I've found them to be quite friendly at Mae Sae in the last year. Same at Chiang Mai immigration office – always very polite and easy to deal with. This is the first time I've had a bad experience with Thai authorities.

But yeah, yesterday I felt like a criminal before she'd even looked at any of my stuff 😕

@Henri *****

I sensed they enjoy being mean to folks. Before she even looked at my passport, I handed all my documentation over, immaculately prepared inside a plastic sleeve and she threw it right back at me. Very rude.

Because it's a lot of hassle to fly to Perth and I'm not staying for 6 months

@Steve *********

The system is there to help those who need help – single mothers or those temporarily out of work but it is abused massively, often by people who don't work at all and claim a full income off the state.

It should ALWAYS have been considered better to be in work. The system is to supplement income, not replace it.

The opportunities available to people today who want them is endless, people have no idea how good it is compared to even 10 years ago when you couldn't easily learn new skills for FREE online, start a business with almost zero capital or find work online.

The average UK salary is pretty high, even the average part-time salary is around £12k. The UK also has one of, if not the best benefit system in the world with 64% of families receiving government subsidies. Not to mention one of the best healthcare systems in the world that is FREE. It’s easy to complain about it but it’s really not that bad compared to MANY countries.

I think the 600k is spot on for that reason, but it's disconnected from how most startups operate. I don't know any first-time founders who have bank-rolled a startup for 2 years out of their own pocket. 600k is not an insignificant amount of money for most people, least not a 20-something startup founder.

Many founders bootstrap alongside freelancing to pay the bills, I think having a model where there is either 600k in the bank, or a 50k/mo income would be much more effective.

@Nathan **************

It would be difficult to find someone in the UK in full time employment *not* earning that money – it's barely over minimum wage.

So you applied for a Non-O and didn't have the full paperwork because you weren't aware of the new rules, so they turned you down?

Larry Beck What was it that they wanted that wasn't required? How do you know many others got turned down on the same day?