4evermaat

Alternate speedtest site: www.measurementlab.net/run-ndt

For those people having problems with phone customer service, use their email: ContactCenter at CatTelecom DOT com

I found that if you format the email logically, it increases the chance that the other person can interpret it well on the other end:

- Full Name on account

- The name of service (My by Cat, Cat CDMA, etc) and the 10 digit account # (may be 9 digits on bill, without the 0 in front, but make it 10 digits for clarity)

- Your location of usage (either the whole address, or at least the district, subdistrict, province). Put the thai version of this if possible.

- Description of problem leaving out the emotions. Don't write a book, get to the point and show what steps you took to fix if any.

- nickname and phone number(s) for callback contact.

Sometimes they will only email reply within a few hours. Sometimes they will call back within a few hours. If it is a billing or non-technical issue, it may take the next business hours to get acknowledgement. Not only is the email free, it's easier to be clear about the problem and location. Doing this via phone can be a bit of a pain.

Btw, for any call details request (a full printout of your internet/call details) requires you attach a copy of your passport signed. If they say it will take 2 weeks, give them the 2 weeks. Then if [when] you do not see their reply after the full 2 weeks, either call or email again reminding them of the date and time of the original request so that they do not confuse it with a new request. Then you should get it within a couple of days. On the 3rd and subsequent calls or emails, specifically request a call back to confirm that you receive the pdf. But on the 3rd time you should get that pdf.

If you are requesting a refund for any billing errors, give them 1-6 months to resolve. TiT

so where can I get an international, or more correctly Thailand to the USA download speed test. My current interest is Hulu and Netflix, and I suspect that the sped is just not the 6+ that the TOT speed test glowingly reports.

Roku tells me that I need 1.5 minimum but from the start and stop feed I am getting it seems that TOT cannot even deliver that.

Here is another alternative speed test tool:

http://www.measurementlab.net/run-ndt

Anyone else having a problem accessing certain websites with CAT CDMA service over the last 3-4 days or so? Some websites will just not load. But I will switch over to My by Cat 3g and the same sites load fine on a refresh. This includes even gmail. Maybe I will test on another laptop, but I think my end is fine.

It's like the CDMA stalls for some reason. I tried resetting the modem several times.

Found out one of the towers is not functioning properly. But they are aware now and are working on it.

But it looks like according to CAT, it will be until October 2013 before CDMA is pulled indefinitely. Looks like if you write an email about CDMA internet service, they will reply back with an answer:

Remarks: CAT planned to shutdown CDMA network earlier than the end of this year. The CATCDMA customer can migrate to our new network "My" which we believe has better in quality the speed and internet connection. If you do so before the end of October 2012, we offer special options for our CAT CDMAcustomers (choose either one of the followings.)

1. get the current package until the end of October 2013 or

2. buy devices with special price from CAT.

Please contact CAT shop in your area if you want to migrate to "My"network. (CAT will inform about this issue by mail or sending SMS again.)

Anyone else having a problem accessing certain websites with CAT CDMA service over the last 3-4 days or so? Some websites will just not load. But I will switch over to My by Cat 3g and the same sites load fine on a refresh. This includes even gmail. Maybe I will test on another laptop, but I think my end is fine.

It's like the CDMA stalls for some reason. I tried resetting the modem several times.

This is all very interesting. I will ask a few people if this happens at my step-daughter's school. It's a small elementary school about 70 kids, and several foreigners have their child or step-child there. I've never seen my daughter with any marks on her body when she came home.

As canuck and others have hinted at, it depends on how devout/conservative you are. If you are doing it to espose your child to new concepts, it wouldn't be too harmful. But if you insist on molding your child in a specific direction, you cannot serve two masters.

I don't know how long I'll be on this planet. I prefer not to weigh my son down in forced religion. At least that's one thing I can be confident that my gf will never do.

Classic rookie mistake. It happens to many of us when we first come over;

Problem is, I've lived in Thailand for 8 years and always had the latest and greatest phone (iPhones not applicable)... this is why I am kicking myself over it

I really thought that anyone who could afford the rent in a place like Central Beach Mall and has 16 stores nationwide in every big mall has to be trustworthy...Doh!

Yep....emotionalism can get to us all if we are not careful. Personally I wouldn't care if they had 100 locations in thailand. If the main legit location is sold out, you go to the second closest legit location. There are many within a 5 km radius or so.

I remember I bought a samsung phone for my ex-gf at a mom/pop shop. I think it was 2000 baht or so. I bought it the night before (I was the last customer). The following day in the morning we went to see if we could exchange it for a different phone (a more expensive one). The plastic and everything was still intact. NOPE. I don't blame them for not allowing me to return/exchange it, but I figured since then (and another voluntary experiment buying a chinese java phone) there was really no point in buying a phone (especially a smartphone) from a non-major retailer or authorized distributor.

Things do happen for a reason. maybe the galaxy s advance will suit you just fine?

That kind of deceitful practice is not allowed any more particularly by high-end retailers in prestigious shopping centres and you should do yourself a favor and contact these people if you haven't already done so. Don't let them get away with this

http://www.ocpb.go.th/

Believe me they follow up everything

In other words it is not a waste of your time!

if you explain everything that has happened as you have done here I think there is a pretty good chance the OCPB would force the retailer to refund your money and I have noticed businesses are pretty scared of this outfit

Never heard of this solution. I'm having a hard enough time getting my money back from a legit thai company. I'm very curious to see if OP does follow up with this suggestion.

Update: still nothing from my June bill. July and August bill I just recently got the call details. Oh boy. A lady from Cat did contact me and we had quite an interesting conversation. She acknowledge the problem with being charged for 1322 calls on MyCat sim card exists, but that certain gov't issues can take a while to fix. I appreciated her honesty and she now wants to check her call details to see if she has the same problem . I resubmitted refund request with all 3 months a few days go. We'll see what happens.

And some workarounds for calling customer service:

- The other contact number: 024012222 is being flagged as a free call. This is great, but it seems like after hours, or certain times of the day people aren't around at this number. And they will always say call 1322 for any more problems.

- Use the email: be direct and to the point. Write clearly detailing the problem and how you'd like it to be resolved. Always leave your nickname and phone number for someone to call you back. They usually return within a few hours to 24 hours.

- if you are requesting call details for a month, they initially tell you it will take 2 weeks. But it seems like you must contact them again after the 2 weeks to 'remind' them about your original request. Whenever contacting the call center about an existing request, always quote the date/time and brief summary of the original request so they do not think that you are making a new request or otherwise get 'confused'

- technical issues are usually resolved quickly. But billing issue..... . The lady informed me that even though there is a dispute with the bill, and even if it is CAT's fault, if you do not want service disruption due to non-payment to continue to pay the bill (which I did).

Classic rookie mistake. It happens to many of us when we first come over; usually smaller purchases. For me, it was buying that True InterSim card for 250 baht, thinking it wasn't such a bad deal for the international calling. Didn't know that they sold them for 50 baht or so in most 7-11s. That was the first and last time I bought a legit retail item dealing with electronics (where i expect service) from any random place. I never ended up using the sim card anyway, go figure.

You must have really been in a super hurry to have that phone vs walking or driving to another dealer. Samsung-brand store isn't the only official retail outlets. Tesco lotus, AIS/Telewiz/DTAC/TrueMove shops, JayMart, Robinsons, Power Buy, Big C, a different Central or other major shopping center, or go to one of the mobile expos. You could have asked one of us senior members to pick one up for you at a [authorized] retailer in our local area. You signed paperwork that you didn't understand or at least know the gist of what it was for. You didn't take someone else with more experience than you with you to help you navigate the local shops. You barely did your own personal inspection. You acted out of desperation to get your hands on the phone....and you definitely paid the price for it.

I'm not against supporting local vendors, but certain products you can't be too careful, especially as a tourist. Warranty service is important to me with the smartphones (on new items), especially because I am not always near a repair shop locally. The last thing you want to hear is that your phone cannot be serviced after paying almost $700 for it. Chalk it up to the school of hard knocks. Your class was just one of the more expensive ones. Maybe you're not completely out of your money....maybe a local shop can fix it cheaper? You never mentioned the list of stuff broken, although it appears some major internal parts.

Apple provides international warranty and replacement while samsung doesnt (for same pricing level). it was a big mistake to buy pentile amoled gs3. That screen has very low lifetime.

but Apple also provide a crap phone that is overpriced for what it is....at least i think so.... but i agree that IF you have a phone the Manufacturer should repair it under warranty..OP have you tried another Samsung service centre.

The OP's problem is that he did not purchase a genuine samsung phone. Or not from a genuine dealer. But maybe he'll get lucky at another repair center?

I think that major upgrades that either may require more hardware to run smoothly are not guaranteed by Samsung. If the release that came with the phone or the latest available release are already stable, then that's the #1 concern.

Keep in mind that, especially for phones in warranty, that samsung would have to fully support whatever upgrade they release. But that doesn't prevent you from putting your own rom on the phone. In fact, I understand you can have several roms at once if you want.

It might be time though to switch manufacturers if you think Samsung is holding back. If you email their customer support, they do listen and respond back in english. I myself am considering sony xperia.....but not sure about how support works for sony products here.

The speed increase has been pretty consistent. Downloading files seem to be 10-17 Mbps, and web surfing has been much quicker. I'm not complaining.....maybe i shouldn't jinx this.

What phone/usb modem you use?

I use a zte 21mbps dongle on True-h and same speeds as you used to have, around 5mbps, sometimes peaking to 8 or 9 mbps...

Fastest I have seen was a very short burst at 15 mbps...

Sent from my GT-I9001 using Thaivisa Connect App

I use the same (or similar) zte mf 62 mifi modem. 21Mbps down/ 5.76 up max speeds. But in practice, myCat was

i sometimes dont even have H so your lucky.. TRUE 3H HAS BEEN CRAP IN MY AREA FOR A WEEK

It was just ok up until a few days ago. There was a problem with the tower. It was fixed and since then the speeds have been improved. That 10-16Mbps download speed may have been....but it was not fluctuating too much. It was steady and sustained for the entire download (3 separate files at different times within about 20 minutes from each other, about 150MB between all 3, I don't think the file servers were in thailand).

I'm not complaining....just seeing if anyone else noticed quicker speaeds.

I used to get only 2-5Mbps, with some obvious capping whenever I download a file (still well within fair use limits). I downloaded a few files today and I noticed my download manager was at 1.85MB/s , which is about 17-18Mbps! It was sustained like this for several minutes or so. It happened on a second download a few minutes afterwards where I got speeds around 12-13Mbps.

Just an hour ago, I downloaded another file around 88MB, and I was gutting 12-16Mbps speeds. And it wasn't a roller coaster....it was holding steadily at those speeds. I never saw speeds like this. The fastest I ever got was about 7-8Mbps, and it fluctuated wildly.

I'm near Chumphon Town. I do know that recently there was a problem with our tower going out a week ago..... not sure if this has something to do with it.

Samsung Galaxy Cooper S5830, warranty expired.

Fair condition, rooted (can unroot....will probably do a factory reset before handing in phone), back battery plastic cover is cracked). The power cord works, but you can tell the cat played with it (some of the rubber shielding is gone)

Should I bring the original box, manual if I have it?

Wanted to know what to expect for trade-in value if I go to a dealer that can accept trade-ins. Or what if I wanted cash for it? What are they looking for (besides whether the phone powers on or not)?

edit: I'm looking at the Ace Plus, or the S Advance. for my next phone. I also saw a Sony Xperia P and Xperia Solo...

I don't think walking away is quite so simple.

If you do walk away, you may find yourself presented with a bill from DHL for services they rendered and did not get paid for. And if you don't pay that, you may find yourself getting calls from collection people. And if you still don't pay...

Somewhere in the small print, I'm sure they have you agreeing to pay charges related to customs clearance. They hired someone to clear customs for you, whether you like the value you're getting for what they're asking you to pay.

The charges sound legitimate to me, though maybe not reasonable. Quite a bit of that money is probably for the hired customs agent to fill out the paperwork on your behalf. That's one reason it's hard to get into the import-export business on a small scale (unless it's so small you can get under the radar).

Chalk it up to tuition, and rather cheap at that. Customs booboos can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

not true....the receiver may always refuse the package. i did so once to teach fedex a lesson (textbook, educational materials)

"The second best time to plant a tree is today" sent from TV android app (Galaxy Cooper).

Have good insurance on your property.

I foresee it being burned down.

wow...is it really that serious?

"The second best time to plant a tree is today" sent from TV android app (Galaxy Cooper).

there are those who use thaivisa only occassionally to ask questions about visa or get tipa on sourcing some not-so-obvious product or service.

but those who can spend hours everyday on the forum...especially on the news forum....how do you make the time for it?

"The second best time to plant a tree is today" sent from TV android app (Galaxy Cooper).

I have never found a cheaper airfare price then booking over an airlines website directly.

These threads may change your mind:

I know I was able to book a plane ticket for about $800 one way from Hawaii to Thailand that would have cost over $2000 on delta within 2 weeks of travel. I actually didn't pay for it until about 1 week before travel, and the retail website would have never 'held' the ticket for me at that price.

.......

It wasnt one of those major consolidators with an instant booking. It was a private travel agency who does wholesale consolidation and specializes in se asia travel. you usually need to give them 30 days advance booking. I think it was usChinaTour.com. ....................... Then you use something like uschinatours.com to see what you can get really. ....

It was UsChinaTrip.com . I was researching a past thread about using offline travel agents for this and realized the url was incorrect.

I think because considering the distance the price would be much higher than the Ranong trip. So pay more for a longer trip? Does not sound very attractive to me.

The vans to Ranong are cheaper than the vans to Penang. And the trip is much shorter. So I always just go with Ranong.

What I was thinking was an actual service that would run to the Malaysian border and back directly from phuket (not necessarily go all the way to penang). It would be maybe 12-15 hours or so and not as mad dash. The cost should be cheaper without the visa fee. And you wouldn't waste as much time at immigration with one line processing everyone.

I've seen the ranong run take 14 hours, with all the mad-dashing. 11-12 hours is on a good day, where everything goes right and all of the pickups are in the same area.

Going to the malaysian border makes no sense, 20hrs vs 6-8hrs for ranong.

It made a lot of sense to my friend who loves to save a baht.

Also if you plan ahead its only 600-800 baht + a little bit of fees for tickets to singapore(jetstar/tigerairways)

SG's airport is amazing and spending a fullday there is quite easy (and tasty: Carl's jr)

Was that one-way prices? Where did you buy your plane ticket?

This may be of particular interest to anyone who thinks they may be charged for more voice minutes than they normally use. My bill for the myClick 590 unlimited plan is supposed to be 631 baht every month, including vat. No problems at all until the June 2012 billing cycle. I noticed the bill was over 30 baht higher. Now the regular bill only summarized the charges in groups....no call details. I saw I had been charged voice minutes.

I only use the My by Cat sim for either internet or to make calls to the call center: 1322 or 024012222. Those two contact center numbers (there may be others) are supposed to be free when using any cat sim card to place the call. I verified this via phone several times with different representatives.

Anyway, I call the contact center to mention that I have a problem with the voice call charges on my bill and my first step is to request call details. Again they admit that calls to the call center from cat sim are free. But to be sure, you must send email to contactcenter at cattelecom.com with the full name on the account and what month you are requesting the call details for. Attach a copy of your passport photo page and sign the copy at the bottom. (just like you would for opening an account or just about anything official in thailand). I suppose you'd have to go to the cat shop or go to an internet cafe or fujifilm with a scanner if you do not have one. It's a good idea to send the email before or during the call and ask the representative to verify they receive the email. They will also take your email and phone # for contact. With the call details in hand, you can then submit a complaint. We'll get to that in a second.

Then once they receive the email, you must wait two weeks to receive the call details (don't ask why) What actually happens is that the 2 weeks appear to be a waiting period. You must then call again and they will say they will send the details. At that point they should....but if it is like me you had to wait almost another 2 weeks before the details are sent.

Got the call details, which is a pdf with several pages of all times you have used the sim card to connect to a cat service in some way. So for those who leave their modem on 24/7, there will be many pages of connection to an ip address with 1 hour increments. my mifi device automatically shuts off if no devices are connected for 15 minutes. Surprisingly, no MB count is provided, only time count. To save some time, use the search feature and search for 'voice' to skip to all the occurrences of voice calls.

I discovered that the calls to 1322 are showing up as 322 on the call details; they leave off the 1 for some reason. The billing system for the myCat sim is flagging these calls as not being free (don't ask why), so you get charged the normal per minute rate.

So I reply to email detailing the date/time of the calls and the error in the billing system. You may want to prepare a fresh email at this stage, i replied to have continuity. BTW, as now you are making a new request, you need to send in a copy of your passport signed again to verify that you are the same person you were from the same email address. Always follow up with a phone call, requesting review via phone, sending the email either before or during the call. The representative said they'll look at it next month some time (3 weeks?). 'Do I get a phone call when the review is complete'......'no you must call back the contact center'.

'The same billing error may still occur in the future if the billing problem is not fixed? I really want a supervisor to contact me back about this'.....'Sir, you can request call details by sending email to ......[see above]. Can I help you anything else Sir?'

Normally cat is really good at calling back people, but that may only apply to service-related issues. This billing thing no one seems very interested without me having to follow up . The hoops I'm jumping through are a bit absurd for what appears to be a clear billing error somewhere in their automated billing system calculations . They need to whitelist 322 (1322) as a free call. We'll see what happens in 3 weeks. Has anyone else experienced a similar billing issue?

for those wanting to save money, consider doing a Malaysian hop instead. Take a coach bus from Phuket Town to Hat Yai. Then take a minibus from Hat Yai to the Malaysian border (forgot name). Stamp out of thailand, walk over the bridge, and stamp in.....walk around the turnstyle and stamp out of malaysia (free for most passports). The mini-van should wait for you, or maybe you have to take a new minivan; I'm not sure. But 800-950 baht including taking the public bus into phuket town from Patong or so and takes about 16-20 hours.. You'd probably want to take a scooter to Phuket town.

I'm surprised there isn't a direct visa run service to Malaysian border from phuket as an alternative to Ranong. Isn't a direct one way from Phuket to Penang Malaysia 700-800 baht?

Honestly, those visa run companies are making a killing. 1200-1500 baht per head? 860-ish-1160ish after subtracting $10 bill for Myanmar visa.

I'm glad the mad dash is much shorter from Chumphon Town. They actually have two visa runs daily and are about 7 hours round trip.

Good ideas, but its not worth the drive... Its so far and long and renting a car is not cheap then fuel, it all adds up! I think we will just have to go to KL again next time.. for the bit extra its kind of worth it.. and maybe get 2 days over there in a cheap hotel (I know what your thinking its hard to find a cheap hotel in KL LOL)

There is a reason why the minivans for the visa run drive the way they do.....TIME. You cannot casually drive and expect to only do the entire trip in 12 hours. If you go it alone and go early enough... maybe.

Good for those people who use the 9 seater visa run van. Sometimes there are 11-12 seats.....not the most comfortable....but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Detailed report. Actually, I think it is worth saying that in your cheap way you boarded a long tail boat (and God knows what it means during rough sea and rain pouring down) while a visa run company uses a ferry boat

That made me laugh. Way back in my early days here my first Burma visa run was by private long tail cos I did not know about the Andaman Club. Took my then girl friend and it rained hard and was rough, scared the shit out of both of us (running out of petrol was not good) and we were soaked to the skin. Vowed never to use long tail again.

Yep....better to purchase the Andaman ferry boat for 300 baht. I'm not sure if you are a straggler if they will let you stay over until they come back a second time to do some shopping. Obviously if you are tied to the visa run minivans, you are off to get stamp and then back on the boat again for the return. Now that I think about it, the longtail boat could be quite dangerous in the slightest rough water. Very few people use the life vests or floatation devices; the Andaman ferry has floatation devices and the very last time i did a visa run, I slipped one over my arm to honor my Dad's wishes.

.........

.... Samui is not that small a place and many companies competing for business....AIS 3BB or what ever , just does not have a good signal, for my home and frankly True's 3G is not as good as the CAT dongle I've had for 2.5 years plus......

I thought I had this sorted this morning, used every different number on and in the dongle and the box... (it said "success" in set up) ..... but when my friend came down we still had no joy in connecting via Wifi.......

So, I think i will head down to the Ibeats shop tomorrow and have the tech guy there have a go, he's pretty good and can talk to True assistance if needed, in Thai .... cos I am givin' up trying...

Thanks for everyone's attempt to help.

I will post whether I get some JOY!

I'm sorry about those on Samui. Maybe Tot Wi-Net for home-based connection is viable?

Not sure how long ago the dongle was purchased....have you tried exchanging for a different model or getting a refund? It could be defective unit. I actually took a risk and purchased an unbranded ZTE MF-62 from total it online . But in person, the features need to be working before i leave the store.

I always make photocopy (and usually enlarge 125%) of the thermal receipts of major purchase as they fade quickly.

I can understand the whole issue with customer service sometimes. CAT was supposed to send a detailed billing statement to me 2 weeks ago.....nothing. They charged me for call center calls that should be free. And the detailed bill would show the calls made that billing month. They are normally excellent with followup calls. But not this time. Zero follow-through.