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I know one that needs to go home, but hasn't the money to pay airfare to do so.

 

So what do they do at the embassy to help? I've heard they will front the air tix, one way, to the states, then take your passport on arrival until you repay the 'loan' on the airfare. Once paid back they'll give you back your passport. Is that the standard help scenario they provide the down and out guys?

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Not that I know of. Best I think they will do is give you a few free phone calls to the US. I have never heard of them fronting airfare.

 

Even if they arrest you, most times they will just let you sit in a Thai prison till you get someone to fly you home. I was told the longest anyone stayed like that is only three days in Thai lock up till the guy got someone to give him some cash to get the hell back to a good clean US prison!

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I had the misfortune to know a deadbeat American back in the mid 1980s who did get his airfare back to the States from the US embassy. This was a guy who once told me how hard it was to live without working. "It's easy for you," he said. "You have a job." Whatever.

 

Anyway, the embassy finally got him a ticket, but he had to surrender his passport. He could not get it back until he had completely repaid what he owed the embassy. Possibly things were different back then. He told me this himself, and I also heard it from a UN official with contacts in the US embassy.

 

I suspect it was probably some sort of a travel voucher, good only for use as stated and not redeemable for cash!

 

 

 

 

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