About four years ago, he parked his bike in Patong and noticed he was right next to the Tourist Police Volunteers’ office, set up to help visitors after the 2004 Asian Tsunami.
“You need any help?” he asked. “Yes,” came the reply.
Initially, Mr Moss worked with the Tourist Police, but found that he was increasingly answering foreigners’ questions about immigration matters. A decision was made to set up a separate unit to help the Immigration Police and those wanting to use their services.
Initially, most of the action was in Patong, but when that office was downgraded to handling only 90-day reports, the Immigration Police volunteers moved to work in the main office in Phuket Town, near Saphan Hin. Immigration is a department of the police.
There are currently nine volunteers working in shifts two or three days a week. Right now it’s low season, so most of the volunteers’ clients are long-stayers renewing permits to stay or those trying to find out what it takes to stay here long-term.
In the high season, things get a great deal busier with tourists looking to extend their stay or sort out visa problems such as forgetting to leave when they should have.
The volunteers don’t have a wide spread of languages – they can help in English, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch and German – but, says Mr Moss, “We have a computer here and we use Google Translate all the time.”
Besides, he says, even the most hard core single-language people – the “I speak only Russian/Japanese/Chinese and I really don’t understand anything you say ” brigade – can still be communicated with through sign language, pointing and the use of well-chosen single words.
That’s the front-of-house business. The darker side is the people who have been caught with expired permits to stay or, worse, been found guilty of a crime. All of these end up in the cells at the back of the building – not the most salubrious of accommodation.
Thai law mandates that anyone found guilty of a crime does the time and is then deported. Thailand does not pay the expenses for this, and nor do most of the home countries of these criminals.
Some will loan the deportee the cost of the flight, confiscating the passport at the other end as surety for the return of the loan. But in most cases it is up to the deportee to arrange the funding. Until the money is raised they stay banged up.
The volunteers help to get diplomatic assistance and generally act as a friendly face to make the experience less arduous. But without diplomatic representation in Thailand – as is the case with many countries, particularly African nations – the wait can be long.
Usually the deportees are eventually sent to Bangkok and kept in the immigration cells there until they can be sent home, but while they are in Phuket there is at least a friendly face to help them through the ordeal.
As Mr Moss puts it, “Not everyone is a hardened criminal. Some have been stupid, some just get themselves into difficulty.”
The immigration volunteers have no leader as such – as one members describes it, “We’re a democracy.” It seems to work well. Though there are occasional stresses with Thai officials, most of the difficulties arise from foreigners not understanding the culture of the civil service, and the wide discretionary powers immigration officials have.
Mr Moss explains that simply because one’s paperwork is in order is no guarantee that one will get the permit to stay.
Attitude is everything. Applicants arriving shirtless are hustled out again and advised to get a shirt. Shabbily-dressed applicants who sprawl in their seats in front of an officer are likely to have a hard time getting what they want. The officials, after all, are the keepers of the gates. If they don’t like the look of you or your attitude, they are under no obligation to let you through.
But if you are respectable and respectful, things can go very fast. Mr Moss asks, “How many other countries do you know where you can go to immigration and come out 15 minutes later with a one-year stay?”