A small "scam" of prepaid data packages?

[wn78]

I'm not aware of any way to set up an alert when your prepaid data package is soon to expire.  I do get the text when it's already expired, but by the time I catch it, 10-20 baht of my balance already eaten by pay per use data....  Same story with True, AIS, and Dtac...  I wonder how many billions of baht they rake up by not letting people set up advance expiration alerts...

[FritsSikkink]

Put an alert in your phone / agenda / note in the toilet yourself.

Don't blame others for a scam if you can't remember a date.

[pjmorton]

I have a similar problem with my old phone which I keep as a spare but seldom use. Found a very cheap monthly data plan and don't want anything more, but the company keeps supplementing it with unsolicited special short term deals. I can't read the fine print well enough to know what gives them the right to do this, but I have been to the shop several times to cancel, and try to bar them from doing it in the future.

[Bruno123]

6 hours ago, wn78 said:

I'm not aware of any way to set up an alert when your prepaid data package is soon to expire.  I do get the text when it's already expired, but by the time I catch it, 10-20 baht of my balance already eaten by pay per use data....  Same story with True, AIS, and Dtac...  I wonder how many billions of baht they rake up by not letting people set up advance expiration alerts...

It does sound as if you are blaming others for your own error. 

Though it is annoying.

What I find especially egregious is DTAC's policy on packs. You might think a day pack is supposed to last 24 hours, but if you buy a pack at ten minutes to midnight, you get just ten minutes for that day. Complete madness. 

They also used to offer an almost free 'always on' connection to prevent data leakage, Go Plearn, now discontinued. Allegedly there is an alternative within their App.

 

AIS sell 'always on' 64kbps and 128 kbps connections for around 30 baht per month. Useful enough for texting and preventing data leakage. Faster packs can be added as and when.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bruno123]

3 minutes ago, pjmorton said:

I have a similar problem with my old phone which I keep as a spare but seldom use. Found a very cheap monthly data plan and don't want anything more, but the company keeps supplementing it with unsolicited special short term deals. I can't read the fine print well enough to know what gives them the right to do this, but I have been to the shop several times to cancel, and try to bar them from doing it in the future.

Impossible. They cannot add a pack and charge you for it. They just send promotional messages.

 

What is the very cheap plan that you have found?

[chuang]

What nonsense...same old accusation..Scam again...

[treetops]

AIS seems to work OK on my package.  Sent two days before the package expired.

[wn78]

17 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Put an alert in your phone / agenda / note in the toilet yourself.

Don't blame others for a scam if you can't remember a date.

 

13 hours ago, chuang said:

What nonsense...same old accusation..Scam again...

555, putting scam in quotations not to sound too accusatory did not save me from the wrath of the Righteous Police here who consider it every citizen's sacred life duty to watch for their package expiration dates ????

 

The point is, with so many SMS notification capabilities and notifications in their mobile app they already have, it costs the providers nothing to add expiration alerts, or allow a setting to disable pay-per use... I bet they don't do it on purpose to fleece you off a few baht with expensive pay per use every time you don't renew in time.  Call it a scam or whatever, it's annoying to be taken advantage of like that.

 

Well, someone did provide a helpful suggestions, so this thread is not entirely in vain

[wn78]

13 hours ago, Bruno123 said:

AIS sell 'always on' 64kbps and 128 kbps connections for around 30 baht per month. Useful enough for texting and preventing data leakage. Faster packs can be added as and when.

This is a good approach, thanks!  I assume this additional package will kick in when the main one expires, to prevent "baht leakage" I was talking about

[peterfranks]

21 hours ago, wn78 said:

I wonder how many billions of baht they rake up by not letting people set up advance expiration alerts...

As far as I'm aware that is possible.

 

I have a True post paid sim for my daily usage, and a prepaid sim for other purposes.

 

I can extend it by 1 month, the day after the new cycle starts.

 

I can even add 2 times 180 days right after each other.

 

As I assume you have a smartphone, there are plenty of reminder apps available for free

[The Hammer2021]

14 hours ago, chuang said:

What nonsense...same old accusation..Scam again...

Yes there are a group of Thai bashers on this forum who see negativity everywhere  in Thailand. The best thing to do is challenge  them politely and report them. The constant libel and  slander is tiresome and new members think its normal. I get challenged  because I don't hate thais!

[Bruno123]

2 hours ago, wn78 said:

This is a good approach, thanks!  I assume this additional package will kick in when the main one expires, to prevent "baht leakage" I was talking about

Depends on when you apply each package and their duration.

https://m.ais.co.th/ul64kbps1Dais

https://m.ais.co.th/33BUL128kbps30dais

 

 

[FritsSikkink]

5 hours ago, wn78 said:

 

555, putting scam in quotations not to sound too accusatory did not save me from the wrath of the Righteous Police here who consider it every citizen's sacred life duty to watch for their package expiration dates ????

 

The point is, with so many SMS notification capabilities and notifications in their mobile app they already have, it costs the providers nothing to add expiration alerts, or allow a setting to disable pay-per use... I bet they don't do it on purpose to fleece you off a few baht with expensive pay per use every time you don't renew in time.  Call it a scam or whatever, it's annoying to be taken advantage of like that.

 

Well, someone did provide a helpful suggestions, so this thread is not entirely in vain

It is not a scam, you are just incapable of planning your phone payments.

[wn78]

23 hours ago, The Hammer2021 said:

Yes there are a group of Thai bashers on this forum who see negativity everywhere  in Thailand. The best thing to do is challenge  them politely and report them. The constant libel and  slander is tiresome and new members think its normal. I get challenged  because I don't hate thais!

Right now, I should be reporting you, and you should be politely apologizing to me for slandering me by insinuating I am some kind of "Thai basher". There was nothing Thai-hating in my post, ZERO.  Big business in all countries engage in questionable practices aimed to taking advantage of people and maximizing their profits.  Calling it out does not constitute hatred or libel towards Thais or any other people.  You and a few others here took a generally harmless topic and twisted it into a negatively charged and discriminatory confrontation.  I don't know if you are hyper sensitive with this kind of myopic view or pursuing some other agendas, whatever.  If you got nothing constructive to say on the topic, please go somewhere else to stir your negativity.  

[wn78]

On 8/25/2022 at 6:30 PM, FritsSikkink said:

It is not a scam, you are just incapable of planning your phone payments.

You are just incapable of understanding the subject of this discussion.  The point was a phone company that provides good service should send the expiration reminders automatically.

Also I never called it scam.  I called it "scam".  You are just incapable of understanding the meaning of quotation marks.

Cheers.

 

[transam]

Buy a wall calendar and mark it, like this one......????

 

 

 

 

 

[wn78]

On 8/25/2022 at 6:25 AM, treetops said:

AIS seems to work OK on my package.  Sent two days before the package expired.

Correct, for recurring packages they remind (because they want your next installment).  For non-recurring packages, they don't.

[wn78]

2 minutes ago, transam said:

Buy a wall calendar and mark it, like this one......????

 

 

 

 

 

Awesome idea.  Even better, I'll clip it to my shirt in front, so I can see the dates every time I look down to take a <deleted>.

[FritsSikkink]

22 hours ago, wn78 said:

You are just incapable of understanding the subject of this discussion.  The point was a phone company that provides good service should send the expiration reminders automatically.

Also I never called it scam.  I called it "scam".  You are just incapable of understanding the meaning of quotation marks.

Cheers.

 

You are incapable of doing your payments on time and blame others for it. The word scam shouldn't be in the headline at all. you also accused of making loads of money from it, which at the end if true is your own fault.

[fdsa]

local mobile providers play dirty - their websites' traffic is not free, and their websites are flooded with heavy images and other media elements, so when your data package finishes and you open a provider's website to login, top up and buy another package, they will charge you around 30 thb for all that media sh.t to load.

 

[JayClay]

On 8/25/2022 at 5:25 PM, treetops said:

AIS seems to work OK on my package.  Sent two days before the package expired.

That's a reoccurring package, not a 1-off package 

 

 

On 9/1/2022 at 12:15 PM, wn78 said:

Also I never called it scam.  I called it "scam".  You are just incapable of understanding the meaning of quotation marks.

Cheers.

 

So, you knew it wasn't a scam, but decided to use the word anyway in inverted commas. It seems that you only have yourself to blame for the responses you got.

 

If somebody called me an "idiot", or somebody called you "stupid", do you honestly think either of us would react differently just because of the quote marks around the word?

[wn78]

Yeah, keep on going folks, take the bait and have a blast talking about semantics of words, look for hidden insults, and make it a serious matter discovering the meaning of  "scam", whatever gives you kicks.  It's amusing.  In the meantime, a few people here did recognize this discussion is less of a rant and more of an opportunity to exchange solutions to the "baht leakage" problem.  The rest is just useless noise ????