The soft power activity must be Thai specific and the school or gym must be approved for DTV application. Don’t think Badminton is a Thai sport. So maybe that’s why you were rejected?
It looks like they have no business but they are probably one of the sellers on Shopee or Lazada. The small shops selling bulbs and electrical stuff on my soi does their business online too.
I understand they do that with marriage visas and will even interview neighbours of yours. It's their job to make sure you're here on legitimate reasons. You can kick a fuss and have them revoke your status and that would do you and your family no good. You can read on this group how many dumb people try to beat the system, find loopholes etc and that is why they check. If you want to get angry, do it at the morons who screw it up for the rest of us.
That there is a new agreement for visa exempt free entry of 60days. DTV is payable at $500 so it does not apply to us. Malaysia, South Korea and Tunisia is also under this new Visa Exempt agreement and they are also not eligible. Well USA and Canada is also visa exempt 60 days entry, so why is it they can get DTV but we can't. Then the Consular service says we must be approved by MFA due to this agreement?! Makes no sense right? Maybe there's something in the fine print of that agreement that they are not telling us. I was already thinking of applying it via other countries, so it's good to know that Jakarta is an option.