Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called "sponsored" Work Permits. I say so-called and we put "sponsored" in quotation marks because it really isn't a thing. It is just a euphemism that has been designed. 

As I have discussed in other videos, this concept is basically getting someone to "sponsor" you for a Work Permit. Generally speaking, where I have seen this you are basically not actually working for that entity, for that company if you will. It is basically an expedience. There are operators out there who say "oh you can have a "sponsored" Work Permit through us, or through this entity." or whatever it is, however it is set up. It is generally a corporate structure and it may have certain other certifications associated with it but they say "oh you can just get this Work Permit through us and pay us to maintain your Work Permit." It is largely a pretext; I would even say maybe a pretense that that person is actually working there. I have done a number of videos on this. In my opinion is not a good idea because if you don't actually work there I mean that is a species of fraud. You are basically doing and saying something that you are not actually doing. You are not actually working within that corporate structure.

 However, there is a lot of talk about this especially on the internet. A recent comment on our channel kind of put a fine point on it. I thought it was worth addressing. Quoting directly: "I hear what you are saying. (and this is in another video about sponsored Work Permits) if the sponsored permit is illegal etc., then how can this Company continue to advertise online and on YouTube month after month after month without being closed by the Authorities? They give their address and phone number. If you know about them and hundreds of other people, then the Authorities must know as well so how can they possibly still be in business?" Well first of all don't presume from lack of action that it is tolerated. I am not saying there are any Government Authorities out there looking at this but if they are they are not going to just look at it cursorily and then pounce on somebody that is doing something illegal. Generally they have to investigate. Also never forget, law enforcement is a bureaucracy unto itself. It doesn't move it at lightning speeds. Also, and this is just the way Thailand operates, things that are not strictly in line with the law oftentimes sort of fly under the radar or fall through the cracks if you will for a fairly prolonged period of time before really negative consequences occur. 

Let me just give a for example. There was a time in Thailand when Visa running, physical Visa running, was essentially being circumvented because people would hand your passport off to somebody, they would take it over a border for you; it usually involved these Visa Run companies would often take a number of people and then they would have a number of passports with them. You paid an extra fee to a Visa Company so-called, and they would take your passport over the border for you and it would be all stamped out and then stamped back in and on paper you left Thailand. This was a common occurrence some 20 years ago and even up to the time I started operating out here around the middle of the early odds, from 5, going into 7, 8, 9 you would still hear about this. However there were major arrests made and there was there was a lot of negative consequences that came down on some of these operations that were doing this. At the time yeah everybody knew it was not in line with the law, that is not how you are supposed to deal with doing a so-called Visa Run just as in my opinion and I think anybody that really looks at it having a so-called "sponsored" Work Permit is not technically in line with the law. You need to be working where you claim to be working; you need to actually be working in the Company you claim to be working in. 

Now one can set up their own Company and essentially with some extra steps basically be self-employed through a Company they own or a Company they partially own in Thailand but that is very different from just having someone get you a Work Permit solely as a pretext; again perhaps the better word is pretense. That is a totally different thing and so yes there are examples in rather recent history in not a dissimilar set of circumstances where yeah there are practices that do fail to gain any major notoriety and then when they do get noticed and when enforcement does come down the pike if you will, things can get pretty bad for the folks that are involved. In fact some of the things I heard about folks that got in into trouble with respect to fake visa running was they lost their passport. Then there became issues when there were fake stamps involved because fake visa running wasn't done anymore and then it essentially just spiraled down into ever greater problems but if you were involved in it at the time, it could be a real issue. It is my understanding some of the people that were running these operations were arrested in fact. 

The point of the video is yes certain things can happen in Thailand and they are not in line with the way the law, both the letter and the spirit of the law. Just because there hasn't been any immediate adverse consequences, does not mean that it is impossible for that to happen in the future.