This is going to start our like I'm just complaining about the banks, but it builds up to an interesting situation and I'm curious to hear some predictions. Also if you are the kind of wag who bitches about long posts- you should stop reading now. This will exceed your attention span.
Marriage visa. Doing the one year renewal- if I mess up the vocabulary forgive me, but hopefully everyone knows what I mean. Not a 90 day check in. Not a new visa. For this year I want to move from the 400k to the 40k a month. I've been wiring cash into Thailand the first week of the month for three years. I popped into immigration a couple months ago with a bank statement because I'd seen people have trouble here where it doesn't show the transfer as coming from overseas.
For those of you in that situation here is (I think) the problem. When you use a service like Wise they keep accounts in various countries and to save themselves money instead of transferring your dollar from Kansas to Bangkok they take your dollar and transfer one of their dollars already in Bangkok to your final destination. I believe the "reason for transfer" informs exactly how they do. I'm using e trade not wise and the closest option they have is something like "expenses for travel". They have one for "compensation" but the transfer from USA to Thailand in my case isn't compensation, I've already been compensated, I'm just moving the money. This is important later in the story.
So I went in and showed the statement and a couple of bored officers went through it with a fine tooth comb. I had theorized that one of the codes indicated the source- this is either not true or they don't know the codes. They explained I needed a report signed by the bank that verified the origin of the transfers. The lady also wrote a note and her number and stapled it in my passport so I could show the bank and they could call if they needed help. I took a trip in August and the officer who stamped me out of Thailand removed it and threw it away. I gotta say they have more than their share of rude staff in bkk.
Okay fast forward to yesterday when I go to the bank and try to explain what I need. The woman gives me a bank form with 4 different reports listed. The third one (I think? Maybe second?) was "internal remittance". I sit and wait and eventually a guy brings me report 1 "average balance" I explain this is not what I want.
Okay and here we have outrage point number one. Stuff like this just kills me and I know I need to develop my meipenrai, but it is hard sometimes. He basically says "I've never done that report and don't know how to do it so I did this one instead.". Whoever started this habit in the culture here should be strung up. Anyway, so I explain again. He then calls the branch I opened my account in and they basically refuse to do it. The claim first that my choosing "travel expenses" is wrong and somehow that means they can't do it. Then they change the story to "this is only for people buying houses" and then to "the farang can go soak his head, we are busy". The fellow helping me says "maybe we just print 12 months of statements and you could try that? Which is basically him trying to get me to do the same dumb thing he did. But my wife just wants to roll over so I compromise. I'll take the wrong report, but you give me your phone number and when it's wrong you talk to immigration and they can repeat what I said and since they are Thai and you sir are racist maybe you will believe them. He reluctantly agrees, off I go.
So the triage nurse at immigration seems to think it is fine and my wife gets smug because I was negative for nothing. I harbor doubts. I am sent to a desk where I signed my name ONE HUNDRED AND SIX TIMES.
PROTIP: use a separate bank account for immigration than you do for your daily transfer with a household of 7 people.
We are almost done and I ask the officer "I was told very clearly by the lady at the next desk that I had to have a report from the bank that said the transfers came from overseas and the one you are holding is the same report as she inspected a couple of months ago" he was slightly startled and confessed they don't actually check that at this stage in the process. It will get kicked back in 2 weeks and I'll need to fix it then. So I basically wasted a solid 8 hours at the bank and signing documents that are wrong.
The good news is I actually got my stamp and that failing the paperwork doesn't mean you don't get the visa it just means you need to redo some stuff.
So, expert assessments? Will the report sneak through? Will I just need a fresh one later? Does choosing "expenses for travel" fail the "this came from abroad" test?
One more note. After the remote branch was invoked I commented that once this was over I wanted to close my account and open a new one where I live now. The banker freaked out and said it is basically impossible to open a new account now. Take that with a grain of salt after the rest of his performance, but it jives with the rumors I've been seeing here.
