That is so different to my experiences in living in Thailand on & off for over 12 years.
I got around most immigration problems by getting a 90 day non-immigrant visa on both my UK passports, even if I wanted to do a visa run there was often a work around using a local travel agency, who you could pay and they would take your passport along on one of their tourist bus drives to Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, then they would get your passport stamped, probably bribing the immigration in that country and bring it back in bulk with others. Often I just flew out for work anyhow so it didn't matter, so I always had another 90 days. I even did that in China getting a business visa and worked, then would exit to Hong Kong and come back on my other passport until the company got me a work permit.
"In Thailand can do anything" was a phrase my Thai partner used to say often and it mostly involved bribing somebody. Money talks there, a traffic offence was about 100 Baht in the cops pocket and they would smile and wave you on, always kept a spare 100 Baht (£2 back then) under the seat of my motorbike for when they looked for the road tax at a traffic stop, considerably cheaper that a £60 fine in the UK and no points on your licence.
I had 2 houses there through a good lawyer and a company he set up, where the Thai ownership law was covered by 51% nominee shareholders in the company of which I was the MD and could do what I liked with the company, paying a nominal tax on the accounts he submitted each year. I even met the Minister of Housing at the registration of the property and she gave the developer a right telling off for not completing the forms properly.
Yes there are often 2 -tier issues on entry to certain venues but always sent my girlfriend to buy the local tickets and give the ticket collector a tip on the way in.
It is still the best place to live in my eyes,just many cultural differences that you roll with, don't judge.
There are scammers everywhere in the world, I get more on Instagram than I ever got in Thailand.
When I split with my partner she had the house that was in her name and I sold the one in the company name, it was amicable and we are still pals.
Go and live in one of the rice grower subsistence farms in Isaan and join in, sleep on the teak floorboards above the cows and get drunk on Lao Khao, eat frogs and whatever a bottle of Chang or Lao Beer it's paradise man. It's them against the world.
To get up there I hired a car once from a cop, whose side hustle that business was. After paying I thought and asked my girlfriend if we were covered by insuurance,"No" so I said "if we have an accident and somebody hits us what happens?" she said "They pay." Then I said "What if I hit them," the obvious answer came back "You pay."
Geta local girl in love with you and let them organise your officialdom, laugh at life and accept that you pay.
That is the real life in Thailand, nothing is real.
