There are many new phones for sale, both in shops and on Facebook for very low prices that are tied to AIS/DTAC/TRUE sign-up promotions, requiring a year long contract.

Does anybody know if there is a workaround to by-pass the sign-up or is the network baked-in and unchangeable?

 

A friend wants to buy a phone for her son and is tempted by cheap deals on FB but from what I see, they are mostly promo phones and the year long contracts are B600/Mo and up. Hardly a bargain.

Example?

 

There are many many many different sorts of promtions here.

 

If you could narrow it down a bit you might get some informative responses?

 

If referring to direct from provider, discounted handsets tied to post-paid plans, it's pretty easy to do the math. Normally these only save a few hundred baht, and normally tie you into a higher-tiered plan than you might need.

 

Understanding one's usage patterns (voice minutes used, mobile dtata used) helps in evaluations.

 

 

14 hours ago, dddave said:

Hardly a bargain.

Yup. These deals never seem to save any money overall. In fact, most people generally end up paying an additional month at the end because they don't cancel or change their contract in time.

Add in the hassle of then having to jump through hoops to get your phoned unlocked for use on other networks, it simply isn't worth it.

5 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

 

There are many many many different sorts of promtions here.

 

If you could narrow it down a bit you might get some informative responses?

No particular promotion I can point to.  She's looking at "New" phones listed on FB Marketplace for very low prices, sort of in the "too good to be true" area..  The photos of the phones usually show tags from one of the providers and the text usually alludes to signing up for a plan.  I think I've convinced her it's not worth it, that as "Poet" points out, one ends up paying more in the long run.

3 hours ago, dddave said:

She's looking at "New" phones listed on FB Marketplace for very low prices, sort of in the "too good to be true" area.. 

Link?

 

Hard to say much without any idea what "she's" looking at?

 

Most of the service provider promotions discount the handset up to 50%, on a sliding scale based on increasing cost of post paid plans. Sometimes there is a co-pay.

 

 

Those "deals" are a big con. They knock off say 5000 from the LIST price of the phone which you could probably get anyway by buying from say Lazada. Then you have to pay 6000-12000 a year for a contract.