@Luc ***********

When I applied for my Yellow Book (I own my condo in Bangkok), Samut Prakan City Council (Bangkok) had a preliminary questionaire.

One of the questions was: "How many extensions of stay you have had?".

Zero. The officers nodded.

Never stayed more than 2-4 weeks, within the visa exemption (that was until June 2024 30 days). Evidently, never tried to live in Thai with border runs. Been to Thai 110 times since year 2000.

Renting a car, went everywhere in Thai, 30,000 kms, whole family, hotels.

Even toured Isan (2,500 kms), up to Udon Thani, temples and attractions. Hua Hin, 20 times hotel stay.

That is tourism and I loved the travels.

Now, I am not a tourist any more (on Non-O 1 year extension). I want to live in Thai and I got the proper visa.

@Marco ******

That I know of several people from Penang going to Thai every second weekend is only a tip of the iceberg. The facility has 5,000 employees, they go to Thai on weekends in their hundreds.

There are coach companies, conwoys of 5-10 buses take them to Thai every weekend. Immigration officers would get into the bus and stamp their passports without them even standing up in their seats.

Those people flow through the company, new ones join, the last one I knew of personally retired this June 2025.

Since year 2000, nobody ever mentioned any visa to any of them.

@Marco ******

What problems? Would Immigration offcer tell them "Get a proper visa next time"? What kind of visa could that be for frequent weekend visitors, as genuine as tourists can be?

@Michael *******

I know of people who work in Penang (Malaysia) who come to Thai almost every second weekend, maybe 20 times a year, short stays, no any problems.

@Nongnuch *******

32,000 THB if you have Non-O 90 days visa. No own funds (800,00 THB) and no bank account. The agency will, somehow, sort it out.

The top price is for the customers with only visa exemption.

With your own funds (own bank account, 800,000 THB in it) to exend the stay for one more year is like 12,500 THB.

@Will ***********

Just like walk in a park?

@Frangipani ******

Sorry for my harsh words, I can believe you did it as you did. What triggered my response was your advice to others.

What triggered that massive bank account lock downs?

Those prepaid cards that the crims paid Thai nationals to open bank accounts with their (crims) SIMs. For some money, maybe 200-300 THB.

Thai nationals can open a bank account with any bank with their Thai ID. So they did.

The first visible victims were the street vendors whose accounts were locked, disabling their trade payments.

Then, disadvantaged Thais (limit that to poor ones) who had no trade no money, just their accounts abused by the crims.

The Bangkok Bank, the biggest one in Thai was summoned by the Thai goverment about the scandal.

To simplify it for this argument, say, the BKK bank showed that out of 1,000 mobile phone 900 numbers were either inactive or had an another person who owned that mobile number.

That is why they requested the account owner to come in person to their branch and confirm the phone number and address.

@Frangipani ******

No drink. You are simply lying. "Get Thai SIM Card"? How do you get it? Who is distributing the SIM cards that are acceptable by the banks?

As clueless as you are, the SIM card with your name, address, passport number, will be on the receipt the banks want to see.

Edit: prepaid SIMs are easily identifialbe, just first 3 digits like "092" and they get recycled. Just see how many bank accounts were frozen because of mobile number mismatch.

When it was possible to open an account with prepaid mobile that does not exist any more. AIS recycles them after a year, to a different prepaid owner.

No way to buy that number and make it your permanent number.

The whole crack over last several months was because of the undocummented prepaid SIM cards, criminals were caught with tens of thousands of them in stock.

@Frangipani ******

It is believed that Superman does not even use toilet paper!

@Bill ********

Thai Visa Centre are excellent, I used them. I can see posts (possibly AI generated) against using agents. First time, use an agent, the Thai Visa Centre is the premium one.