Transcript of the above video: 

I don't particularly want to be making this video, but I got a bunch of emails from folks who - I made a video going back where there was this frankly kind of absurdist piece put out on YouTube talking about some grand conspiracy on the part of the Thai Government to basically destroy Western expat dreams or some nonsense. My question on it was, is it somebody intentionally trying to dissuade people from coming to Thailand, trying to attract them to other jurisdictions. As I've talked about in a prior video, there seems to be something of a Travel Agent Cold War down here in Southeast Asia. I don't know. That was speculation, but from the tone and tenor of the video, I kind of took it to be that. Meanwhile, there was sort of a semi-response to that which didn't really come at me although they did, I think at one point use the term integrity although they didn't really make a direct attack at me because quite frankly there is nothing to attack. 

As the title of the video suggests, I am not a hater here. I just happen to know what I am actually talking about, and I have been in the trenches on this stuff for years, going on decades. I don't actually really love that I have the body of knowledge that I have on for example US Immigration to the extent I do, nor that I have the body of knowledge that I have on Thai Immigration. I don't particularly do this because I love it, I do it because it pays the bills. Now I do like helping people and in a sense, I like providing insight and have done for free on YouTube for years now. There was some implication that I have sponsorships or something. I don't. This channel is what it is. It's clearly to an extent promotional, it's self-evident. What do you want me to say there? That said, I've never monetized this; I am not trying to be a "YouTuber", okay, and I am not saying there is anything wrong with doing that. I am on a certain level kind of envious of those who can make a living just being a YouTuber. This thing is done, and I maintain it to provide as much honest insight as I can on a certain level to folks and to promote our services. And I really get tired of these frankly folks that come out there and basically make things thar impugn the notion of providing services in the space of Thai Immigration or US Immigration or any other Visa service generally speaking; it really is galling. 

Now that said, this video that seemed to be something of a response to my rebuttal really was they were talking a lot about the Destination Thailand Visa and what I initially thought was fascinating and funny, I called all of this stuff out on the DTV when it came out, and I was very down on the DTV and I took nothing but grief for it at the time, and to this day people will still say, "oh I have a DTV, you said it was bla bla bla." I never said it was bad. I just said it was not going to operate the way that it was touted in the beginning, and that has come out to be the case. That has been borne out even from this video itself. All the things I said were going to be an issue ended up becoming an issue with it, and what I find really funny is, the people that are sort of claiming this expertise or whatever the operation, trying to claim expertise and helping people, don't even know what the fundamental problem with the DTV is, which is what I have been pointing out since the beginning which was, Ministry of Foreign Affairs created it; it is completely their brainchild; they didn't get any consensus with internal Immigration and that is the reason it is all messed up. That is the primary reason for all of it. Everything else stems from that. Again I have come to my level of knowledge in this sphere - look, I am a naturalized Thai - I have been through the whole system. I have seen it from inside, outside; we see it daily here at the firm. My staff and I both, we see multiple different cases every single day regarding these things and there are multiple different implications, different circumstances impact on the process operates. As the thumbnail suggests, I feel like I am taking crazy pills talking to people who are purely YouTubers and are aggregating a set of knowledge that they then present themselves as an expert on without any of the background, it's like unearned knowledge and there is a false confidence that comes from that unearned knowledge from not having gone through the process and understanding how things get from point A to point B. That said, the overall video itself is actually pretty useful insofar as they do describe the problems associated with DTV. You could have watched my videos a couple of years ago when I described this stuff and warned people off but nobody did because they wanted to believe the fairy tale story associated with DTV. I'm not saying DTV is always bad either; it's just not as one-size-fits-all perfect as it was initially touted. I don't think it's ever going to be because unless we see a comprehensive Immigration reform where DTV is like the centrepiece of it, and I don't think that will ever happen, you are not going to see a situation where DTV is going to fit in well with the Immigration system here now. And top that off with the fact that now banks are coming down the pike with all these new rules where they are basically saying we are not going to open bank accounts for DTV holders, and they are even closing bank accounts of DTV holders and the visa itself is not this perfect fairy tale document that it was initially touted to be. 

The point I am making with regard to this video, I actually am not looking to get into conflict with these folks. I made the video I made because I thought the whole thing was hyperbolic. This notion that there was some "secret network" involving Immigration Officers and stuff - what? Is like John Connor from Terminator at the head of this thing? I thought that was pretty nonsensical. I have dealt with Immigration Officers personally over the years. We have staff here that literally deal with them daily. The notion that they are going to let us in on some super-secret conspiracy against Western expats I thought was nonsense; I pointed that out. That said, this follow-up video regarding this DTV stuff, yeah, there are a serious problems with DTV. I talked about at the time DTV was created and frankly I predicted most of the problems. On the issue of Visa agents and all of that, first of all I thought it was really interesting, they pointed out some true bucket shops as being examples of good places to go which I thought was not great, and then they also brought up without specifically stating names, other places that can be problematic. Look I think if you want to call it this, the sort of consumer public can figure out who's the real deal and who isn't, okay? Anybody out there that's claiming guarantees and an ability to constantly be able to predict how this is going to work out, you need to take that with a grain of salt. But at the end of the day look, I'm just doing what I'm doing and what I have ever done out here. I'm not trying to be a YouTuber; I think at one point they were sort of casting aspersions at our subscriber count; we are not a big channel. I am not claiming I'm trying to be everybody. I've never tried to be. And I think it's ironic, because this channel pre-dates all of these people that have now come out and used visa content, Expat content to try to build up their user base. We go back to October of 2016. I was making the most basic videos you could make. I'm not trying to be anything I'm not with this channel. I really don't like having aspersions, indirect or otherwise, cast at me as if I am trying to somehow scam anybody, I'm not. I am just trying to put the data points out there as best we can. Again is this promotional? Yes. Do we provide as good as a service as we possibly can to our clients? Yes. By the way the whole notion that there is some kind of problem with sometimes cases do get denied, it happens. We try our best to not see that happen, but I remember going back years ago, I was the first one that got out in front of the notion that things can't be guaranteed. Some of these "so-called" good agencies, they were guaranteeing outcomes back then and shouldn't have been, because nobody can; it's not good practice. These things can't be guaranteed. That said, after years and years of experience doing this stuff, do we have a track record where we can say look, we are confident we are going to be able to get you a solution here? Yeah, we do. It is like clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, between all the fake bucket shops claim it to be Visa Agents and now all of these folks, I don't even know what the word is for them, who are out there on YouTube claiming a level of expertise with a bunch of false confidence and unearned data points that are based on probably compressing a bunch of information via AI, and then claiming they know something. 

Use the people I guess that make you most comfortable if you are going to choose a Visa service or if you are going to choose assistance with Immigration, be it to the United States, be it to here in Thailand wherever. But I am hoping and the reason for this video, I am hoping to convey the fact that look at the end of the day there are genuine service providers and then there are scams and then there are people out on YouTube who are just talking a bunch of nonsense or talking into the air and I can't figure out what they are doing. I'm hoping that the general public will be able to discern the difference.