Marriage visa crackdown: Immigration officers who demand ‘extra fees’ to face criminal charges

Avrock · July 25, 2016

What should I say..90 day reports fine..visiting your house fine..asking the neighbours fine..having pictures of inside outside your house fine..your personal info restaurants you eat at. places you visit.. social media info..tie a monkey to a chain & then put it in a cage & then ask him Sanuk Mai..i wonder who would be stupid enough to fake a marriage & then go through all this hassle just to get a long term visa.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Avrock

ericthai · July 25, 2016

Is it still possible to live with our Thai wife without having large amounts of money?

I saw that Savannakhet Consulate doesn't ask any money proof. But is it the only and last one to do that in Asia? (which would be risky).

I'm 23 years old, I'm getting the paperwork ready to make the marriage with my Thai "wife" official.

But right now I must have around 20,000 THB in my bank account and I just have enough every month to live confortably and paying health insurance and visa runs, etc...

So to repeat the question:

Is it still possible to live with our Thai wife without having large amounts of money?

No! To live here as foreigner except (Myanmar, Lao or Cambodia) you need at least something around 3x times the Income of an average Thai citizen.

Sorry this is incorrect, the amount needed in the bank depends on several factors.

1. The visa you are applying for

2. Your nationality (if apply for a work permit)

3. If married to Thai or not

LPCustom69 · July 25, 2016

And there was me thinking for a moment it was to be a welcome crackdown on officials abusing their positions and making life needlessly difficult for honest foreigners by making up rules as they go along and/or demanding extra money for absolutely no reason whatsoever, but no. How stupid am I (rhetorical)?

Visits for marriage are normal but annoying, when i was married i had them visit 3 times. Problem is if you keep to yourself and not have too much contact with your neighbors its hard to get people to vouch for you. Also if your wife works and they come unannounced it will cause problem.

I am not sure how stupid you are though , the title is misleading.. just a little bit about officers facing charges and a lot about sham marriages.

The stupid thing is that I had pictures of my (ex) wife and my parents and me enjoying a holiday and stuff like that. They were not interested only wanted a picture in the bedroom,, picture of clothes in a cupboard (mixed) a picture of us on the sofa and in front of the house. These pictures show nothing.. but real pictures of showing a couple doing stuff are not accepted.

Its the rules we live by, must say the elite visa I am on now was a lot easier (more expensive too but less of a hassle. Can't wait till im an old fart and qualify for retirement.

First they will come for the married guys. Next . . . the old farts. Excuse me while I sit on my porch and dribble into my drool cup!

You missed a few steps. First they came for the visa-exempt out-n-ins (to the smug, roaring approval of all the various long-stay visa holders). Then they came for the ED-visa holders ( to the smug, roaring approval of slightly fewer long-term visa holders). Then..., and then..., and then... And now it's the marriage visa holders.

'Beginning to get the picture, boys & girls? See any pattern emerging here?

Become Chinese, and maybe you won't have to worry about it.

Correct. They don't really want the large number of low end farangs that are here. I predict there will be many changes over the next few years. What else could they do to make it tough on us? For example:

Go after the backpackers with a computer (digital nomads) and charge them with with working without a visa, etc, and deport and/or blacklist them. They really don't have much to offer.

Visa for support of a child only good for 2-3 months per year. Take them to your home country to support them, or preferably (in the mind of Thais) just send a lot of money to Thailand for them.

Eliminate the ED visa. Be honest, a lot of fraud and many undesirables utilizing this option.

Go after small foreign owned businesses. Once again, a lot of fraud and tax avoidance there.

Raise the financial requirements for Marriage visa/extension to 800K or 1M baht. Reasons seem obvious.

Raise the age and financial requirements for Retirement visa/extension to 1M to 1.2M baht. 60 seems like a fair age, but wouldn't be surprised to see it made to 65. For those over 50, Thai Elite visa until reaching the new age.

Restrict condo ownership to one for residence, or one for residence and one for rental.

I probably missed something, but it could be way worse than it is now.

As far as I know these aren't in the pipeline right now, but seems to be where it's heading. I hope I'm wrong!

LPCustom69 · July 25, 2016

Is it still possible to live with our Thai wife without having large amounts of money?

I saw that Savannakhet Consulate doesn't ask any money proof. But is it the only and last one to do that in Asia? (which would be risky).

I'm 23 years old, I'm getting the paperwork ready to make the marriage with my Thai "wife" official.

But right now I must have around 20,000 THB in my bank account and I just have enough every month to live confortably and paying health insurance and visa runs, etc...

So to repeat the question:

Is it still possible to live with our Thai wife without having large amounts of money?

Honestly, no. You seem to be the demographic that is not wanted here anymore. As you mentioned, there is only one consulate doing that right now, and you can expect that to change.

Perhaps you should consider taking your wife to your country and earning, and saving enough money to make a move back to Thailand in the future.

Time Traveller · July 25, 2016

I don't get it? If you are legally married how can it be a sham? follow the law and support your wife, what else is there to check? Can the immigration officer look at the two of you and say: "I don't think you look like you are really married, so I'm gonna be deporting you now"???

Exactly. If they have a real marriage certificate, then they are married. Nothing else needs checking. No matter what ever reason they got married or if they live together or not. It's a real marriage by law.

Mystified · July 25, 2016

Hmmm... I feel like I am a victim of corruption in one form or another almost daily here. Who do I call?

Mythbusters!!!

kannot · July 25, 2016

Ha hahhahahahaahah no really last year they told me and the Wife they couldnt come out to our house as we were " too far" from their office .............we're about 35km away........instead they took us up the road from their office and took a few photos outside a strangers house to send off to Bangkok immigration.

Should I now do my duty and report this??

prestburypark · July 25, 2016

Last year a friend of mine managed to get a UK visit visa for his girlfriend after forking over 35k Baht to an "agent".

She would almost certainly not have been able to get a visa without the "fee".

There were no British staff in evidence at the Embassy on my last visit there.

Nonsense, never used an agent, always got a visitors visa whenever I applied for my Mrs. The clearance officer is not a Thai he/she is a Brit.

MadMuhummad · July 25, 2016

Hmmm... I feel like I am a victim of corruption in one form or another almost daily here. Who do I call?

Someone who gives a f#*k?

jerojero · July 26, 2016

Immigration visit homes? What they going to see, husband and wife F. NG? Sheesh!

meatboy · July 26, 2016

Corruption is only possible because people are willing to pay to obtain something they are not entitled too.

Get rid of the element that creates the corruption to start with and it's problem solved.

some times it is people needing to pay extra fees to get something they are entitled too. need to stop that first.

the people that ronuk is talking about are the ones that are charged for,residence letters,changing marriage extensions to retirement or vice versa.

and there is the 500bht.i was charged for having my extension and stamps transferred to a new passport all are supposed to be free.

but see what happens when you refuse to pay something that they[immigration] are not entitled too.

as one mouth piece for immigration [thai visa member] posted its a service that you dont expect to have it for free.

GeorgeCross · July 26, 2016

well if immigration really feels the need to waste their time visiting my house then so be it.. but my wife will have 1205 on speed dial in case of any "extra requests"

Edited July 26, 2016 by GeorgeCross

diehard60 · July 26, 2016

I thought that this was the way it was supposed to be years ago. They have been to my house 3 times now.

Tchooptip · July 26, 2016

Corruption is only possible because people are willing to pay to obtain something they are not entitled too.

Get rid of the element that creates the corruption to start with and it's problem solved.

"Corruption is only possible because people are willing to pay to obtain something they are not entitled too."

How possible one can read such a stupid comment on TV?

Or tell me why in 2014 and 2015 I was asked 5,000 ฿ instead of 1,900 ฿ for my yearly extension for retirement in Koh Samui?

+ by the way I was not alone, and many were asked 5,000 ฿ instead of 1,900 ฿ by this same officer!

Thian · July 26, 2016

I even was interrupted during my wedding-ceremony which the officer was taking because she had to get a brown envelope from a man behind me. After she got it she continued questioning me.

Then she found a fault in the letter from my embassy but that could be fixed by 500 baht in a brown envelope.

Barnet · July 26, 2016

"Anyone who feels they are a victim of corruption in Thailand can contact the National Anti Corruption Commission by calling 1205."

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meatboy · July 26, 2016

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hdkane · July 26, 2016

Never had a problem with marriage extensions at immigration if you have all the required paperwork why should there be a problem.

That said it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some immigration offices have some personnel within doing deals with dodgy people.

I've enquired about changing marriage to retirement pay the fee they ask and it's done straight away how is that possible sounded dodgy to me.

I agree that a marriage visa should be the easiest to obtain, since it clearly indicates that the farang is making a real financial and social contribution to Thailand...where I live, in Chon Buri, the extensions are always accompanied by bribes...the immigration officers have so much leeway that they can deny an application for any reason, and they often do...until a bribe is paid...some of the farang here are older, with established marriages, biological children, homes, jobs, everything...the immigration officers keep postponing the application until the farang is desperate and worried...once the bribe is paid, the visa is issued in a matter of moments...the cost is usually around 10,000 but some people have told me they paid more because they battled with the immigration officer until the last day...in that case, the fellow paid 18,000...

once I visited the small immigration near my home, and I saw a desk piled high with stacks of money, about 500,000 worth...and some agent was handing over envelopes with more money enclosed...there's simply no way that an immigration officer can collect that much money before lunch time, unless they are taking bribes...everything out in the open, under CCTV...

TheLogikal1 · July 26, 2016

Don't be so quick to mock anyone in Thailand from trying to stem corruption: just try to get anything done (on any scale) in the USA. If it weren't so prevalent, nobody would've laughed when Rodney Dangerfield made his [pointed] wisecracks about needing to figure in the cost of paying off union bosses, building inspectors & graft in general in his movie 'Back to School'. And trust me, ain't nothin' changed since.

There are a lot of things I commend the Thai gov't for; first & foremost they began securing luggage on all flights by sealing them closed with a heavy-duty plastic band more than 20 yrs before 9/11. It was the ONLY airline I never had to worry that the bags I checked wouldn't make it to my destination intact.

I also commend the honesty of the staff in their hotels. I've not only left valuables out in the open on some occasions & not had them touched, I once left a whole suitcase filled with tools & camera equipment. I didn't realize my mistake til I got home to Cleveland the next day. I called, sure I'd seen the last of my things, but to my surprise, the clerk who took my call (he spoke flawless English/American) assured me everything was fine, that the maid had found it when she cleaned the room, & that they'd be honored (!) to ship my belongings home free of charge. Three days late my suitcase arrived (banded as usual) and not a single item - including $143 in cash - was missing.

Corruption & government go together like peanut butter & jelly. The US of A is hardly immune, considering our history. Our elected officials don't even make announcements - whether they mean them or not - about reigning in the rampant corruption & everyday wheeling & dealing that passes for government these past 80 yrs (st least). OK, Thai officials are letting 'marriage partners' through for as little as $1.50 American, that doesn't even rate on the International scale of corruption. Not when you have the (former)President of the United States, George W. Bush lying through his teeth (he admitted this later) to the people of the US so he could invade Iraq to "...punish Saddam Hussein for his part in the attack on 9/11..." (Which he knew from the git-go wasn't even close to true.)and "to keep him from using his Weapons of Mass Destruction" (which he'd been told repeatedly never existed, that the ONLY 'proof' of these mythical WMDs were from a discredited alcoholic man from Nigeria.

That war not only cost US citizens over 2 TRILLION bucks (US)and counting, it killed over 11,000 US troops (incl deaths from other than battle-related), 450,000 wounded soldiers, most of whom will need lifetime care for physical/mental problems from repeated forced deployments. Under Bush, for the FIRST time in our history troops were not permitted to leave the armed forces after their 4 yrs were up: some were deployed 4 & 5 times with less than 6 mos leave between. Never mentioned by anyone (at least in Western media) is the heavy price paid by Iraqi civilians: over 1 million dead from not just bombs & bullets, but from exposure, lack of food, medicine, clean water, etc. Bush's self-touted 'Shock & Awe' - where more than 12,000 bombs were dropped in less than a month, reduced that ancient beautiful city to a pile of rubble. Thanks to his & VP Cheney's machinations, over 30% of that money was funneled to companies which Cheney used to chair or in which he held stock. Cheney's corporate buddies paid their mercenaries over $100Kyr compared to the enlisted men & women who didn't make enough to support themselves, much less their families.

Thanks to the Iraq debacle, the entire MidEast region has destabilized & terrorists are sprouting like weeds, where before Bush's invasion (no other word for it) Al Qaeda had less than 125 known active members, including binLaden. Today? No place on earth is safe from these grossly misguided people energized & morphing daily thanks to their hatred of Western culture & who know little/nothing about Islam, except the highly excerpted 'religion' they've been brainwashed into believing. If they understood what the other 1.3 Billion peace-loving Muslims know about their faith: that suicide is absolutely forbidden regardless of the reason, that the killing of women, children, and non-combatants incl. the elderly is forbidden on pain of everlasting damnation, and that true jihad is the battle within oneself against the temptations & snares of Satan (the everlasting evil one i.e. the devil). Further, in Chapter 1 of the Holy Koran, the Prophet tells all Islam that, since all Christians (followers of the great Prophet Jesus, Jews (People of the Book) & Muslim believe & worship the same Creator/God, all are brothers in Spirit. He says all true believer should live in peace wherever possible. (OK, I paraphrased the passage, but that's the gist of what's written.) FYI: I'm a Christian minister with a secondary degree in Comparative Religion.

It was a bit of a shock to learn how much ALL religions have in common vs. their differences. Same can be said for all gov'ts everywhere: their culture of corruption is so ingrained no single entity can fight it. Reformers end up as/more corrupt or leave office in disgust, having been thwarted on every level by the entrenched machine.

As far as Thailand, the most we can expect is some short-term reforms; the worst is bribes increase & those seeking to improve the problem(s) will succumb to the futility of it all.

hawker9000 · July 26, 2016

I don't get it? If you are legally married how can it be a sham? follow the law and support your wife, what else is there to check? Can the immigration officer look at the two of you and say: "I don't think you look like you are really married, so I'm gonna be deporting you now"???
Exactly. If they have a real marriage certificate, then they are married. Nothing else needs checking. No matter what ever reason they got married or if they live together or not. It's a real marriage by law.

Application of western logic is what's tripping you up here. 'Understandable, but fatally flawed. TIT.

mike324 · July 26, 2016

at the local district office, I had seen employees balked at foreigners who come in to get things down with empty hand....

nikster · July 26, 2016

Interesting. House visits are normal in Chiang Mai.

When they came to my house they found my wife and asked her all sorts of questions about me. Then they made it clear that they would cause problem if not given money. Had to go through a lot of phone calls and an amazing Visa service agent to save the day and make them go away without paying.

BTW never pay off immigration officials. If you do, you're on the hook for the rest of your life. Never give them anything. Any problems they may cause or threaten are still smaller problems than if you pay.

This sounds like a good thing overall. No idea on sham marriages - our immigration officials tried to rip us off regardless, we have been married over 10 years and 2 kids so pretty obviously not a sham marriage. Didn't stop them making trouble.

geriatrickid · July 26, 2016

I can never really understand this talk about sham marriages in Thailand. It's not as though being married to a Thai gives any special benefits such as permanent leave to enter (as in uk when married to an English person), citizenship (as with many other countries married to nationals of the individual countries), etc. all we get is a yearly visa that we need to renew every year showing the exact same documents year in and year out and get nothing other than that out of it from the Thai government. For those of us married for all the right reasons, it should be made a damn site easier to get a more permanent visa to stay in the country and be with our wives/husbands and children.

Sure, if you expatriate some cash to support a Thai family, they tolerate you. However, the intention and the policy of making it difficult or impossible for falang to meaningfully participate in the economy, own property or feel secure and vested in Thailand has always been crystal clear. Yes, historically, there may have been some clever workarounds or ways to bribe your way past certain obstacles. But to feel fully at home, fully like a participant, they don't want that to happen and it probably never will.

Quit with the melodrama. Thailand doesn't need these small operators. Seriously, what benefit does another bar owner, real estate tout, shop owner, small low end guest house owner, internet player, restaurant, dive shop, etc. bring? In case you missed it, the welcome mat is there for large scale employers who invest in infrastructure and create large numbers of jobs. There is a reason why Thai investment officials do cartwheels for Ford or Toyota or Novotel or Marriott or Sizzler or Tesco.

There are many foreigners who are treated quite nicely by Thai officials. They don't post on TVF. They have their luxury homes, golf clubs etc. Thailand is like many other countries in its desire to select only high end people. Unfortunately, because Thailand doesn't have much to offer to a large investor, it has had to lower its standards in years past. It now feels it can increase its requirements. That means a lot of marginal foreigners, the folks just scraping by, will soon find themselves on the outside looking in.

Heard Tesco was trying to pull out. Carrefour already gone, Big C sold to a Thai business.

Probably there's a reason there's no Walmarts or Home Depots here..it would dilute the money flow. So you go to places like Thai (mai mi) Watsadu where their are usually more staff than customers and nobody has a clue about the products they sell.

But that has nothing to do with this.

Well maybe it does.

There is no easy path to permanent residency here for those that marry Thai nationals and wish to relocate here and make a life.

Raise children, pay for their education, support the economy....means nothing. You are always just a guest and it is increasingly feeling like an increasingly unwelcome guest.

I'm certainly not one of those high end foreigners you talk about, but I would guess over the course of my lifetime I will have poured in well over 30 million baht into the country.

But god forbid my annual income fall below 400K after doing that....off I go.

Wife dies before me after we've lived together in the same home for decades, too bad sell in a year or lose the land. And if you can't meet the retired income status...off you go.

No doubt there are scammers, but for the vast majority of married foreigners, it would be vastly easier for everyone if there was a way to be accepted as a long term member of Thai society and not be treated as an unwelcome guest.

Carrefour had problems at the corporate level. It needed cash fast. Tesco is looking at consolidating operations. If you followed the Tesco crisis last year, you would know about its corporate office problems. Their activities in Thailand are collateral issues. It's no different than Royal & Sun Alliance selling off its operations in various regions because it needed money fast to stave off a crisis. Same for AIG. There is no need for Walmart of Home Depot as the Thai demographic is very, very different. Why do you assume that Thailand would be similar to North America? Have you looked at the Japanese 7-11 operations in Thailand? They are everywhere. Very different demographics.

You don't understand do you? How many educated, wealthy foreigners want Thai permanent residency? Honesty, I believe you can count them on one hand. I don't want it. None of my colleagues wants it and some have Thai spouses. If I owned a large firm and had relocated here with the intent of running the business, then yes I might want it, but again, there are few if any people like that in Thailand. What there are, and many people get offended when the reality is pointed out, are a large number of foreigners of marginal means. The small guest house or whatever the operation is, really doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of the economy.

You say that you have poured in 30 million baht in your lifetime in Thailand. That was over how many years? 20? 30?.That includes your personal living expenses of food, electricity and water use doesn't it. Take off what you were actually taking away from the Thai resource base and that number shrinks. What one is left with is a number that is large for you, but is insignificant in the general scheme of things. Do the math. One of my clients invest 100 million baht in a week, and then undertook long term employment and training opportunities for 100+ Thai nationals. It has one German national who will live here for a period of up to 2 years before he is rotated out. He doesn't want to live here permanently, nor does his wife and children. He and his employer will be spending what you did in your lifetime in a matter of weeks and they will leave behind infrastructure, and well paying jobs that will benefit Thais. This is certainly a better value proposition than the chap in Pattaya who ekes out a living as a day trader on the internet, or the guy who purchased a bar for his bargirl wife, or the fellow who bought a guest house in hopes of a better life.

They may all be decent responsible people. They may have families and contribute to society. Unfortunately for them, their cumulative economic contribution is nothing compared to the small number of Japanese from Toyota who run one of Thailand's key employers. Yes, we are all expendable. The difference is that I never showed up in Thailand expecting otherwise. There is absolutely nothing of value in Thai citizenship for me. I am nowhere close to the wealth of some foreigners with their vacation villas and large domestic staff complement, but I will never be at the mercy of the immigration rules. I made sure that I could get out of Dodge when I had too. Some people chose differently. They must deal with their choices. Higher rates of return for those who accept risk, right? Well, I don't like risk, so I played it safe. No real estate purchases and no investments that I could not afford to lose. Know what? There are many thousands of foreigners just like me here. Know what else? I listened to their advice and considered their experiences. You gambled, so now deal with it.

Barnet · July 26, 2016

Don't be so quick to mock anyone in Thailand from trying to stem corruption: just try to get anything done (on any scale) in the USA. If it weren't so prevalent, nobody would've laughed when Rodney Dangerfield made his [pointed] wisecracks about needing to figure in the cost of paying off union bosses, building inspectors & graft in general in his movie 'Back to School'. And trust me, ain't nothin' changed since.

There are a lot of things I commend the Thai gov't for; first & foremost they began securing luggage on all flights by sealing them closed with a heavy-duty plastic band more than 20 yrs before 9/11. It was the ONLY airline I never had to worry that the bags I checked wouldn't make it to my destination intact.

I also commend the honesty of the staff in their hotels. I've not only left valuables out in the open on some occasions & not had them touched, I once left a whole suitcase filled with tools & camera equipment. I didn't realize my mistake til I got home to Cleveland the next day. I called, sure I'd seen the last of my things, but to my surprise, the clerk who took my call (he spoke flawless English/American) assured me everything was fine, that the maid had found it when she cleaned the room, & that they'd be honored (!) to ship my belongings home free of charge. Three days late my suitcase arrived (banded as usual) and not a single item - including $143 in cash - was missing.

Corruption & government go together like peanut butter & jelly. The US of A is hardly immune, considering our history. Our elected officials don't even make announcements - whether they mean them or not - about reigning in the rampant corruption & everyday wheeling & dealing that passes for government these past 80 yrs (st least). OK, Thai officials are letting 'marriage partners' through for as little as $1.50 American, that doesn't even rate on the International scale of corruption. Not when you have the (former)President of the United States, George W. Bush lying through his teeth (he admitted this later) to the people of the US so he could invade Iraq to "...punish Saddam Hussein for his part in the attack on 9/11..." (Which he knew from the git-go wasn't even close to true.)and "to keep him from using his Weapons of Mass Destruction" (which he'd been told repeatedly never existed, that the ONLY 'proof' of these mythical WMDs were from a discredited alcoholic man from Nigeria.

That war not only cost US citizens over 2 TRILLION bucks (US)and counting, it killed over 11,000 US troops (incl deaths from other than battle-related), 450,000 wounded soldiers, most of whom will need lifetime care for physical/mental problems from repeated forced deployments. Under Bush, for the FIRST time in our history troops were not permitted to leave the armed forces after their 4 yrs were up: some were deployed 4 & 5 times with less than 6 mos leave between. Never mentioned by anyone (at least in Western media) is the heavy price paid by Iraqi civilians: over 1 million dead from not just bombs & bullets, but from exposure, lack of food, medicine, clean water, etc. Bush's self-touted 'Shock & Awe' - where more than 12,000 bombs were dropped in less than a month, reduced that ancient beautiful city to a pile of rubble. Thanks to his & VP Cheney's machinations, over 30% of that money was funneled to companies which Cheney used to chair or in which he held stock. Cheney's corporate buddies paid their mercenaries over $100Kyr compared to the enlisted men & women who didn't make enough to support themselves, much less their families.

Thanks to the Iraq debacle, the entire MidEast region has destabilized & terrorists are sprouting like weeds, where before Bush's invasion (no other word for it) Al Qaeda had less than 125 known active members, including binLaden. Today? No place on earth is safe from these grossly misguided people energized & morphing daily thanks to their hatred of Western culture & who know little/nothing about Islam, except the highly excerpted 'religion' they've been brainwashed into believing. If they understood what the other 1.3 Billion peace-loving Muslims know about their faith: that suicide is absolutely forbidden regardless of the reason, that the killing of women, children, and non-combatants incl. the elderly is forbidden on pain of everlasting damnation, and that true jihad is the battle within oneself against the temptations & snares of Satan (the everlasting evil one i.e. the devil). Further, in Chapter 1 of the Holy Koran, the Prophet tells all Islam that, since all Christians (followers of the great Prophet Jesus, Jews (People of the Book) & Muslim believe & worship the same Creator/God, all are brothers in Spirit. He says all true believer should live in peace wherever possible. (OK, I paraphrased the passage, but that's the gist of what's written.) FYI: I'm a Christian minister with a secondary degree in Comparative Religion.

It was a bit of a shock to learn how much ALL religions have in common vs. their differences. Same can be said for all gov'ts everywhere: their culture of corruption is so ingrained no single entity can fight it. Reformers end up as/more corrupt or leave office in disgust, having been thwarted on every level by the entrenched machine.

As far as Thailand, the most we can expect is some short-term reforms; the worst is bribes increase & those seeking to improve the problem(s) will succumb to the futility of it all.

THAI Visa.com. THAI immigration reforms. THAI anti-corruption thread. Excellent points regarding America but completely irrelevant.

I'm assuming by your comments regarding hotels that you are a tourist here rather than one trying to make a living and dealing with widespread corruption. IF the powers that be were serious about any form of anti-corruption they'd nail it on the head straight away, the same way they close down establishments for lack of payment. Get the staff out, sacked and replaced, not warning they face actions IF caught in the act. Anyone living here will tell you that you don't need to have corrupt officials pointed out.

Who was it that introduced the degree verification service? To charge foreigners 1500 baht to get a stamp on a copied piece of paper that proclaims to have no legal worth whatsoever? No checking with universities, just a money-making scam in the full face of the public. Pretty sure it was via the anti-corrupt chaps.

Psychic · July 26, 2016

I can never really understand this talk about sham marriages in Thailand. It's not as though being married to a Thai gives any special benefits such as permanent leave to enter (as in uk when married to an English person), citizenship (as with many other countries married to nationals of the individual countries), etc. all we get is a yearly visa that we need to renew every year showing the exact same documents year in and year out and get nothing other than that out of it from the Thai government. For those of us married for all the right reasons, it should be made a damn site easier to get a more permanent visa to stay in the country and be with our wives/husbands and children.

Sure, if you expatriate some cash to support a Thai family, they tolerate you. However, the intention and the policy of making it difficult or impossible for falang to meaningfully participate in the economy, own property or feel secure and vested in Thailand has always been crystal clear. Yes, historically, there may have been some clever workarounds or ways to bribe your way past certain obstacles. But to feel fully at home, fully like a participant, they don't want that to happen and it probably never will.

Quit with the melodrama. Thailand doesn't need these small operators. Seriously, what benefit does another bar owner, real estate tout, shop owner, small low end guest house owner, internet player, restaurant, dive shop, etc. bring? In case you missed it, the welcome mat is there for large scale employers who invest in infrastructure and create large numbers of jobs. There is a reason why Thai investment officials do cartwheels for Ford or Toyota or Novotel or Marriott or Sizzler or Tesco.

There are many foreigners who are treated quite nicely by Thai officials. They don't post on TVF. They have their luxury homes, golf clubs etc. Thailand is like many other countries in its desire to select only high end people. Unfortunately, because Thailand doesn't have much to offer to a large investor, it has had to lower its standards in years past. It now feels it can increase its requirements. That means a lot of marginal foreigners, the folks just scraping by, will soon find themselves on the outside looking in.

Heard Tesco was trying to pull out. Carrefour already gone, Big C sold to a Thai business.

Probably there's a reason there's no Walmarts or Home Depots here..it would dilute the money flow. So you go to places like Thai (mai mi) Watsadu where their are usually more staff than customers and nobody has a clue about the products they sell.

But that has nothing to do with this.

Well maybe it does.

There is no easy path to permanent residency here for those that marry Thai nationals and wish to relocate here and make a life.

Raise children, pay for their education, support the economy....means nothing. You are always just a guest and it is increasingly feeling like an increasingly unwelcome guest.

I'm certainly not one of those high end foreigners you talk about, but I would guess over the course of my lifetime I will have poured in well over 30 million baht into the country.

But god forbid my annual income fall below 400K after doing that....off I go.

Wife dies before me after we've lived together in the same home for decades, too bad sell in a year or lose the land. And if you can't meet the retired income status...off you go.

No doubt there are scammers, but for the vast majority of married foreigners, it would be vastly easier for everyone if there was a way to be accepted as a long term member of Thai society and not be treated as an unwelcome guest.

Carrefour had problems at the corporate level. It needed cash fast. Tesco is looking at consolidating operations. If you followed the Tesco crisis last year, you would know about its corporate office problems. Their activities in Thailand are collateral issues. It's no different than Royal & Sun Alliance selling off its operations in various regions because it needed money fast to stave off a crisis. Same for AIG. There is no need for Walmart of Home Depot as the Thai demographic is very, very different. Why do you assume that Thailand would be similar to North America? Have you looked at the Japanese 7-11 operations in Thailand? They are everywhere. Very different demographics.

You don't understand do you? How many educated, wealthy foreigners want Thai permanent residency? Honesty, I believe you can count them on one hand. I don't want it. None of my colleagues wants it and some have Thai spouses. If I owned a large firm and had relocated here with the intent of running the business, then yes I might want it, but again, there are few if any people like that in Thailand. What there are, and many people get offended when the reality is pointed out, are a large number of foreigners of marginal means. The small guest house or whatever the operation is, really doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of the economy.

You say that you have poured in 30 million baht in your lifetime in Thailand. That was over how many years? 20? 30?.That includes your personal living expenses of food, electricity and water use doesn't it. Take off what you were actually taking away from the Thai resource base and that number shrinks. What one is left with is a number that is large for you, but is insignificant in the general scheme of things. Do the math. One of my clients invest 100 million baht in a week, and then undertook long term employment and training opportunities for 100+ Thai nationals. It has one German national who will live here for a period of up to 2 years before he is rotated out. He doesn't want to live here permanently, nor does his wife and children. He and his employer will be spending what you did in your lifetime in a matter of weeks and they will leave behind infrastructure, and well paying jobs that will benefit Thais. This is certainly a better value proposition than the chap in Pattaya who ekes out a living as a day trader on the internet, or the guy who purchased a bar for his bargirl wife, or the fellow who bought a guest house in hopes of a better life.

They may all be decent responsible people. They may have families and contribute to society. Unfortunately for them, their cumulative economic contribution is nothing compared to the small number of Japanese from Toyota who run one of Thailand's key employers. Yes, we are all expendable. The difference is that I never showed up in Thailand expecting otherwise. There is absolutely nothing of value in Thai citizenship for me. I am nowhere close to the wealth of some foreigners with their vacation villas and large domestic staff complement, but I will never be at the mercy of the immigration rules. I made sure that I could get out of Dodge when I had too. Some people chose differently. They must deal with their choices. Higher rates of return for those who accept risk, right? Well, I don't like risk, so I played it safe. No real estate purchases and no investments that I could not afford to lose. Know what? There are many thousands of foreigners just like me here. Know what else? I listened to their advice and considered their experiences. You gambled, so now deal with it.

First of all, I didn't "gamble", I made a commitment to relocate to my legal spouses native country and live with her.

If anyone is sucking up resources and contributing little back it is you.

But according to you, the only people who should be considered as worthy of being full time members of the society they've chosen to join should be multimillionaires?

However, if my numbers are typical then the 300,000 expats living in Thailand would be expected to spend something like 9 trillion baht over their lifetime.

Hardly inconsequential but perhaps not up to your lofty standards.

I'm having a hard time thinking about what I'm taking off the Thai resource base.

On the other hand when I shop, employ people to work for me or pay to educate our daughter I might be contributing something.

Thai demographics don't need Walmart or Home Depot, but they need Makro and Thai Watsadu? What does that even mean? That they don't want competition? Probably correct.

So I'll continue to hope that the guy who gets paid to come up with ideas will be replaced sometime with a person who thinks bureaucracy and paperwork are bad things and that long term foreign residents are, generally, a good thing and will try to make life a little easier for them.

You can keep your suitcase packed in case it doesn't happen.

balo · July 26, 2016

Hmmm... I feel like I am a victim of corruption in one form or another almost daily here. Who do I call?

Ghostbusters...

djlest · July 26, 2016

i still cant believe they do surprise visits to check you are married? is that for real?
Christ im definitely not getting married now...

performance · October 31, 2016

Fair enough

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