Overstay and Korat Immigration
Replies: 7 - Last Post: Sep 12, 2012 5:59 AM Last Post By: thaibeachlovers
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Overstay and Korat Immigration
Today I was at the immigration office in Korat taking care of some business and overheard the conversation at the table next to me. An Australian man was debating with the officer about his visa. She pointed out that he was in an overstay situation since September 3. He argued that he had paid for a 60 day visa. I'm not sure what happened, maybe at his point of entry they stamped him in incorrectly with a 30 day visa exempt instead of using his 60 day visa, just guessing. But it was clear to the officer that he was already a week into an overstay.I missed the rest of the discussion but it seemed like the officer gave him some advice and sent him on his way. I've always read on this forum and elsewhere that you better not get caught overstaying unless you are at the airport in the process of leaving the country with money in hand to pay your overstay fine. People always say that elsewhere you will be arrested and sent to the IDC in Bangkok where you will wait in misery until you can arrange to depart the country. They didn't arrest this guy today. So is that story about being arrested for overstay an urban legend? They always seem to be a nice bunch at the Korat office even with customers who are difficult so maybe they were just being kind to him.
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It's only if you are caught by the police that you will be sent to jail and deported. The rest of officialdom don't seem to care.The Aussie must have been wrong, as he could have just pointed to his visa in his passport if he had one. Perhaps he was given the wrong departure date?
Whatever, it's important to ALWAYS check that the immigration officer gives you the right date of departure when arriving. It can be fixed later, but it's a hassle.
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Yeah !! you have to really scrutinize your entry stamp on your visa , the real common one is if you arrive at say 3:00am and the stamp is still set on the previous day day , ok it's only a day but if you don't look at that date you could inadvertently end up overstaying by a day , this happened to me back in February .I noticed it and the woman who was stamping me in apologized and re-stamped me back in as arriving on the 28th instead of the 27th and wrote a small note by the stamp testifying to the reason for the date change ..
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Geo, I would have thought the Police have a much larger market to earn income from than immigration. After all, the Thai law enforcement officers get to extract funds from just about everyone, Thai and farang alike. Immigration can only collect their pocket money from Visa renewers, overstayers, etc.6
He probably did have a 60 day visa but most immigration offers don't check for one and assume everyone who can just comes and gets the stamp on arrival. I make sure if I've got a visa to hand the passport to them with the visa page open so there's no confusion then I check the date straight away before leaving.Edited by: TheSpade
