Does my friend on an OA visa in Thailand need to report to immigration after 4 months, and what are the fines for late reporting?

@David *******

I'm fortunate that my lady over here has a corporate position in a large company and deals with many Immigration issues for foreign employees of the company, so I always take her with me for the annual extensions, as she knows more about the process than I ever would. In effect, she becomes my "agent" and I leave her to do all the talking and sorting of documents, and it seems to work. I do however meet the income criteria for the visa and would never use an agent to illegally cut corners as I enjoy living in Thailand and don't wish to get any black marks against my name

@Roberto ********

lol ... no, I assumed we meant for a 90 day report or normal immigration 'stuff'.

If my agent came to me and asked for money for a bribe I'd be getting a different agent (just use them for getting my original Visa and yearly renewal ... just to save the hassle of filling out the paperwork and getting the right number of copies and stack them in the order that the immigration officer likes to see them in) I'd get a new agent.

On rereading your post I had read it as using a Visa agent was against the law, but I see now you meant that a lot of people who use visa agents do so to help them get away with breaking some part of the immigration law that might disqualify them for the visa.

Personally I have enough difficulty getting them to answer any questions I have on legitimate stuff, I would die of a nervous breakdown if I had to count on them to do something 'illegal' for me!! (ex. I keep both the min balance in my bank account and make sure I transfer at least the min monthly amount as well, because I can't get them to give me a straight answer as to whether the local immigration office would have any issues with just using the monthly income ... they give me a blank stare and pretend I didn't even ask, look at my bank statements and see the balance and say I don't need to worry about it .... yeah, but I didn't ask if I should 'worry', I asked if I needed to keep the min balance or is the monthly income enough!! ... anyway, more blank stares, so I keep saying, okay, doesn't matter, I'll deal with this next year!! LOL)

@David *******

Depends what the agent does. If they're paying a bribe on your behalf, do you think that's legal? 😆😆😆

@Frank *********

No problem at all! Getting caught is the no-no. I'm laughing

@Roberto ********

using a visa agent is against the law?

@Roberto ********

thank you for breaking the law multiple times.

@Graham *****

Magnitude of the sin innit? Look at all the expats breaking the law when they use visa agents. It's only when you get caught you get in the shit. For me, the worse possible outcome would be a 2000 baht fine. In those eight years I probably saved 10,000 baht on not wasting my time travelling to an immigration office. I'm laughing!!

@Roberto ********

so you broke the law and got away with it, well done