blorg

Also, agents are still answering the phone, which Elite reportedly isn't at the moment ????

Unlikely, they are launching the new packages October 1 and have informed existing members that if they don't upgrade by August 15, it will be January 2024 before they can upgrade to the new packages. So there does seem to be a deliberate effort to get in the upgrades/applications before they formally announce the new prices. The prices floated (unofficial) are 900k for the cheapest 5 year to 5m for the most expensive 20 year. This is presumably with perks, there may be a cheaper 20 year (like now, there's a 2m+VAT 20 year with a 20k annual fee, and a 1m no perk 20 year). It looks pretty likely that they are going up substantially.

Thai network providers sell artificially speed capped packages, 4, 6, 10, 15, 30Mbps etc. packages. In these cases the speed cap is not the actual max possible speed of the connection but it's capped on their network side. BUT they specifically lift this for speedtest.net, because speedtest.net isn't just an end-user speed test but also keeps a leaderboard of ISP speeds. So if they capped speedtest.net their subscribers on speed capped packages would affect their overall ranking as an ISP. AIS has historically done best on this and they actively promote themselves with this, that they have the fastest network. https://www.speedtest.net/performance/thailand https://investor.ais.co.th/news.html/id/741552 https://investor.ais.co.th/news.html/id/568369/group/newsroom_press https://www.thairath.co.th/news/tech/1498250 https://www.chiangmainews.co.th/page/archives/1149202 https://business.ais.co.th/news-activities/digital_life_service_provider.html If AIS or any other operator applied the cap to speedtest.net all their subscribers on these speed capped packages would drop them down the ranking. So speedtest.net will give you the actual max line speed and will be accurate IF you have a "max speed" or uncapped package. It won't be accurate if you have a specific speed capped package, as to the best of my knowledge none of the major Thai network providers limit speed on speedtest.net as it would only hurt their ranking. AIS and True don't for sure, as I have tested that with their specific speed packages and speedtest.net always shows a much faster speed. I initially thought it meant the speed capped packages weren't actually capped, but they are, if you try to download anything from anywhere else other than speedtest.net you'll get your capped speed. The positive, the max speed these days usually is well above the capped speed so you will get exactly the capped speed very reliably. FAST.com (Netflix) is another very quick option that will show you your actual speed. They have Thai servers too. If you have a speed capped package but the theoretical max speed at your location is higher than this (which it usually is) you'll get pretty much bang on 4, 6, 10, 15Mbps shown on FAST.com.

That's the point, isn't it. It's marketed as a very expensive visa for exactly that, "peace of mind" and avoiding all "the usual immigration BS". Didn't work out too well for OP's friend though did it.

By the letter of the law you definitely do need to do 90 day reports on Elite, but possibly some people on it don't bother as if they leave at least once per year they never have to deal with an immigration office in country, and 90 day reports are not usually checked or fined at the airport, it's only when you need something from immigration.

He probably hadn't. But that doesn't really matter, the max penalty for that is only a small fine. Lack of 90 reports could conceivably have been why the fine quoted was 25k rather than 20k.

Because Elite themselves said as much: "we have discovered that, since November 1 until the present, there have been reports of late submission by our Thailand Elite members for our visa extension service, which has led to many cases of overstays by our members."

@humbug The whole thing is all, ultimately, the Thai government. I know well that everything is chopped up into little bureaucratic fiefdoms that don't talk to each other but in another possible world, yes, you could imagine this could be more integrated. As it is they do talk to each other and exchange data on members, Elite are making a point now of how they notify Thai immigration of membership expiry so that old members can't do that "extra year" trick where they get stamped in for another year at the end of their visa. And there are reports now of Elite members in their final year no longer getting stamped in for the full year, but only up to the end of their membership. This wouldn't in require any sort of live connection. Elite members are stamped in for a full year. So there is at least a year after entry before they are in any danger of overstay. As such, this could be handled with Elite getting only very occasional feeds, even every six months would be sufficient. If they got data every six months, there is no possibility of any member who entered after that, in the next six months, going on overstay. Even disregarding the possibility of such a feed, for many members Elite does get to see their passport every 90 days if they use the 90 day reporting service. Or, if you got an extension, Elite know about that- they have to provide a letter. So they know when that happened, and they could put a reminder to check in with you in 12 months. You could say this is babying, alternately, you could maybe look at it like a sort I don't know- concierge service. Which is meant to be what you are paying them so much money for, that they do smooth over and manage this stuff for you. The point is, the visa is the single most important part of the Elite programme, it's what the vast majority of people get it for. And this isn't an isolated thing, many Elite members have been caught out by this because they didn't get the particular bureaucratic minutiae of their status. I do think that is something Elite could put more effort into managing for members proactively, yes. It's the sort of calendar/reminder system that could be done up in an afternoon, and then just send a personalised email when the date is coming up, with the letter and do they require an appointment. Does it matter if they email someone who actually left in the meantime? No, it doesn't matter in the slightest. They send enough emails as it is about stuff no-one cares about, this would actually be useful. Critically so for the "many members" who have been caught out by this and ended up on overstay.

@Captain Monday sure, but that's the whole point, that the real value of Elite is the visa, for people who don't qualify for something else. I was replying to your comment that the best benefit of Elite for you was not the visa, but the fast track. But you can buy the fast track (whatever your age) for a much lower fee. The real thing they are selling, is the visa.

If you are using an agent to sidestep immigration requirements, that IS illegal. It may or may not catch up with you. But some people who did go for Elite over those sort of options did it precisely because Elite is a 100% legit visa and they don't want to get into this sort of thing. This is if you are using an agent to actually avoid the requirements. If you actually qualify for the visa you are on and are just using an agent to queue for you, fill out forms, save time and make your life easier, sure, there nothing illegal with that.

You buy that VIP airport service on a per-use basis for ~1,200B per transit. A lot cheaper than an Elite visa.

Sure, I understand the difference. Many do not, and Elite is marketed as the "no hassle pay money so you don't have to deal with all this <deleted>" visa. It's obviously not "very clear" as many people have been caught out by this.

You get a personal email about your annual extension when it's coming up to a year? I'm surprised by that, as most members to my knowledge do not. They did send a generic email bulk email warning of this specific issue back in January, three months after the end of the Covid amnesty, which was reactive, not proactive, they said in the email there were already "many cases of overstays by our members", the warning was too late for many.

But you don't have a 5 year retirement visa, your retirement visa would have been initially 90 days or 1 year, and you have been on an extension since that ran out. Your visa would have run out, and you would have had to get an extension at that point. I understand the difference between the visa and the stamp, but it's easy to see why someone would confuse, that if they have a 5 year visa, why do they need to extend after a year? It's 5 years, right? Elite will do your 90 day reports if you specifically go in to them and ask them to do it. They don't proactively notify you about it, and it's easier to do it online that trek in to their office twice with your passport. But I suspect this guy probably wasn't aware or doing his 90 day either. That doesn't really matter, it's a 2,000B fine which doesn't even come up unless you need to do an extension. Even the 20,000 overstay fine is a relatively minor issue, it's the ban that I expect is the bigger problem.

Elite (Thailand Privilege Card Co., Ltd.) is 100% owned by the government of Thailand. It's not marketed as just a service to get a visa, it's marketed as an ongoing membership with various "privileges" and services for the duration of your membership. This is not the first time this has happened, it has happened to several members at this point and it is exacerbated with people stuck here with the Covid situation who would normally just have travelled out at some point and so never needed an extension before. It's expensive enough. It would be an actually useful service for their members if they did actually keep track of this and proactively contacted the member to arrange extensions when necessary. Their whole marketing message is that Elite is an easy hassle-free means to stay in Thailand, some people go for it precisely because they they have the money and don't want to deal with the bureaucracy and keep on top of all Thai immigration's minutiae. This is a general issue with Elite, they have a very top-down and very strictly delineated set of "things they do" and the things they do, they do generally handle well. But step slightly outside the boundaries of the limited set of things they handle, and they can't do anything. There's very little flexibility.

You can ask them to order it, theoretically if any branch genuinely doesn't have MasterCard in stock they can order it from Bangkok. Takes 7 days, I think you can also get your name on it when you do it this way. I can understand why you just gave up though.

It's not that, it worked fine for foreign vendors until very recently. Bangkok Bank have blocked it only in the last few weeks. It's due to this massive data breach of Thai credit/debit card numbers, hackers seem to have got their hands on basically every card number in the country (over 30 million total).

That's how it works, it depends on what address you gave them when you signed up. You can sign up from Thailand and get the card, if you can give them a European address.

@MJCM you can get the Wise card if the address on your Wise account is in a country they support for it, which includes most of Europe. You can't get it if you actually have your Thai address on the account.

One workaround that might be relatively quick for people living in Thailand who can't do the Wise virtual card, Shopee Pay wallet actually has a built in virtual MasterCard. You can sign up for this through the app taking a photo of your passport on your phone camera, and it get activated pretty quick (same day). You can then fund it through your mobile banking, and that's quite easy and smooth to transfer money into it. It's a Thai card issued by TTB and you can use this to pay for stuff including international transactions, I used it to pay for Spotify after Bangkok Bank cut it off, I have also used it for a few other international things. It also works on Grab, FoodPanda, I even use it on Lazada and it works fine there too. Foreigners can get this and it's pretty easy. What foreigners can't do, is you can't link your bank account to it to have it debit that automatically. Or at least you can't if you are with Bankgok Bank- the limitation here seems to be on the BBK side, it's in the form BBK have to do the link, which requires a Thai ID number. But you can fund it really pretty smoothly through the mobile banking, you just click top-up and it links through to the Bangkok Bank mobile app to complete it, and you don't have to retype in anything, it's just a few clicks.

Bangkok Bank blocked my brand new card that I got today, which presumably couldn't have been involved in the fraud because I literally got it only an hour ago. They said they have done a general lockdown on all services that don't support their SMS OTP thing. My understanding, this is a Thai service. They would only unblock for me, specific websites that I gave them, they said they could not unblock general international use at this time. My understanding, cards should continue to work for Thai stuff that implements their SMS OTP thing. So stuff like Shopee, Lazada, should be fine. But most international stuff is blocked. Worth noting that this affects international companies like Spotify that actually sell their subscriptions in THB in Thailand, they are being blocked as it's billed from abroad. As to "only the accounts of those affected by the fraud", that is reported at over 30 million people? Likely more people have been involved in this fraud than haven't been, this affected probably the majority of cards issued in Thailand. This is just on the number affected, not saying every bank is reacting to it in this way, but this fraud hit a lot of cards, they got it appears almost everything. EDIT: and confirmed, it works with Shopee. But now you need to go through the SMS OTP rigmarole even for 1THB transaction, it forced me to do that even for the 1THB verification. Used be that you only needed to do the SMS thing for larger transactions.