https:\/\/tdac.immigration.go.th\/arrival-card\/#\/home<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, many first-time travellers to Thailand are falling victim to scam websites that charge for a fee (usually around US$50-70) for processing the TDAC \u2013 a problem that has been experienced in other countries that have digital arrival cards. This is because when visitors search for the TDAC website using the Google search engine, the scam sites are listed as sponsored search results above the official government website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why does Google do this? Well, there is nothing illegal about setting up a website and offering to do something for a fee even though you can do it for free through the official site, so Google doesn\u2019t regard them as scam sites (we do, because these people are taking advantage of people\u2019s lack of knowledge about the TDAC \u2013 they are not being honest) and of course Google makes money from the sponsored ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if we were to challenge Google on the merits of placing their sponsored sites above the government site, we are sure their response would be either (a) if people scroll further down the search results they will be able to see they can do it for free, or (b) some people may prefer to have an agency arrange their TDAC if they are computer illiterate or want assistance in filling in the online form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay, maybe for the second category we are being a little unkind in calling them a scam site \u2013 but we will stick with that description at least until we see one that says upfront that you can do this for free through the government site or through their website for a fee if you require assistance. The closest we have seen any site do that is some very small print on the bottom of one of the webpages saying they are not affiliated with the Thai government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We do acknowledge that the sites listed by Google as sponsored results do actually provide a valid PDF acknowledgment with QR code which will be accepted at Immigration. But how is the average person able to differentiate between these sites and the true scam sites what will take your money and not deliver a valid TDAC. These come and go and are often accessed through links from social media platforms like Facebook and look like the other \u2018pay-for-assistance\u2019 sites that Google promotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The real scam sites<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
These sites are set up not to deliver a TDAC, but to harvest your credit or debit card information. How they work is they take you through the same application process as the Google sponsored sites, but after you\u2019ve entered your card details you will get an \u2018error message\u2019 stating that the transaction couldn\u2019t be processed and \u201cplease try another card\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you have not realised by this point that you are on a scam site and are foolish enough to enter the details of another card, you will continue to get the same \u2018error message\u2019. Meantime the card or cards for which you have entered your details are well and truly compromised and may already be being used by the scammers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They act fast because they know as soon as you realise you\u2019ve been scammed, you will no doubt be contacting your bank to have the cards blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These sites harvesting bank card details may not appear in Google search results very often because once people realise they are scam sites, they get reported and taken down. But getting through to a real person on Google or Facebook to report a scam link can take many days. And as soon as one scam site gets taken down, the scammers launch another site under a different name to continue the scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, play it safe and use only the Thai government\u2019s official website to apply for your digital arrival card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And don\u2019t worry if you are travelling and can\u2019t get through to the official site. You can still do the TDAC on arrival at kiosks before you go through Immigration. However, there are often queues at those, so that will lengthen the amount of time you spend going through Immigration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since earlier this year, the Thai government has required visitors to complete a digital arrival card (TDAC) within three days prior to arrival. This is nothing to do with the e-visa or visa on arrival \u2013 it\u2019s simply a replacement of the paper arrival card that was used in the years before the Covid pandemic. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[46,48,47,49,50],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-tips","tag-arrival-card","tag-immigration","tag-scams","tag-tdac","tag-thailand-digital-arrival-card"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1187,"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nataigarden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}