I've always had a work permit when opening an account, but I've seen ppl here saying some branches of some banks will let you open one without a w-p. What I do know is that foreigners who dont have a local salary of at least 100K have to open a fixed account holding twice the amount as your desired credit limit.
consider yourself lucky-- those of us long-stayers with a history of tax payments, work permits, own insurance, savings/fixed accounts get a whopping 28 days
Rest assured, we will not forget how we have been treated during this crisis. Thailand's tourism industry is going to have a tough time shaking the shit off this time.
we tourists and expats will not forget how Thai imm has treated us during this crisis and when it's over there will likely be a shit-tsunami of nut-kicking bad PR about how they endangered so many lives because of their inflexible and officious attitude. Utterly inexcusable.