date to report). It always shows up at my house but is never scanned so no way to track it. Now, the last 2 times (6 months), even the outgoing report is not trackable anymore. Other than the first scan when our postman delivers it to the P.O. and it is "accepted", it no longer shows when it was delivered to Immigration.  That makes things a little difficult, not knowing if it got there or not??? I asked the nice lady in Room No. 1 what that was all about and she said something to the effect that "it only works sometimes" and "always keeps your P.O. receipt."

Edited March 6, 2018 by elektrified

[Sparkles]

If anyone has business,ie extensions, to do with Imm next month best to get in well before Songkran .I believe an extra day off has been granted and the following few days could be a log jam.

 

Driving past the new airport location all looks finished, surprised it will not open until the suggested August.

 

Maybe its all the new high tech infrastructure being put in place inside.         Interesting times

 

 

[Lizard2010]

Good observatation

Yes i heard that there was going to be new technology

Maybe they need that time to learn how to use it

Only time will tell

[ubonjoe]

Several baiting personal attack posts and the expected replies to them have been removed. Time to end it.

[worgeordie]

6 hours ago, evenstevens said:

arrived immgr dept to morning at 6am for my ret visa renewal as a d.i.y. and was out the door at 10.30.am  .excellent service was provided by the immgr officers and interns.  sure has come a long way since the old zoo days(airport)

What are you going to do with the money you saved,?

do the agents know you have turned your back on them

and are now ,getting there early with the rest of us riff raff.

good on you,

regards worgeordie

[evenstevens]

50 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

What are you going to do with the money you saved,?

do the agents know you have turned your back on them

and are now ,getting there early with the rest of us riff raff.

good on you,

regards worgeordie

 the money i have saved W/G will pay for Sunday Brunch at my  favourite nose bag ,The Four Seasons Resort at Maerim,plus some change in my saddle bag, as for the agents i never burn bridges anytime anywhere,  the riff raff is where i have enjoyed my whole life with,  it was like being at home to morning, think the Mighty Toon  fanactical Army  will keep   your team up this season,   btw married a lovely lass from Darlington some 40 yrs back, know your backyard  very very well, have a nice evening E/S