Originally Posted by
Tchiowa
I won't go into the detail of what went wrong when I applied for my wife's various visas.
One line summary of what I'm dealing with now is that they tell me there is a problem but they won't tell me what the problem is and they won't tell me what I need to do to fix it and they won't let us move forward until it's fixed.
The worst part about all of it, and it's clear from your comments you saw something similar, is that not only are they unhelpful (I'm not going to say "incompetent" because I think it's more that they are just bureaucratic) but they sincerely don't seem to understand why we're not satisfied with their actions. They really think they're doing great work. Scary, IMO.
Exactly correct. If you spoke to one of the people I dealt with, they would feel that they were doing "the lord's work" and that they were performing in a professional and proficient manner. I guess a lot of what they do is assist U.S. citizens when they are arrested for some crime (both of the main people I dealt with had current "drug matters" going on as far as notifications and rec. of a Thai lawyer), so they might develop some sort of a jaded attitude. In this case, my friend's autopsy showed that he had not even consumed an aspirin, let alone anything illegal. AND we were both retired government employees...........there was no love spreading around.
I guess in retrospect (in my case) there is a limit to what they can do.......but, even the little they can do, was totally screwed up.
Just to show how stupidity goes around........when leaving BKK in a wheelchair, at the airport, the mess continued. The insurance company agent had obtained documents from the hospital showing what was going on and that I was in a serious accident.......and was in the hospital the entire time. They are looking at a guy in a wheelchair (in very poor condition at that point) and the immigration people demanded fines be paid for the visa overstay while in the hospital. The agent argued with them, but then told me the company was going to pay the fine, as it was not worth "playing games with these corrupt guys". This did not involve the US embassy, but shows that everyone is involved in their "own world" and making some kash.............