I've just found out that this company also run another scam site www.visa-helpline.com
this company advertise services that they do not know how to deliver - even on their website they give out wrong information, they tell that for a Fiance visa you need to complete form VAF2 but infact you need form VAF4A
such a basic mistake right out of the gate, I would not trust this company at all to give you any help worth having, and from my own bitter experience they blatanly lie to you about their experience and knowledge to get you to pay them money, then offer you very little by way of support
downright scam in my opinion
Friday, 29 January 2010
wed-in-thailand.com seem to have updated there terms of business to specifically now state that they won't be held in any way liable for checking that the information they dish out is correct
that's brilliant, you're company has one single business service and you offer absolultely no guarentee whatsoever that you are any good at actually doing that one thing
that's brilliant, you're company has one single business service and you offer absolultely no guarentee whatsoever that you are any good at actually doing that one thing
Saturday, 10 October 2009
wed-in-thailand scam or problem
I've already written my main article but I noticed a different page was getting better rankings so I figured I'd create another landing page that should help people find my main review easier.
It's a review of the service I received from wed-in-thailand.com aka thaino1.com run by a company called Thai No.1 Connections who by the looks of things used to be a mail order bride company who off the back of that started arranging marriages and weddings in thailand for non-thai nationals. At least they say they do, because from my personal experience they fail to actually help you walk away with a marriage certificate, which does somewhat show them up as having some kind of problem, unless they deliberately like to scam people out of money, who knows.
So as I say, the main review about the scam i experienced is over here
I'm just trying to think of how many ways I can say scam or problem without just writing scam or problem over and over.
It's a review of the service I received from wed-in-thailand.com aka thaino1.com run by a company called Thai No.1 Connections who by the looks of things used to be a mail order bride company who off the back of that started arranging marriages and weddings in thailand for non-thai nationals. At least they say they do, because from my personal experience they fail to actually help you walk away with a marriage certificate, which does somewhat show them up as having some kind of problem, unless they deliberately like to scam people out of money, who knows.
So as I say, the main review about the scam i experienced is over here
I'm just trying to think of how many ways I can say scam or problem without just writing scam or problem over and over.
Thursday, 1 October 2009
how to get wed in thailand
further to my review of wed-in-thailand.com
I've found out the basic requirements for doing a wedding in thailand, each step will take roughly one day (as you'll need to wait overnight to get back the document at each step).
1. Visit your embassy to obtain a signed witnessed affadavit stating your availability to get married (check with your embassy to obtain the requirements for this).
2. Have the affadavit translated in to the Thai language.
3. Have the Thai translation certified as a true copy at the Ministry of Foreign affairs.
4. Attend the Amphur with your certified affadavits.
5. You can then have the marriage certificate translated in to your language and certified by a lawyer - this is easiest to have done in Thailand and also probably less costly than having it done in your home country.
For British Citizens, the UK Embassy in Bangkok charge about 3000 THB for the witnessed affadavit.
For other nationalities I'm not sure, I cannot recommend strongly enough that no matter how you choose to process, you definitely definitely need to call your own embassy yourself, do not rely on a company in thailand to do this for you as they may well lie to you and scam your money out from under you with no intention of providing the service they promise.
don't use wed-in-thailand.com aka thaino1.com aka Thai No.1 Connections as from my experience they will make promises, tell you they know everything and take your money, then not deliver the service, leaving you massively out of pocket for flights and hotel, as well as the immeasurable emotional distress of thinking you are about to get married to your loved one and instead walking away with a world of heartache now not knowing what you are going to do next
click here to get back to the root of my blog about this company http://scam-thailand.blogspot.com/
I've found out the basic requirements for doing a wedding in thailand, each step will take roughly one day (as you'll need to wait overnight to get back the document at each step).
1. Visit your embassy to obtain a signed witnessed affadavit stating your availability to get married (check with your embassy to obtain the requirements for this).
2. Have the affadavit translated in to the Thai language.
3. Have the Thai translation certified as a true copy at the Ministry of Foreign affairs.
4. Attend the Amphur with your certified affadavits.
5. You can then have the marriage certificate translated in to your language and certified by a lawyer - this is easiest to have done in Thailand and also probably less costly than having it done in your home country.
For British Citizens, the UK Embassy in Bangkok charge about 3000 THB for the witnessed affadavit.
For other nationalities I'm not sure, I cannot recommend strongly enough that no matter how you choose to process, you definitely definitely need to call your own embassy yourself, do not rely on a company in thailand to do this for you as they may well lie to you and scam your money out from under you with no intention of providing the service they promise.
don't use wed-in-thailand.com aka thaino1.com aka Thai No.1 Connections as from my experience they will make promises, tell you they know everything and take your money, then not deliver the service, leaving you massively out of pocket for flights and hotel, as well as the immeasurable emotional distress of thinking you are about to get married to your loved one and instead walking away with a world of heartache now not knowing what you are going to do next
click here to get back to the root of my blog about this company http://scam-thailand.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
my review of wed-in-thailand.com scam
Beware of Scams in Thailand.
Here is my personal experience, or my review of wed-in-thailand.com aka thaino1.com or Thai No.1 Connections
After deciding that getting married in Vietnam was not really an option, and having found this website that said that it would all be rather much more easier to do our wedding in thailand, I contacted the company concerned and asked them for more details about how to arrange a marriage in thailand for a Vietnamese national.
They replied asking me when I wanted to do it, but also told me that they had experience of arranging a Vietnamese marriage in thailand and that they could do everything for us but that they would need a deposit before they could really go in to details as it would involve them incurring costs (although in reality this is obviously that they don't want to give out information for free and allow you to bypass them - which is fair enough really as they are a company).
It was at this point that I voiced my concerns, asking them questions about the company, had they definitely done a Vietnamese wedding before and what would happen if something went wrong. I was given information about their company address and registration in thailand which certainly seemed legitemate and I was also told that they had definitely arranged other Vietnames to non-thai marriage / weddings and that they guarenteed me that there would be no problems and that we would definitely have a marriage certificate within 4 days, although the english translation may take slightly longer but that that could be posted on to us afterwards.
I also contacted their 3rd party payment broker, www.thaiepay.com to ask them what their policy was in regards to buyer protection should one of their merchants not supply a product or service. I was told that if one of their merchants does not provide a product or service as agreed, they would indeed refund my money.
On the basis of the promises of the company behind www.thaino1.com and www.wed-in-thailand.com and on the assurance of a refunds policy from www.thaiepay.com I sent the deposit of 8500 THB (about $250). I also booked flights to Thailand for myself and my fiance, as well as a hotel room for 4 nights, giving us 5 days in Bangkok.
A few days later I received an email stating that as a UK national not married before I would need to fill out an affadavit that they sent to me, and bring my passport with me (which obviously I would need to anyway as I was travelling to Thailand to do the marriage). They then sent another email detailing the requirements for a Vietnamese National;
Affadavit to be collected and completed in the Vietnam Embassy - they did tell us that this document was not available and that we would need to collect it in person at the embassy on our arrival.
Certificate of No Impedement aka a Civil Status Certificate
Passport
ID Card
Birth Certificate
Ok, so the list for the Vietnamese person is slightly more involved than that for a UK citizen but that is to be expected (particularly to anyone that has dealt with Vietnamese bureaucracy before).
No where on any of the emails from thaino.com did it suggest that we contact the Vietnam embassy ourselves before we arrived in Thailand to do our marriage. This as I later learned was their (and our) biggest mistake.
A month or so passed and I was then contacted again as a courtesy to check I was still coming on the dates we'd previously agreed and I replied that yes I was and that I had collected all of the documents they had listed to me as being needed.
When myself and my fiance arrived in Thailand and we met with the representative from wed-in-thailand.com, we were taken to the Vietnamese Embassy. Upon arrival there we were given an affadavit form to fill in... and we were told that we did not have all of the documentation required for them to issue the certified copy that we needed to get married in thailand.
There is only one reason for this. Wed-in-thailand.com had given us an incomplete list of documents. The reason for this is that they later admitted that they had tried calling the Vietnam Embassy, but that the Vietnam embassy had refused to hand out information to a non-Vietnamese person.
No where on their website, or in any of the emails that they sent to me, did thaino1.com tell me that they had been unable to speak to the Vietnam Embassy. At no point did they suggest that I arrange to have a Vietnamese national (such as MY FIANCE) phone the Vietnam Embassy to double check what documents they require to issue the affadavit needed by the thai authorities.
Your company has ONE service - arranging marriages in thailand... does it really take a rocket scientist to work out that if you're not sure what documents an embassy require, you tell your customer they need to call that embassy?
As a result of this negligence on behalf of the company behind wed-in-thailand.com, they were unable to complete our marriage in thailand. The missing paperwork was that the Vietnam Embassy require both the Vietnamese Civil Status Certificate, but they also require an English translation of this document certified by a particular depart at 6 Alexandre du Rhode in Ho Chi Minh City. The translation and certification process in HCMC would have required 3 days to complete, so upon learning this we realised that the earliest we could possibly get married would have been the following Tuesday, one day AFTER our flights from Singapore back to the UK for me, and Vietnam for my fiance.
I tried talking to their representative about a refund who simply told me that the money was "gone in to the company" and that I couldn't get it back and was very reticent about giving me any contact details for the owner. I did eventually get an email address and after emailing him I was simply told that they take a deposit for this very reason, that sometimes they incur costs but are unable to complete a wedding.
I'm sorry... what now? You take money from people specifically because you know that sometimes you DON'T complete the service that you have guarenteed me by email you can and will complete?
He also tried to suggest that as it was ME that CANCELLED the service, they would not refund the deposit. Excuse me? I cancelled nothing, I did everything that this company asked me to. It is purely because of an assumption and failing of this company that this company could not provide the service they promised.
Luckily I had planned to travel to southeast asia anyway both to visit my fiance and to go to Singapore for the F1 weekend, so at least it was only the flights and hotel in thailand that were a waste of money, I'd be severely more annoyed if I'd flown all the way from the UK JUST to get the jerkoff these guys gave me.
They eventually agreed to give me my deposit back "minus costs" which amount to nearly half the deposit... erm, hang on... you promise a service and completely fail to provide that service and yet you get to keep some, any, or all of my money?
My opinion of wed-in-thailand.com is that they get by on a wing and a prayer, making guesses and half assed attempts at helping people get married, and even when they get it badly badly wrong, they still expect to make a profit at your expense.
Not only this, but it now means that we will have to apply for a Fiance Visa for the UK, which can be more problematic than a Wife Visa (because it is nearly impossible to PROVE that you INTEND to get married), plus, you then have to convert your Fiance Visa into a Wife Visa after you are married which costs an extra £460. Plus all the stress and heartache of not knowing when I'll get to see my loved one again and the worry that simply because we don't have a marriage certificate we might get refused a visa.
So for the sake of an email saying "we're not sure what documents you need, please call the Vietnam Embassy", I've ended up about £1000 worse off, plus turning an otherwise pleasant holiday and visit with my loved one in to a stress ridden nightmare AND now the weeks of worry waiting to hear if we are successful with our Fiance Visa application.
My advice to anyone thinking of getting married in thailand is; do not use thaino1.com aka wed-in-thailand.com
Later I'll post up more information about exactly how to get married in thailand without really needing the "help" of a company like thai no. 1 connections as you can actually do it all yourself within about 1 week for around 2000 THB plus the visa fees instead of 17,000 THB which is what thai no.1 wanted to charge me to not do it right anyway.
I hate to use the term scam, but that's how it feels from where I'm sitting.
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
Here is my personal experience, or my review of wed-in-thailand.com aka thaino1.com or Thai No.1 Connections
After deciding that getting married in Vietnam was not really an option, and having found this website that said that it would all be rather much more easier to do our wedding in thailand, I contacted the company concerned and asked them for more details about how to arrange a marriage in thailand for a Vietnamese national.
They replied asking me when I wanted to do it, but also told me that they had experience of arranging a Vietnamese marriage in thailand and that they could do everything for us but that they would need a deposit before they could really go in to details as it would involve them incurring costs (although in reality this is obviously that they don't want to give out information for free and allow you to bypass them - which is fair enough really as they are a company).
It was at this point that I voiced my concerns, asking them questions about the company, had they definitely done a Vietnamese wedding before and what would happen if something went wrong. I was given information about their company address and registration in thailand which certainly seemed legitemate and I was also told that they had definitely arranged other Vietnames to non-thai marriage / weddings and that they guarenteed me that there would be no problems and that we would definitely have a marriage certificate within 4 days, although the english translation may take slightly longer but that that could be posted on to us afterwards.
I also contacted their 3rd party payment broker, www.thaiepay.com to ask them what their policy was in regards to buyer protection should one of their merchants not supply a product or service. I was told that if one of their merchants does not provide a product or service as agreed, they would indeed refund my money.
On the basis of the promises of the company behind www.thaino1.com and www.wed-in-thailand.com and on the assurance of a refunds policy from www.thaiepay.com I sent the deposit of 8500 THB (about $250). I also booked flights to Thailand for myself and my fiance, as well as a hotel room for 4 nights, giving us 5 days in Bangkok.
A few days later I received an email stating that as a UK national not married before I would need to fill out an affadavit that they sent to me, and bring my passport with me (which obviously I would need to anyway as I was travelling to Thailand to do the marriage). They then sent another email detailing the requirements for a Vietnamese National;
Affadavit to be collected and completed in the Vietnam Embassy - they did tell us that this document was not available and that we would need to collect it in person at the embassy on our arrival.
Certificate of No Impedement aka a Civil Status Certificate
Passport
ID Card
Birth Certificate
Ok, so the list for the Vietnamese person is slightly more involved than that for a UK citizen but that is to be expected (particularly to anyone that has dealt with Vietnamese bureaucracy before).
No where on any of the emails from thaino.com did it suggest that we contact the Vietnam embassy ourselves before we arrived in Thailand to do our marriage. This as I later learned was their (and our) biggest mistake.
A month or so passed and I was then contacted again as a courtesy to check I was still coming on the dates we'd previously agreed and I replied that yes I was and that I had collected all of the documents they had listed to me as being needed.
When myself and my fiance arrived in Thailand and we met with the representative from wed-in-thailand.com, we were taken to the Vietnamese Embassy. Upon arrival there we were given an affadavit form to fill in... and we were told that we did not have all of the documentation required for them to issue the certified copy that we needed to get married in thailand.
There is only one reason for this. Wed-in-thailand.com had given us an incomplete list of documents. The reason for this is that they later admitted that they had tried calling the Vietnam Embassy, but that the Vietnam embassy had refused to hand out information to a non-Vietnamese person.
No where on their website, or in any of the emails that they sent to me, did thaino1.com tell me that they had been unable to speak to the Vietnam Embassy. At no point did they suggest that I arrange to have a Vietnamese national (such as MY FIANCE) phone the Vietnam Embassy to double check what documents they require to issue the affadavit needed by the thai authorities.
Your company has ONE service - arranging marriages in thailand... does it really take a rocket scientist to work out that if you're not sure what documents an embassy require, you tell your customer they need to call that embassy?
As a result of this negligence on behalf of the company behind wed-in-thailand.com, they were unable to complete our marriage in thailand. The missing paperwork was that the Vietnam Embassy require both the Vietnamese Civil Status Certificate, but they also require an English translation of this document certified by a particular depart at 6 Alexandre du Rhode in Ho Chi Minh City. The translation and certification process in HCMC would have required 3 days to complete, so upon learning this we realised that the earliest we could possibly get married would have been the following Tuesday, one day AFTER our flights from Singapore back to the UK for me, and Vietnam for my fiance.
I tried talking to their representative about a refund who simply told me that the money was "gone in to the company" and that I couldn't get it back and was very reticent about giving me any contact details for the owner. I did eventually get an email address and after emailing him I was simply told that they take a deposit for this very reason, that sometimes they incur costs but are unable to complete a wedding.
I'm sorry... what now? You take money from people specifically because you know that sometimes you DON'T complete the service that you have guarenteed me by email you can and will complete?
He also tried to suggest that as it was ME that CANCELLED the service, they would not refund the deposit. Excuse me? I cancelled nothing, I did everything that this company asked me to. It is purely because of an assumption and failing of this company that this company could not provide the service they promised.
Luckily I had planned to travel to southeast asia anyway both to visit my fiance and to go to Singapore for the F1 weekend, so at least it was only the flights and hotel in thailand that were a waste of money, I'd be severely more annoyed if I'd flown all the way from the UK JUST to get the jerkoff these guys gave me.
They eventually agreed to give me my deposit back "minus costs" which amount to nearly half the deposit... erm, hang on... you promise a service and completely fail to provide that service and yet you get to keep some, any, or all of my money?
My opinion of wed-in-thailand.com is that they get by on a wing and a prayer, making guesses and half assed attempts at helping people get married, and even when they get it badly badly wrong, they still expect to make a profit at your expense.
Not only this, but it now means that we will have to apply for a Fiance Visa for the UK, which can be more problematic than a Wife Visa (because it is nearly impossible to PROVE that you INTEND to get married), plus, you then have to convert your Fiance Visa into a Wife Visa after you are married which costs an extra £460. Plus all the stress and heartache of not knowing when I'll get to see my loved one again and the worry that simply because we don't have a marriage certificate we might get refused a visa.
So for the sake of an email saying "we're not sure what documents you need, please call the Vietnam Embassy", I've ended up about £1000 worse off, plus turning an otherwise pleasant holiday and visit with my loved one in to a stress ridden nightmare AND now the weeks of worry waiting to hear if we are successful with our Fiance Visa application.
My advice to anyone thinking of getting married in thailand is; do not use thaino1.com aka wed-in-thailand.com
Later I'll post up more information about exactly how to get married in thailand without really needing the "help" of a company like thai no. 1 connections as you can actually do it all yourself within about 1 week for around 2000 THB plus the visa fees instead of 17,000 THB which is what thai no.1 wanted to charge me to not do it right anyway.
I hate to use the term scam, but that's how it feels from where I'm sitting.
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
Getting married in Vietnam - Marriage or Wedding for a Vietnamese to Other nationality
Right, well, I suppose I should start with a little background... I lived in Vietnam for 2 years. I recently came back to the UK to work and started looking at the best / easiest way to get my girlfriend to come and live with me in the UK for a few years while I finish what business I have to conclude here at which point we'll both move back to Vietnam. The problem with a UK visitor visa is that although you can get 6 month, 1 year, 2 year etc. visas, the maximum stay on a single visit is 3 months. The next option is a fiance / wife visa...
With applying for a Visa for the UK you usually have to provide "proof" for everything, and if they choose to be, the UK Borders Agency can get really picky about what you do in your application. I therefore thought that getting married BEFORE making the application would make things a bit easier because we would have a marriage certificate as proof we were married, rather than just us saying "we want to get married, no really we do".
I looked in to getting married in Vietnam, but to do this there is a rather long list of requirements, none of which are particularly complex, but the one that makes it nigh on impossible for me personally is that you have to both attend the local marriage office to submit the paperwork, and you both then have to attend the same office around 20-28 days later to sign the marriage certificate.
Now, as I live and work in the UK, taking an entire month off work (however nice an idea it sounds) is not really practical... neither is making 2 trips to the other side of the world in one month. You have to attend the office when they tell you to, you can't take the paper work in on one day and say "can we come back in 2 months"... you take in the paperwork on a particular day, and about one month later they call you and say "come in tomorrow to sign the marriage certificate" and you have to go that day or you have to start the process all over again.
This is when I discovered a website telling me that getting married in thailand is very easy, and more specifically telling me that arranging a marriage between Vietnamese national to other non-thai national is very easy and requires no special documents. More than this, the website claims that the whole wedding can be done in 4 days.
I hate to use the word scam, but that's what is feels like from where I'm sitting.
You may have guessed from my blog title and earlier posts, this website was www.wed-in-thailand.com
run and owned by the same company that run www.thaino1.com
You'll have to check back later for the next installment, the bit where it all goes horribly wrong...
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
With applying for a Visa for the UK you usually have to provide "proof" for everything, and if they choose to be, the UK Borders Agency can get really picky about what you do in your application. I therefore thought that getting married BEFORE making the application would make things a bit easier because we would have a marriage certificate as proof we were married, rather than just us saying "we want to get married, no really we do".
I looked in to getting married in Vietnam, but to do this there is a rather long list of requirements, none of which are particularly complex, but the one that makes it nigh on impossible for me personally is that you have to both attend the local marriage office to submit the paperwork, and you both then have to attend the same office around 20-28 days later to sign the marriage certificate.
Now, as I live and work in the UK, taking an entire month off work (however nice an idea it sounds) is not really practical... neither is making 2 trips to the other side of the world in one month. You have to attend the office when they tell you to, you can't take the paper work in on one day and say "can we come back in 2 months"... you take in the paperwork on a particular day, and about one month later they call you and say "come in tomorrow to sign the marriage certificate" and you have to go that day or you have to start the process all over again.
This is when I discovered a website telling me that getting married in thailand is very easy, and more specifically telling me that arranging a marriage between Vietnamese national to other non-thai national is very easy and requires no special documents. More than this, the website claims that the whole wedding can be done in 4 days.
I hate to use the word scam, but that's what is feels like from where I'm sitting.
You may have guessed from my blog title and earlier posts, this website was www.wed-in-thailand.com
run and owned by the same company that run www.thaino1.com
You'll have to check back later for the next installment, the bit where it all goes horribly wrong...
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
I've posted up a topic over here to try to get some more information from people who know more about thailand in general and getting married in thailand specifically over here;
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Marriage-Thailand-t302455.html
One guy has already listed up the basic requirements for arranging a marriage in thailand, or arranging a wedding in thailand.
As he says, it looks as though it's actually easier to do it yourself and should only cost 2-3000 THB (instead of around 16,000 THB that a 3rd party company will charge for very little actual work or even as in my case failing to give you the right information)
you should definitely not use the services of www.thaino1.com aka www.wed-in-thailand.com
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Marriage-Thailand-t302455.html
One guy has already listed up the basic requirements for arranging a marriage in thailand, or arranging a wedding in thailand.
As he says, it looks as though it's actually easier to do it yourself and should only cost 2-3000 THB (instead of around 16,000 THB that a 3rd party company will charge for very little actual work or even as in my case failing to give you the right information)
you should definitely not use the services of www.thaino1.com aka www.wed-in-thailand.com
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
The best site I've found so far about information on getting married in thailand is here;
http://www.weddingchaos.co.uk/wedding-abroad/thailand-wedding.asp
contains all sorts of links and information about doing your marriage and wedding in thailand
I can only say from personal experience that you would be better off contacting your own countries embassy in thailand yourself and not relying on a 3rd party company like thaino1.com or wed-in-thailand.com
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
http://www.weddingchaos.co.uk/wedding-abroad/thailand-wedding.asp
contains all sorts of links and information about doing your marriage and wedding in thailand
I can only say from personal experience that you would be better off contacting your own countries embassy in thailand yourself and not relying on a 3rd party company like thaino1.com or wed-in-thailand.com
http://dontusethaino1.blog.com/
thaino1.com - wed-in-thailand.com
I've created this blog to warn other potential newly weds about a scam I've discovered in thailand of companies offering wedding / marriage services in thailand and how these companies make promises to provide express wedding or marriage services with little or no real knowledge on how to provide these services
if anyone has any other experiences, good or bad, please feel free to contact me on andybird123@hotmail.com and I'll update this page
my own story I'll post later but needless to say it won't be particularly flattering about the service I received from thaino1.com aka wed-in-thailand.com
I'll write a review of the service they provided as soon as I get a chance.
if anyone has any other experiences, good or bad, please feel free to contact me on andybird123@hotmail.com and I'll update this page
my own story I'll post later but needless to say it won't be particularly flattering about the service I received from thaino1.com aka wed-in-thailand.com
I'll write a review of the service they provided as soon as I get a chance.
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