What are the risks of using an agent to renew a Thai visa by spending down my 800k in the bank?

Me at 78 to old for health insurance so I have to leave Thailand even with more than 50 thousand dollars in the bank

How can you be sure of making 100,000 gain annually

on 800,000 investment? That sounds highlyThat sounds highly speculative. What would you invest in? Just curious.

Just do the 65,000 baht per month income no agent required visa cost 1,900. Baht per year. Easy.

The people who have had issue have been using bad agent. Good agent work with immigration officer, everyone get their cut, and the stamps and everything are real. Agent can also do your 90 days report for a small fee. Something can be illegal but legit. For example, black market of lotto ticket in Thailand is illegal, but if you win, you get paid fully. Its illegal but not enforced, just like the use of agent. So there is no gray area, its illegal, but not enforced, and the process is legit.

The 800k is supposed to be for your unexpected expenses like a hospital bill. If you use a dodgie visa you will still need 800k to get you out of prison.

24 hours in the airport detention centre is enough!!!!

Agree with Richard

the next want be you have some less to 0!

You NEED 400k or 800k in bank or monthly amount that's very clear,any visa obtained without may be legal BUT HOW IT IS OBTAINED IS NOT

which means your visa will not be legal

VERY VERY OBVIOUS

if you don't have money in bank or monthly deposit fair enough but if you do why take the chance

Graham Castle. 500 baht from Bumrungrad

Get an agent to do it and have the same agent get you 90 day immigration trip done and keep your money

The biggest (but low probability) risk is that immigration / police does one of their ocassional crackdowns on corrupt practices, which leaves those who obtained visas / extensions through such schemes needing to leave the cointry or worse. A smaller (but high probability) risk is that your investment portfolio doesn't produce +3% annual return (24k THB) in a particular year and you end up not actually saving any money (or losing). Even if things goes well, achieving +3% return will most likely require some time to monitor and manage the portfolio, and assuming you place a non-zero value on your time, the logic behind this plan unravels.

It is a toss up if the agent is good, or not. The good agents are basically the same as a loan shark. The bad agents bribe an immigration agent, or use fake stamps. Loan sharks are legal in their own right, as long as their interest fees are within the guidelines. They make about 1.5% more from investing in your retirement finances than in a bank. The others that bribe and use fake stamps can get you deported and banned if caught.

The agent!

It totally depends WHO you upset or piss off .

99% have no problems , certain personalities make enemies who ...

Go to the bank, withdraw every penny do ten twirls and throw the money up in the air ,in the area of Soi cowboy and ask can I invest.

downside is the investment loses money

If you’re making 100K THB a month from investments, go on a one year extension of stay based on retirement using the income method. You only need to show 65K a month from overseas or get an embassy letter if your country still issues those letters

As others have said it is illegal, as the agent is pushing your money to an immigration office. I would never do it, mainly because I've witnessed first hand the result of such a process. Cousin in Chiang Mai used an agent in Pattaya to grease the machine. My cousin got caught up in an investigation following a complaint about someone totally unrelated to him. Apparently about a hundred expats who dealt with this agent were marked for "follow up". It was simple. I was actually visiting him the night (10.30pm) they knocked on his door. The request was simple "can we see your bank book". Of course the bank book had no money in it. It was arrest, sent to IDC, and he was charged with "overstay", as his extension was null and void. Deportation followed and he got a five year ban. There was no fine (other than 20,000 baht overstay), but he said his three days in IDC were the "most inhumane conditions" he'd ever encountered (and he'd worked down the mines in Africa 30 years ago).

My advice is switch to the 65k a month method. It's yours to spend as soon as you get it. You need money to live on anyway, and any surplus you can put into a better interest account, let it build up and send it back to your own country once a year to a better account. And sleep easy at night.

Never really a good idea to piss about with ones visa and all that goes with it.

Pay an agent and risk getting screwed,money’s safe in the bank

It's a no brainer, and that is why those agents make such good business. I've never understood why anyone would want to tie up 800k in a Thai bank a/c earning zilch - crazy.

Good luck. Just dont get caught! You'll be the one crying not the agent. It's not exactly a fake extention of stay it's just fraudulently obtained. Same meat different gravy!

You could also lose 100k aswell i look at having the 800k in the bank 2 ways 1 for visa 2 for for emergencies

Depends on if the agent you're talking about straight up bribes an immigration officer to get the extension, or are they doing a little magic to show the 800,000? I think the 2nd may be less risky but still not quite legit.

Right now all of the agents aren't really doing anything because they just moved around all the heads of immigration offices so everything is at a halt while they figure out the new landscape.

This could happen while you're trying to renew in a future year and then you'd be pretty screwed.

Also once you start using an agent, you're basically beholden to using the same agent every year because you can't take your passport with a sketchy stamp and try to get a legit stamp the following year without facing a lot of scrutiny and extra questions.

Not a bad idea but where can you make 10%. Plus they do the 90 day report 4 times a year.

With the new era of QR codes beginning, I wouldn't dare to use that kind of agents.

Well it is a dodgy visa and if they ever have a reason to look into it you will wish you just kept the 800k....what is the likelyhood of that? No idea but it has happened

Technically the agent approach is a very grey area legally. Yes many people go down that route, but there have been some stories of people having real issues down the line. Possibly won’t happen to you, but I’m not sure I’d want to take the risk that I’m the 0.01% it happens to. (Made up percentage, just for effect).