It’s stereotyping I have just returned from a visit to the UK and I saw awful behaviour from folks of all races society in general has gone backwards and whatever you think about Indians or Asians in general they do not dump their old folks in homes and leave them to rot. They still have a sense of community and lookout for each other, like many Asian cultures…..we should never generalize….
You have two choices - fly to BKK and hand your passport to clearing agent to process clearance through customs - or use a courier company to send your passport to the clearing agent - both DHL and FedEx are reliable in Thailand address carefully and provide contact number of your clearing agent in BKK you can track on line - good luck - I went through this 7 years ago with no drama
SCB Easi Pass offers 2.5% before tax if you plan to keep the 800k here been using if for 5 years - it’s an immediate access deposit a/c which keeps immig happy
Being an immig officer is a very mundane job so they enjoy a nice chat discussing your holiday plans, assuming it is of course a holiday and nothing more sinister - they are exceptionally polite in my experience.
They are mugging you off - if you are not resident /have a retirement visa bank account no longer possible - maybe this is rhe bribe you need to pay doesn’t get you a retirement visa that’s at discretion of immig