@Daniel *********

this interview was with the Department of Internal Affairs. The other department that this equally involves Thai Immigration wasn't consulted, and werent happy with it. Its similar when one kid gets permission from Mom to go on some trip, but then later Dad lays down the law and and says the kid can't go even though mom signed the consent form.

I have heard of the occasional embassy seeing someone with a much later travel date than when they were applying and either asked or paused the process so that the applicant didn’t lose much time on their visa. In their case as I recall it was a few months difference.

The visa was poorly designed. The department that created the visa didn’t communicate with the immigration department who has to administrate it and it was hurriedly created for the incoming female PM at the time. Probably the one mistake they also did was not put a total time limit of how long you can be in country over the 5 years. Had they put that you could come and go as much as you want over 5 years ( then added up the a maximum of x number of days in total in 5 years) then it would be creating less of these issues.

@Russell ********

I have a friend who was with SBC for about 10 years and it was closed last year because funds were sent to it from a scammer account. The account holder was doing an online business so got paid for some services from that scammer and then bang it got closed. This person ended up opening with BB last year. Recently came back to Thailand on DTV but it got closed for the visa. However the other half who was married also had DTV and account with BB not closed. That account had been open quite a long time.

Anonymous participant 802 website info appears to be for opening new accounts. Not referring to existing accounts

Allianz which I believe is fairly global travel insurance as far as I know will do travel insurance policies up to 1 year.

With the current banking woes with DTV, be sure to have accounts opened at multiple banks using your current visa before changing over.

@Kevin *****

one bank in particular in recent years had been easier to open accounts at especially with agents compared to at other banks. A lot of scammer mule accounts used that go-to bank to open new accounts so they now got to clean up a lot. Other banks were previously more stricter with their opening account requirements so haven’t had as much trouble so most with those banks have been ok. It has something to do with OECD as well telling Thai banks to enforce anti money laundering measures more. Accounts opened 2023 onwards seem to be under their radar more. Older accounts will have some history to determine if genuine or not.

@Ant **********

putting the 800k in a Thai account is one of the cheapest options long term (unless you fear the baht crashing or your money getting hacked and stolen). A quick calculation for me shows a modest 5% return had I invest the cash wouldn’t pay for return flights and multi entry tourist visa as an alternative option for a large chunk of the year. It returns less than the agent fees. Only the 2nd year monthly banked method seems more economical.

Today mine came through as international transfer, just 15k but it took 3 days. I was hoping it was to be instant as I was doing a trip to Hua hin. Ended up uploading more money to wise and sending to my gf at another bank instantly. I also assume international transfers are back on the table and will need to label it in such a way for either fast receiving or those that need for immigration as long stay. Good luck to all those needing it labelled correctly.