Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing hell having no fury on a foreign man like a Thai woman scorned. And boy isn't that the truth. I thought of making this video after reading a recent posting on X from Bangkok-Boy, that is @Bangkokboy17 on X under the title: The Girlfriend's Revenge: A Digital Nomad's Visa Run Ends in a 5-year Ban. I am not going to get into the nitty-gritty be on the Immigration side of this, work authorization side of this, Destination Thailand Visa side of this stuff; I get into that another videos made contemporaneously with this one. I wanted to make this one because frankly it bears noting that you really probably don't want to make your significant other upset at the exact moment you're having to deal with an immigration matter.

If you're a foreigner here in Thailand, probably a good idea that your significant other is in a good frame of mind toward you if you are depending on them for any type of immigration status. So I'm talking to guys that are on a Thai Marriage Visa or let's just dig into this situation, quoting directly: "This video tells the cautionary tale of Aiden, a digital nomad and UX designer who had been living and working remotely in Chiang Mai, Thailand by relying on frequent Visa runs to Laos. Aiden leaves for an early Visa Run to Vientiane, Laos, following a major argument with his Thai girlfriend Nat, believing the drama would cool off." 

Now they get into some detail about, he put something up on his LinkedIn and that caused the Immigration Officer to look twice at his file. I get into the sort of nitty-gritty analysis again in videos I made contemporaneously with this one. I'm going to kind of concentrate on the personal thread here a little bi. I don't mean to do this to sort of focus on anybody or put the spotlight. This videos up, clearly this person is okay with the attention, but it's more just practical advice especially for new guy expats. If your girl or significant other, whatever you're into, our friends in the LGBTQ spectrum, along the rainbow flag spectrum, whatever, if that person is somebody that you are going to be relying upon when you are dealing with certain aspects of immigration, you're probably going to want to make sure that they are, again in a good frame of mind toward you. "The turning point occurs when the Officer calls Nat." So this person that is coming through the immigration checkpoint was like, "hey this is a person that can vouch for me; call my girlfriend." After you had a fight with her, before you did the Border Run. Going back, "The turning point occurs when the officer calls Nat, Aiden's Thai girlfriend. Despite their recent fight, Aiden believed she would cover for him. However, when asked by the Officer in Thai, Nat simply confirms his illegal work status, quote: "He work on computer every day, he make money from client online". Quoting further: "That single confirmation is the evidence Immigration needed." Well I would actually argue with that on a point of legal context. Above it says they actually went to this guy's LinkedIn and found that he himself had put up that he was a designer and he was remote based in Chiang Mai, so he's putting himself out there as working in Thailand, in Chiang Mai. 

Now as I have discussed in other videos, unfortunately what I call the Rump Coalition of the last Government really did not do a lot of favours for the foreign Community even though the foreign community might think that they did, because they created this DTV, they created it for political reasons - I'm not going to go into all that anymore, I have talked about it at length in other videos - they did it for political reasons to make their person look good that was coming in to the Premiership at that moment and one of the things they did was create this Destination Thailand Visa which seemed to give a lot better terms than theretofore the type of Visa options that were available. One of the things they also did is they obfuscated the issue of work authorization without actually changing any of the laws. And as we discussed in other videos, Ministry of Interior came out later and clarified that anything that “impinges upon the Thai economy” is considered work if you're in Thailand. So that's virtually anything. 

Now they basically turned a blind eye on those who are “working abroad” insofar as if you're on a phone or on a computer and you are dealing with somebody outside of Thailand, they're not looking for that. But if they come upon it, and they find out that you are in fact a nexus of work being done here physically, that can be a problem. Between having it up on this person's LinkedIn page, as well as the corroboration from an actual Thai under these circumstances, those two things together made an overwhelming case. My personal opinion, I think the checkpoint Officer probably would have used the LinkedIn finding in and of itself to have a problem with this guy. What happened here is this Immigration Officer gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and said, "hey can you contact somebody who can corroborate that you're really here as a tourist?" Unfortunately, this guy put his girlfriend on the phone that he just had a fight with and that person was, let me just put it mildly, "unwilling to corroborate that he wasn't working", so it ended up in a sort of double down situation where things got exponentially worse. 

That said, quoting further: "That single confirmation is the evidence Immigration needed." Again I think in the totality is how you have to look at this. And I actually think the LinkedIn posting alone, because I've seen this happen before, that alone is enough. 

By the way in a US Immigration context, yeah US Consular Officers in an interview context especially for Immigrant Visas or visas with immigrant intent, they're looking at people's social media profiles, you can bet that. Quoting further: "Aiden is immediately denied entry, has his Tourist Visa revoked, and is blacklisted from re-entering Thailand for a minimum duration of five years. Nat blocks Aiden, leaving him stranded in Laos with no access to his life in Chiang Mai. He is unable to retrieve his personal property, including prepaid rent, his motorbike, and all his electronics, calculating his total losses at approximately 230,000 THB."

And that's the point of the video. Look, you are a Foreigner here in Thailand, and I feel bad for this guy. I'm not trying to make this video to come down on this guy. It frankly sounds like this guy was operating in good faith and he just went through quite a number of points where if a different decision had been made and through no fault of his own, it just wasn't how that went he probably would have gone he probably would have turned out a little bit better off. Instead of doing a Visa Run, I think he probably should have looked at getting a Visa, and there is a distinction between a Visa Run and a Border Run, so he did a Border Run, what I would call a Border Run here; he basically ran over the border and was looking to run back. If he would have looked at getting a longer-term Visa or something, he might not have even been scrutinized in the first place.

Unfortunately for him he made another mistake in detrimentally relying on somebody that clearly did not have his in mind when he was crossing through that border and may have had intentions to this effect before he even went out. Who knows? I don't know the underlying intentions of the person, and I don't really want to cast aspersions on them anyway. But long story short, at least from what I am reading here, once contacted, this person basically just said 'No'. And the other thing is she wasn't, that person may not have been lying. That's the thing. This whole thing about, “oh nomads, and they are allowed and work authorization”, it's been so unnecessarily obfuscated in order to create or spin up demand for visas for people to come in or at least it was under the last Government that it has just resulted in these bad scenarios all around where people are coming in with misconceptions and unrealistic expectations as to how things work here.

That being said, that coupled with the fact that this person looks like had a fight with their significant other or what really is the point here, the person that they were going to rely on to deal with immigration, that it ended up in a really bad situation all around. So I hope this acts as something as a cautionary tale. I do not want this to be viewed as any kind of criticism on any of the people involved. I just wanted to make a video because the fact pattern creates a lot of data points for me to discuss real issues that expats may have with Immigration and Work Authorization here in the Kingdom of Thailand.