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'I gave up a long time ago': Australian stranded for nearly a year in Thailand


snoop1130

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15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Justin Peck, 41, originally from Melbourne, left his business job in Hong Kong in early 2020 and travelled to Bangkok for what should have been a short holiday.

Was a dumb decision considering what was going around at the time... he chose to ignore the warnings.

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20 minutes ago, vandeventer said:

It's really not that easy to get out of Thailand to get to Australia. I have a friend that is 82 years old and in bad health and he had 5 cancelled flights from the Australian embassy. On his 6th ticket he got out. You would think it would be harder to get into Thailand that to get out of Thailand?

Your friend was probably classified as a "vulnerable" person,  these are prioritised for the repatriation flights.

There are a lot of different issues and hurdles when trying to go back to Australia. There are almost no direct flights, so if a transit airport suddenly becomes unavailable,  the ticket gets cancelled. The major transit airports of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur have been on and off throughout the last year.

 

I haven't even tried to go back as there is outbound ban on travel too. You need to submit an application to prove the travel is essential, and many people got knocked back. I'll go back when both the quarantine and the travel bans are removed. 

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2 minutes ago, gearbox said:

I haven't even tried to go back as there is outbound ban on travel too. You need to submit an application to prove the travel is essential, and many people got knocked back. I'll go back when both the quarantine and the travel bans are removed. 

If he had done the same he had 60k AUD plus 10-20k more from super that's up to 80k AUD. 

 

That's more then enough, with some investments he could have covered basic living costs in a low cost city. 

 

There is now less flights despite the government spinning story's they have more, now with emirites significant reduction of flights you have very few options to get back except the government flight and a few Singapore flights. If you do get back then your up for more cash

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17 minutes ago, kcpattaya said:

If he had a job in HK, I am not necessarily sad for him.
Should have made plenty of money to survive for a while...
Especially here in Thailand. 

There are heaps of people living hand to mouth each month, either because they don't earn enough, or they are not good with money. Then there are people which simply have bad luck.

By your logic the unemployed shouldn't get unemployment benefits as they all should have saved for rainy days while working. What about the pensioners on government welfare pensions here? Should have saved more and not relying on the government handouts?

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1 hour ago, Ventenio said:

nobody has compassion for anyone!!!!   while people die from COVID.....we ridicule everyone.  i imagine the average person spends 88% of their life hating others. lol  

 

feel bad for this guy.   we don't know his story, but we assume he's lazy, broke, dumb, and deserves everything bad.

 

i remember Thai people asking me over and over and over last year....."you are not working, how can you live??  how can you eat?   how can you stay in a hotel by yourself?"

 

i told them.............."ah, this is why I came to Thailand."   Then I rambled about selling a business back home and they didn't understand so I smiled.

 

 

Same same but different.

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26 minutes ago, gearbox said:

You need to submit an application to prove the travel is essential...

 

The rules got lightened back in October, just have to tell them you are leaving for 3 months or more. If usually live overseas then that was always a "get out of jail" card.

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Quote

Justin Peck, 41, originally from Melbourne, left his business job in Hong Kong in early 2020 and travelled to Bangkok for what should have been a short holiday ...

... Mr Peck is living off the meagre salary of his local girlfriend after running out of his savings and superannuation ...

... In addition to supporting him, Mr Peck's girlfriend, Kae, is also helping her brother, who lost his job due to the pandemic, and her ageing parents in rural Thailand – all on the meagre salary of about $1000 a month ...

... Mr Peck estimates that he has applied for more 1000 jobs in Thailand, including 100 this month alone, but hasn't had one call back ...

... "Everyone wants to hire local [in Thailand] and that’s understandable," he said ...

... "I've been to the hospital to get medications to calm down."


Okay, so, here is a supposed "businessman", feeding off his Thai girlfriend's monthly salary of 23,000 THB per month (1000 AUD = 768 USD), who claims to have, in less than a year, run through his entire savings and entirely depleted the reserves of goodwill and assistance from his family, friends, business associates, other Australian expats, previous employers etc.

As an Australian "businessman", we can presume he is a native English speaker and has, at least, a Western high school education. Surely, this year of all years with online business exploding, it has been easy for anyone with those advantages to make money online. Even just working as customer support or writing simple articles, he could easily make her monthly salary in a week, even working just a few hours each morning.

This is "learned helplessness", the sad downside of the social safety net. Men in the prime of their lives and with every advantage apparently less able to fend for themselves than illiterate peasants.

Worse, it doesn't even occur to him, as he hits the media to complain, that he should be ashamed at the useless, pill-popping parasite he has become.

 

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14 minutes ago, GlassWayOverHalfFull said:

What a scrounging scumbag.  Everyone else who wanted to go home managed it but not this idle dosser

Another one of those stories where you only hear one side, and the individual paints himself as the victim/hero.

I'm sure there are more reasons the government gave up on the expensive, taxpayer funded, attempts to repatriate this character. For instance his refusal to board one flight because he didn't want to get stranded in Singapore!  The Thai girlfriend and easy life here have probably got something to do with the inability to leave. 

He states he came for a short holiday last January, a couple of months before lockdowns started, yet despite multiple attempts to get him out he is still living off the lady.

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4 minutes ago, Nanaplaza666 said:

He's still here because ' he gave up long time ago ' staying here living of his hard working girlfriend that already doesn't make a lot of many and is also supporting her brother made him lazy and leeching . If he really was that desperate to go home he wouldn't have given up a long time ago , he would still be trying and not taking the easy way leeching of his girlfriend . That's my opinion , think of it what you want .

I agree.

A real man of 40 years old should have some financial resources.  Not leech off a hard working Thai girl. 

 

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Morrison has bi-polar or schizophrenia...... "It is why I asked Australians to return home on March 17, 2020. At the time, DFAT expressly warned of the difficulties, noting that travel was becoming ‘more complex and difficult’."

 

He then went on to "advise those abroad to find a safe place to stay, follow local rules and keep in contact with Australian embassies." Is it any wonder people got stuck?

https://australianaviation.com.au/2020/08/pm-blames-aussies-abroad-for-struggle-to-return-home/

Edited by UncleMhee
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4 minutes ago, bkk6060 said:

I agree.

A real man of 40 years old should have some financial resources.  Not leech off a hard working Thai girl. 

 

In fairness though why should a 40 year old Thai girl leach off a 65 year old farang guy with nothing more then a government pension after a lifetime of work ? Both parasites in my book . 

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12 minutes ago, Poet said:


Okay, so, here is a supposed "businessman", feeding off his Thai girlfriend's monthly salary of 23,000 THB per month (1000 AUD = 768 USD), who claims to have, in less than a year, run through his entire savings and entirely depleted the reserves of goodwill and assistance from his family, friends, business associates, other Australian expats, previous employers etc.

As an Australian "businessman", we can presume he is a native English speaker and has, at least, a Western high school education. Surely, this year of all years with online business exploding, it has been easy for anyone with those advantages to make money online. Even just working as customer support or writing simple articles, he could easily make her monthly salary in a week, even working just a few hours each morning.

This is "learned helplessness", the sad downside of the social safety net. Men in the prime of their lives and with every advantage apparently less able to fend for themselves than illiterate peasants.

Worse, it doesn't even occur to him, as he hits the media to complain, that he should be ashamed at the useless, pill-popping parasite he has become.

 

The ATM is dry, and you wonder why he has not been kicked to the curb already if he is skint as some would say.  Full story as Paul Harvey would say includes the Rest of the story.  Would be nice to know of his contacts back home, family, any help he was already given or ?.  Seems that this is a one way written story to obtain either sympathy or funds.

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Just another example of a foreigner not taking responsibility for his own life and thinking of the Australian Government as being his mom and dad. Some people should just stay home and never travel. This is one of them.

 

Easy to "just give up", live off others money and blame others. Grow up man!

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     Boo hoo.  So, he quit his job--apparently with not enough money saved.  That was his first mistake.  At his age, you don't quit your job unless you have ample savings or another job lined up.  Came to Thailand in early 2020 for a 'short' vacation--but was still here in March when things shut down.  Second mistake--taking an actually not short vacation when you are out of work.  Should have been out there looking for another job the day after he quit the first one.  Sorry, no sympathy.  He had plenty of time to leave--and certainly should have left much after a couple of weeks if he was getting short of funds.  

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8 minutes ago, colinneil said:

Yes i agree with you, Thai women are great.... Well some of them are.

Money hungry, selfish emotionless, again so of them are, some are not.

Been there, done that, been married to both money hungry types, and the complete opposite type.

Have to agree with you 100% Colin.  My ex decided that I did not have enough for her so she decided to go on the hunt for a millionaire. Once found she promptly started to walk out the door, but not before I divorced her, and told her to not let the door smack her in the ass on the way out.  Good riddance to those who play the game because they only want money and could care less about how good they actually had it.  Blinded by the bling and green.  Yes there are good ones out there.  I have many friends who found the true gem, however, it is not just here in Thailand where there are Gold diggers.  Maybe this man has found a true gem who believes in him and that all will be good.  I hope she is right.....

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15 minutes ago, bkk6060 said:

I agree.

A real man of 40 years old should have some financial resources.  Not leech off a hard working Thai girl. 

 

Not that rare...10% of the Australian households have net worth less than 31K AUD. I knew people which were paying credit card debt for years at 20%  until they cleared it up.

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