Email From TransferWise...All Deposits Actually Local.

[owl sees all]

1 hour ago, Sheryl said:

Yes, but the criteria are very, very unclear. At least 2 different interpretations floating around including one that says the fixed amount can't be less than 400K.

 

Basically no one knows.

 

there is even a report from one quarter that the whole business might refer only to first time extensions in which no issue.

 

But again, no one knows for sure. What had been listed does nto specify new extensions only.

And this is often the way here?! The vaguer these things are the more wriggle room for all. The IO can basically interpret the details as it suits.

 

How often have we read; 'at the discretion of the IO' or similar. We all know what that means!

 

Just a couple of weeks before it kicks in; if at all.

Edited February 4, 2019 by owl sees all

[Sheryl]

1 hour ago, owl sees all said:

How often have we read; 'at the discretion of the IO' or similar. We all know what that means!....

Actually at many Imm Offices we don't.  Not all of them have any evident corruption and not all of them have agents.

 

Mine has neither.  As far as I have ever seen,  they play straight and by the rules as they understand them.   They're polite and reasonably pleasant as well.

 

There is just no way of knowing how they are going to understand all this.

[owl sees all]

4 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

Actually at many Imm Offices we don't.  Not all of them have any evident corruption and not all of them have agents.

 

Mine has neither.  As far as I have ever seen,  they play straight and by the rules as they understand them.   They're polite and reasonably pleasant as well.

 

There is just no way of knowing how they are going to understand all this.

2

That's good experiences for you then. 

 

Nong Khai was OK for me some 10/12 years ago. But, I've had experiences where the authorities do not "play straight and by the rules". Even the Embassy staff (maybe not all) in Laos are as bent as a miss-hit nail. Had bad stuff at Udon Thani too. I'd been refused a visa extension unless I paid a photo-copy fee of 1000baht. Other instances too.

 

There is little we can do about it and who can we turn to? TVForum being our last resort.

 

You pays yer money, and you keep 'em crossed much of the time in Thailand.

 

[Pib]

11 hours ago, Henryford said:

The PDF receipt i get from Transferwise clearly shows it as a SWIFT transfer from GBP to Thai Baht. How is that not an international transfer?

Can you back that up with a redacted cut and paste from your TW receipt "showing it was a SWIFT transfer?"  Now if your receipt happens to show the SWIFT number of your Thai bank that may be purely for TW internal use/to identify your Thai bank....does not necessary mean they sent via SWIFT.  But hey, maybe your receipt specifically states "Sent Via SWIFT" or something similar.  Then I will stand corrected.

 

However, on my TW transfers from the US to Thailand there is no mention of SWIFT anywhere....not even the SWIFT number of the Thai bank...just the specific name of the Thai bank.   And when you look at the bottom of the PDF full receipt where its says "Paid Out From" it says the following....that is, paid out from a Thai partner bank....final leg of the transfer a local transfer.  Paid out by Bangkok Bank in below case/receipt....just relayed over to my Bangkok Bank account.  However, TW has three possible partner banks they have account at to complete the final leg of the transfer.  Their three partner banks are currently Bangkok Bank, TMB, and Kaiskorn. 

 

 

 

 

[Ahab]

All my TransferWise transaction have shown up with a FFT code in my Bangkok Bank passbook and the printout that I can get from the bank (for a 100 baht fee).  

[SooKee]

12 hours ago, Pib said:

Can you back that up with a redacted cut and paste from your TW receipt "showing it was a SWIFT transfer?"  Now if your receipt happens to show the SWIFT number of your Thai bank that may be purely for TW internal use/to identify your Thai bank....does not necessary mean they sent via SWIFT.  But hey, maybe your receipt specifically states "Sent Via SWIFT" or something similar.  Then I will stand corrected.

 

However, on my TW transfers from the US to Thailand there is no mention of SWIFT anywhere....not even the SWIFT number of the Thai bank...just the specific name of the Thai bank.   And when you look at the bottom of the PDF full receipt where its says "Paid Out From" it says the following....that is, paid out from a Thai partner bank....final leg of the transfer a local transfer.  Paid out by Bangkok Bank in below case/receipt....just relayed over to my Bangkok Bank account.  However, TW has three possible partner banks they have account at to complete the final leg of the transfer.  Their three partner banks are currently Bangkok Bank, TMB, and Kaiskorn. 

 

 

 

 

Mine are the same, no actual mention of it being an international transfer anywhere.  I doubt you could rely on the fact that it's a GBP transfer to automatically have them assume that it's an international transfer, I'm guessing you could have a GBP account here at some banks (never needed, never tried).  The only hope you may have is convincing the IO that TW is actually in the business of international transfers or them getting to know (and, importantly, accept) that fact over time.  While it might not help at all I've actually started filling in the term 'International Transfer (FTT)' in the Reference section every time I do transfers now and that shows up on their receipts on page 1, might not help at all but in the event of having to show the TW PDF document it might prove useful, even better if you perhaps omit to show them page 2 of the Transferwise PDF receipt that unhelpfully has 'Local Bank Transfer' printed on it.  You might be able to prove it more readily by showing the accompanying statement from your UK Bank showing the TX to Transferwise along with the TW PDF but that's starting to get heavily reliant on the IO just not putting it in the 'Too hard' tray.

Edited February 5, 2019 by SooKee

[SooKee]

7 minutes ago, Ahab said:

All my TransferWise transaction have shown up with a FFT code in my Bangkok Bank passbook and the printout that I can get from the bank (for a 100 baht fee).  

It seems that if your receiving bank is Bangkok you will most likely have no problem UNLESS TW for any reason use on of their other partners (TMB or Kasikorn) for a particular transfer to get the money to you in which case it will show up as a local transfer, not international. It has happened. I certainly plan to check the statement online every time I do a transfer so as to spot one early if it goes rogue.

[jacko45k]

12 minutes ago, Ahab said:

All my TransferWise transaction have shown up with a FFT code in my Bangkok Bank passbook and the printout that I can get from the bank (for a 100 baht fee).  

Not FTT? 

BUT there is no guarantee and the odd rare one may show up as a domestic (SMT) transfer, in my case 1 of 2, it shows Partner Bank as TMB. 

In an environment where you have to prove 12 monthly international transfers to get your extension, one not qualifying is a problem!

[oxmermaid]

39 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Not FTT? 

BUT there is no guarantee and the odd rare one may show up as a domestic (SMT) transfer, in my case 1 of 2, it shows Partner Bank as TMB. 

In an environment where you have to prove 12 monthly international transfers to get your extension, one not qualifying is a problem!

Agreed it is a problem. I have raised this with TW. I have a Kbank account and the random nature of which partner TW selected meant that I had a 33% chance of the transaction showing as International, otherwise dummy branch.

 

TW manually processed yesterday's transfer and it did indeed go into my Kbank account as an international transfer.  

 

They assured me that they are in the process of automating the transfer of funds whereby it will go directly into your Thai bank account as an international transfer. I can only vouch for Kbank transfers obviously.

Edited February 5, 2019 by oxmermaid
typo

[jacko45k]

1 minute ago, oxmermaid said:

They assured me that they are in the process of automating the transfer of funds whereby it will go directly into your Thai bank account as an international transfer. I can only vouch for Kbank transfers obviously.

Well that would be a good result and ease a lot of people's concerns. Should be straightforward for them knowing the target bank.

Although another thread is suggesting their transfers sometimes go astray!!!

[oxmermaid]

Just now, jacko45k said:

Well that would be a good result and ease a lot of people's concerns. Should be straightforward for them knowing the target bank.

Although another thread is suggesting their transfers sometimes go astray!!!

Our only hope is that IOs look upon such 'astray' transfers (wrong designation) 'lienently' as they can be backed up with the country of origin bank statement and TW pdf showing the in/out transfered amounts. Flimsy I know but what other choice / hope do we have.

[jacko45k]

1 minute ago, oxmermaid said:

Our only hope is that IOs look upon such 'astray' transfers (wrong designation) 'lienently' as they can be backed up with the country of origin bank statement and TW pdf showing the in/out transfered amounts. Flimsy I know but what other choice / hope do we have.

Alternatively always use a SWIFT transfer and eat the extra costs!

[theoldgit]

38 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Alternatively always use a SWIFT transfer and eat the extra costs!

I estimate that the extra cost of using a SWIFT transfer instead of Transferwise would, in my case, be in the region of £650 a year. 

 

That estimate takes into account the lower telex rate, the receiving fee by Kasikorn and the slightly higher bank charges, all to get a different code in my bank book that might satisfy the IO.

 

It doesn't take into account the cost of calling my UK bank every month, my bank won't transfer GBP via their online portal, you have to call them, also if my bank use an intermediary bank there would be another charge. 

[Ahab]

It seems like a lot of people on TV endlessly worry about things that might happen, but have never happened. I make a post that all my TW transactions have shown up as international transfers and the replies are things like "well someday they might not and that would be an issue". Make sure you have enough money coming each month, worry about the other things as they come along, you will live a longer and happier life. Worse case I get another multiple entry non immigrant-O visa and depart the country every 90 days. I have made sure I have the proper amount coming into the country each month, I have verified that my multiple TW transactions show up as international transactions. Now it is time to putter around the house working on projects and then later go drink an ice cold Chang. I will worry about the what ifs and other scenarios when they present themselves. This is what more people on this forum should do.

[OJAS]

54 minutes ago, theoldgit said:

I estimate that the extra cost of using a SWIFT transfer instead of Transferwise would, in my case, be in the region of £650 a year. 

 

That estimate takes into account the lower telex rate, the receiving fee by Kasikorn and the slightly higher bank charges, all to get a different code in my bank book that might satisfy the IO.

 

It doesn't take into account the cost of calling my UK bank every month, my bank won't transfer GBP via their online portal, you have to call them, also if my bank use an intermediary bank there would be another charge. 

And I suppose that, if your UK bank's intermediary bank in Thailand is not the same as the one with which you hold your account, there is a risk of the lateral transfer not receiving the necessary "international transfer" coding just as much in the case of SWIFT transfers as with TransferWise.

[onera1961]

On 2/3/2019 at 8:21 PM, jacko45k said:

No, you are asking an IO to believe what you tell him, when the evidence does not confirm it. (In my case a Thai bank book showing a domestic transfer in, and perhaps a Transferwise receipt saying the same that happens to be the same date). It is not beyond anyone's means to make non  Transferwise SWIFT transfers each month that do appear as international. For you not to do that would maybe look suspicious to him. 

Even an AI system can detect it. It is called a pattern. If all your transfers are not coded as FTT, then may be what you're saying is true. But like Bangkok bank, out of 52 transfer, only 2 are coded as non-FTT (my last year's transactions) and backed up by transferwise receipt, what is the problem? I will take my chance because I refuse to pay exorbitant SWIFT fees to banks and I refuse to be intimidated by Thailand's immigration laws. 

[jacko45k]

3 hours ago, onera1961 said:

Even an AI system can detect it. It is called a pattern. If all your transfers are not coded as FTT, then may be what you're saying is true. But like Bangkok bank, out of 52 transfer, only 2 are coded as non-FTT (my last year's transactions) and backed up by transferwise receipt, what is the problem? I will take my chance because I refuse to pay exorbitant SWIFT fees to banks and I refuse to be intimidated by Thailand's immigration laws. 

The problem is when you have an awkward IO who does not wish to see superfluous bits of paper. The regulations only require him to see a statement from a Thai bank.

If one month's worth of transfers (why do one every week?) do not show up as a total of over 65,000 baht he is within his rights (in his mind) to reject the whole application from some guy who is avoiding paying his agent friends who give him money.

 

 I am probably being overly worried. But I might be irritated if you are showing me masses of statements and bits of paper in a foreign language that are easily forged and saying this one is for that one marked as SMT not FTT. 

 

My bank does not charge for my SWIFT transfer, but then I have to accept a poorer exchange rate than Transferwise, and the charge Bangkok Bank make to convert. 

You seem to think you have a right to refuse to do certain things. Guess what, the IO does too!

 

[bigginhill]

Hi, I'll be doing the extension in just over 2 weeks, combo method, deposit and letter of income from British Embassy, I'll keep you posted of the outcome. Does anyone have the link to the leniency letter, I'd like to take it with me....