Foreigners to get "Your visa is about to expire" text alerts

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Gaybutton
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Foreigners to get "Your visa is about to expire" text alerts

Post by Gaybutton »

That's fine, but still no official word about anything acceptable as proof of income for retirement visas.
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Foreigners to get visa text alerts

30 Nov 2018

To make sure that foreigners do not overstay their visas, immigration police will send out text reminders to foreigners before their visa is due to expire. Immigration police chief Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn said Thursday the texting service will be first rolled out in Chon Buri (Pattaya), and he had assigned the provincial immigration police chief Songprode Sirisukha to implement the measure.

"This will prevent foreigners from forgetting their visa expiry dates, so if they continue to overstay, we will take harsh measures," he said. "They will be deported and banned from entering the country for five or 10 years, depending on the case," he said.

He said Chon Buri was chosen because it has a lot of tourists and expats.

Pol Col Songprode said alerts will only be sent to those who have registered their phone numbers with Chon Buri immigration police when they applied for a visa or an extension. They include tourists and expats who have work permits. The length of their permitted stay varies, he said.

The immigration police chief also said this measure will help save the police's budget as it will replace letters, which cost more than text alerts.

Pol Lt Gen Surachate said earlier this month the number of foreigners overstaying their visas has come down to zero, following a series of raids on aliens and criminal suspects over the past year.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/genera ... ext-alerts
fountainhall

Re: Foreigners to get "Your visa is about to expire" text alerts

Post by fountainhall »

Gaybutton wrote:Pol Col Songprode said alerts will only be sent to those who have registered their phone numbers with Chon Buri immigration police when they applied for a visa or an extension. They include tourists and expats who have work permits . . .

Pol Lt Gen Surachate said earlier this month the number of foreigners overstaying their visas has come down to zero, following a series of raids on aliens and criminal suspects over the past year.
Am I the only one that finds this somewhat hilarious? How can anyone say the number of overstaying tourists has been reduced to zero? I don't believe that for a moment.

Who are "tourists"? Most often they are visitors who stay in the Kingdom for an average of about 9 days. They are not mostly people who apply for visas in advance or obtain visas on demand or seek visa extensions. So are these tourists excluded? Probably, but contacting them will be a massive exercise. How many general tourists can remember the phone number of the hotel where they will be staying when they complete the TM arrival card? How do the cops locate tourists if they are on a holiday with two or more locations? Don't any of these tourists overstay?

Remember 2003 when Thaksin on his soap box claimed the drug problem in the country had been eliminated after roughly 2,800 extra judicial killings? Even His Majesty the King poured cold water over that lie. No doubt Big Joke meant something different. Sadly it's symptomatic of the Bangkok English media that it makes no effort to clarify and double check statements from officials.
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Re: Foreigners to get "Your visa is about to expire" text alerts

Post by Gaybutton »

fountainhall wrote:How can anyone say the number of overstaying tourists has been reduced to zero? I don't believe that for a moment.
Neither do I, but for me that's not the point. I couldn't care less about how many people overstay their visas, whether they are caught or not. That's certainly not our problem.

I do like the idea that they will notify people their visa is about to expire. Some people do manage to forget. I did get a little chuckle about the part that only people who registered their telephone numbers will get a text message. How else if they don't have the telephone number?

Also, what is this part about sending letters? I've never received a letter from immigration, although I've always renewed my visa well in advance of the expiration date.

In any case, if they're making an effort to notify people that their visa is about to expire, I wish they would also make an effort to notify us about what, if anything, they will accept as proof of income in lieu of the 800,000 baht and the end of embassy income verification letters.
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