A Thai friend of mine is selling my in-Thailand car for me. She asked me to create for her a Power of Attorney that authorizes her to act on my behalf. Then she found the buyer, negotiated the price, wrote up a buy/sell contract with them... And all I have to do is wait for the money to appear on Sept 1 or so, and if it does not, we get to repossess the car. But none of that happens without the Power of Attorney letter that allowed her to get started. I think every experienced Thai business person knows this, so it should not be hard to find the form.

Not sure about how those particular visa types, but Thai immigration, in all its forms, normally prefers cash or at least bank account **printouts** -- with almost no exceptions. I have seen SOO many foreigners get held up at the border for merely "showing" their bank account balances on their cell phones. So do not even try -- bring cash and paper instead (and to be fair, many USA banks and US financial aid programs have similar policies when requesting proofs of incomes and resources -- and in some cases the US agencies are even more stringent about what they will accept for things like this)

I suspect the Thai version of this may be no better - once read (in Thai) a third-party test prep manual for I think motorbike exam, and, yes, there were all those precise questions about "how many meters..." :-)

Try using Skype to phone in order to call Britain? Just guessing.

I think immigration issues vs. Iegality of marriage issues are separate sets of issues. Yet in at least one area they may come together: My Thai wife and I stayed married for eight years, almost entirely in the USA. After year two, she gained permanent residence due to her marriage to me. Six years later we divorced, and she retained her permanent resident status (though there was indeed an "immigration process" for her. I won't say what it was, since the USA immigration rules may have changed (we married in Bangkok, then we were separated several months while the immigration process proceeded, and then she joined me in late 1990; so processes may have changed by now)

Which is probably also the reason why I lost Medicaid at the same time.

Follow-up : I just remembered that the reason I lost SSDI when moving to Thailand was because I was moving to teach in a Thai university, and I made too much per month to qualify for SSDI any more.

And since I am pretty sure that I did not have SSI at that time, do you think there is a way to get that US$6,000 back from the SSA?

Hmm. Found this text on the Disabilityguys website (below): "You may be able to receive SSDI if abroad, but not SSI if you leave for 30 days or more."

Hmm. Really? I remember having to return 7 months of payments to USA SSA for *something* (because SSA was slow to record my change of address from USA to Thailand), a repayment that in my case amounted to nearly US$6,000 before it was all added up. (@Kool Breez, please feel free to expand on that for me, because if you are right, then that would be useful for me to know. . . .)