New Ais Scam ?

[Butterfly]

I am sure this has been posted before, maybe not, but here is the story.

My AIS mobile had 300 baht as of July. I didn't use it for like 3 months, and it was off with SIM removed. I turned it back on, and big surprise: 2 bath left

so I call AIS service center, explain the situation, and get this: they claimed that I have received many many SMS in September, commercial SMS, and therefore I was charged for it !!! ALLO??? I never got those SMS, the mobile was off, how could I have been charged for it even when the mobile is off.

Mr Toxin is a richer man

What kind of scam is that ? anyone else ?

[Highwayman]

Were the messages ones that you had signed up for, e.g. football scores, news alerts, that sort of SMS? If so then you will get charged for them unless you cancel them. They will say they sent them as requested, and it's not their fault you didn't have your phone on to receive them.

It's like having the newspaper delivered. You can go on vacation but if you don't cancel the delivery service you are still going to be charged, even though you may have never read them.

[sbk]

Nope, probably an AIS scam. My husband has a monthly account with them and they like to send him an SMS thanking him for paying his bill (3 baht), they like to SMS him new promotions (3baht)

[Crushdepth]

and they like to send him an SMS thanking him for paying his bill (3 baht)

That's hilarious ! And if you phone the call centre to complain guess what...you pay

[Highwayman]

sbk, you sure about that? My wife has a 500 baht per month plan with AIS and has never received a message to say thanks for paying, let alone being charged for receiving an SMS other than some daily horoscope message she used to get. Most months there isn't any charge on her bill at all for SMS as she seldom uses it.

Then again there are so many different promotions that it's hard to compare charges. She changed her plan several times before her current plan, resulting in a saving of around 500 baht per month as she was paying for stuff she hardly used.

[Phil Conners]

You don't pay 3 bath for the payment confirmation and promotional messages. They're still spam of course and you can call AIS helpdesk (1175) and tell them to stop it (you might have to press a little, in a friendly way of course, TIT)

[Longsands]

If I pay at Telewiz, they don't send me an SMS 'thank you', but if I pay at a bank they do. I'm glad that they do this as in the past, on more than one occassion, the banks have credited DTAC instead of AIS, resulting in me being cut off.

[Crushdepth]

At least they gave it to a phone company Call me a cynic but I've never had the courage to let anyone automatically deduct from my bank account in Thailand !

(Not that they would stand to gain much by it

[Darth Bangkok]

You don't pay 3 bath for the payment confirmation and promotional messages. They're still spam of course and you can call AIS helpdesk (1175) and tell them to stop it (you might have to press a little, in a friendly way of course, TIT)

this is exactly why I quit AIS. they wouldn't stop sending me the promotional SMSs. Four calls to the call center didn't help. they either said "ok its done" or had me call another number. the last time, they said it would take a month to gfo into effect. All the call center does is basically cry that they can't do anything. They wouldn't let me cancel over the phone so I ahd to take a morning off from work to go down to one of their places and cancel.

[Phil Conners]

this is exactly why I quit AIS.  they wouldn't stop sending me the promotional SMSs.    Four calls to the call center didn't help.  they either said "ok its done"  or had me call another number.  the last time, they said it would take a month to gfo into effect.  All the call center does is basically cry that they can't do anything.  They wouldn't let me cancel over the phone so I ahd to take a morning off from work to go down to one of their places and cancel.

I can only tell you my experience, which was to call AIS helpdesk after the first promotional SMS message they sent me and ask them to stop it. This is about a year ago and I haven't received any since then.

Of course you need to use your imagination. I told them I am a doctor and need to keep the SMS line free for emergency messages ... I don't know if they believed it but it seems to have worked

[Butterfly]

Were the messages ones that you had signed up for, e.g. football scores, news alerts, that sort of SMS? If so then you will get charged for them unless you cancel them. They will say they sent them as requested, and it's not their fault you didn't have your phone on to receive them.

It's like having the newspaper delivered. You can go on vacation but if you don't cancel the delivery service you are still going to be charged, even though you may have never read them.

Nope, never subscribed to anything.

Maybe someone signed me up over the net, as a joke, but I doubt it, I keep that number private.

It's only 300 baht, but I think the principle is dangerous. It's like having people subscribing to dozens of newspaper for you and then you are presented with the bills for thousands of baht. Not very nice.

I will leave that number expire, and get a new Orange number instead. I had too many mobiles anyhow, I need to cut down on all those phone numbers.