WOW, that sounds like such a ****ing nightmare. Im really nervous about my situation in regarding a change of address, especially moving to a 3rd world country. Good to hear you got it all figure out.

Anyone in Nha Trang? Been here grinding for about 3 weeks so far and planning on staying another 3 probably. Hit me up on PM if you want to catch up.

I just had my cashout credited from stars to my ANZ account yersterday evening.

What a pain in the ass to get there! So i created my account 10 days ago with my passport and a birth certificate, then I cashed out from stars, things went smoothly on their part and the money arrived to the ANZ bank 3 days ago, but.... there is always a but in those asian countries. ANZ would not credit my account! first they told me that my birth certificate that was accepted when I created the account was not good enough and that I needed to have it translated in english (I'm french)... and also they needed the full name and adress of the sender which turns out not being pokerstars limited but a payment processor company named pacnet services limited. Then stars provided me an adress that was not accepted by the bank as they told me the adress was incomplete... Finally after some more complications and exchanging 30 emails in 3 days ANZ credited my account yesterday evening.

So I have a euros account, there are no fees for withdrawing VND and 0.2% for EUR, its still very reasonnable.

Wow. That sucks. But cool you got your money. How many days after Stars processed your payment until the bank had your money? It's been 4 business days so far and my money on my second attempt still has not arrived. I wonder why ANZ required all of that. Did you wire a very large sum of money?

I think it took 4 business days, stars wired thursday 2 weeks ago, the money hit the bank by wednesday morning and friday evening my account got credited.
And I wired high 5-figures, do you think its longer/more complicated for smaller/bigger amounts?

I think it is quite possible that there would be much less scrutiny for smaller amounts. How did you find out the money hit the bank when your account had not yet been credited?

When the money hit the bank they snap contacted me asking for more information/documents.

By the way, where are you from? Kind of curious that they asked me for a birth certificate to open the account and not you.

I'm from the US. It may have had to do with you telling them you were a tourist and I said I'm living here. Or it may depend on which person you got to help you or the mood they were in that day. Who knows? My Canadian friend opened an account at HSBC and they only required a passport but they wouldn't let me open one without a Vietnamese government ID. So there seems to be a lot of inconsistency everywhere.

Actually I told them I live here (which is true) then they asked for my vietnamese id and I told I am here on a tourist visa. But yeah lots of inconsistencies here.

We are living in HCMC Quan 7. Maybe we should open a skype group for all the poker players in Vietnam?

Wrong fwik - I stay since 12 month and never had to leave the country. You can just always extend your visa. I met some foreigners here that are "illegal" english teachers (vnese pay $15-20 USD for a hour of private english class) that stayed for 4-5 years with tourist visa.

HSBC Banking account:

I opened a HSBC bank account with my tourist visa and my German travel passport, the only question they asked was the reason why I wanted to open an account, afaik I have no limits at all.

So i went to bank this afternoon to withdraw VND and order euros for my trip to macau next month. I asked the girl about this account opening issue and apparently I had to show a birth certificate because my last entry to vietnam was less than 6 weeks before I created the account, if you are in vietnam for more than 6 weeks you only need your passport, if I understood correctly.

There is another issue I didnt expect, if you withdraw cash you can not deposit it again on your account for more than 7k$ per entry in the country, the cash kind of becomes black money. So I argued with the girl for a while and finally she said she was going to make an exception, later on she found out that if I declare the money at customs when going to macau and then declares it again to the customs when coming back to vietnam there should be no problem for depositing any amount of cash.

I know vietnam poker players is more reserve then thailand but damn we need to post more information about this awesome place. We should do a 2+2 meet up. As for me I am finally settling down and getting the hang of things here in HCMC.

Do any of you want to meet up for dinner at Ngon restaurant at 8pm on Thursday (June 30th) then possibly head out for a few beers after?

Another day/time/restaurant is fine with me if any of you have any preferences.

Post here or pm me if anyone is interested.

I was living in Argentina before here and the 2+2ers met up for dinners fairly frequently. It was a great way to meet a lot of interesting people and I made some great friends.

DivineLuckBox, the Skype group sounds like a good idea too. I've never used Skype groups before, but if you want to set it up, tell us how to join.

The address of Ngon is 160 Pasteur, Dist. 1.

I'm up for a 2+2 dinner in ho chi minh, not sure about thursday yet though.
I also use skype a lot, just pm me your skype id and I will add you there.

Anyone living in Vietnam, is it possible to use neteller or moneybookers there?

How would you compare the food in Vietnam to Thailand (if you've visited Thailand also)?
I just loved the food in Thailand and I'm planning to grind in another warm country, but would like to try a new place . I hear Vietnam is usually cheaper than Thailand and that you could afford a better standard for the same expenses, is this true?

In my opinion, no country in the world can compare food-wise to Thailand. But Vietnamese food is very good. And at least in HCMC, there is a pretty good variety of international foods available as well.

I think Vietnam might be slightly cheaper but I don't think it's a huge difference (at least in my spending habits).

anyone in hcmc next next week? going to be there prolly on friday. flying to hanoi- halong soon though.

up just got here in quan 1 , if anyone is here shoot me a message.

Hi guys
Nice to meet you. I'm VNese
I'm living and playing poker online in Vietnam.
I've withdrawled money porkerstars to my bank account; about 3 days bussiness.
my bank account is USD account in Vietcombank.
If you are foreigner you need only passport to open account bank in Vietcombank. the First deposit only $15.
affter 10 days money credited to your bank account then you cashout bank without fee.
and fee 0.2% if you cashout bank in around 10 days money credited to your bank.

p/s: I'm living in Hanoi, next month I'll go to HCMC in 10days.

You have MSN? I am starting a business in HCMC and I would like to meet people there.