Money Disappearing From Ais Account ?

[watutsi]

I started a Volume Smart Phone Package with AIS about 3 weeks ago. After i had paid for the package and topped up my sim i had a balance of about 700 baht still in my account.As this was all new to me i kept a very close watch on everything i was doing with my new phone.Very quickly i noticed that money was leaving my balance at an enormous rate, at first i thought i had misunderstood the package ,but soon came to the conclusion something was not right

.I went into the AIS offices at Central World, and they also saw that there was something amiss as my balance was now zero. They said it would take a few days to check. OK that was last week,i have just returned from AIS, their explanation was it was something called "Content Partner" which is in some way connected to AIS, they said PROBABLY i was sent an sms in Thai offering a free trial of something and if i didn't want it i had to CANCEL it or it would very quickly become very expensive. I have since checked into my account and sure enough something called MEntertainment has been bombarding me with mms's at a cost of about 40+ baht every day for about 2 weeks.Although i am unaware of ever receiving whatever content they were sending.

The people at AIS were very helpful and my full balance has been returned but i'm still scratching my head that i had to opt out of something i didn't want .Not reading Thai of course does not help but i have been ignoring sms's in Thai for the last few years without any problems,and i can not think of a good reason why this form of " selling" is being forced on their customers other than to rip them off.So pay more attention to all these sms's in Thai.

[nikster]

Hmm.. I just received a "Privilege4U" MMS on True. Never signed up for that, at least not knowingly. I don't even know what it's offering. Oh wait, 18 baht off CP Sausages. Wow! What an offer! Who could resist...

I sure hope I am not paying for that crap...

[lomatopo]

FWIW, you can register for Call Detail records, from within the eService platform, and then be able to view all debits/credits/calls etc. I assume any special service deductions would show up. Some have reported that the registration process is challenging, there was a thread on it recently here.

I use Google Translate, on an Android smartphone, which has a 1-button "SMS Translate" function, to interpret all SMSes in Thai. Generally SMSes service offers require proactive registration with a service code, and I've never heard of any where you are required to opt out.

It would be nice to get more detail on the exact offering which may have caused problems for you,

"...it was something called "Content Partner" which is in some way connected to AIS, they said PROBABLY i was sent an sms in Thai offering a free trial of something and if i didn't want it i had to CANCEL it or it would very quickly become very expensive. "

as this sounds a bit unbelievable. But I think we all understand the communications issues here.

"I have since checked into my account and sure enough something called MEntertainment has been bombarding me with mms's at a cost of about 40+ baht every day for about 2 weeks.Although i am unaware of ever receiving whatever content they were sending."

Generally one does not pay for received MMSes, other than for the data connection time/volume. How did you arrive at the 40 baht figure?

Finally, you can request that your number be removed from any 3ed part promotional SMSes. This has worked for many in the past, but sometimes they start back up again after a few months. I have not received any promotional SMSes from One-2-Call in well over a year. Truemove was less accommodating on this front, and DTAC/Happy has been good: I have not received any 3rd party promotional SMSes from them since signing up ~ 7 weeks ago.

Edited September 30, 2011 by lomatopo

[watutsi]

FWIW, you can register for Call Detail records, from within the eService platform, and then be able to view all debits/credits/calls etc. I assume any special service deductions would show up. Some have reported that the registration process is challenging, there was a thread on it recently here.

I use Google Translate, on an Android smartphone, which has a 1-button "SMS Translate" function, to interpret all SMSes in Thai. Generally SMSes service offers require proactive registration with a service code, and I've never heard of any where you are required to opt out.

It would be nice to get more detail on the exact offering which may have caused problems for you,

"...it was something called "Content Partner" which is in some way connected to AIS, they said PROBABLY i was sent an sms in Thai offering a free trial of something and if i didn't want it i had to CANCEL it or it would very quickly become very expensive. "

as this sounds a bit unbelievable. But I think we all understand the communications issues here.

"I have since checked into my account and sure enough something called MEntertainment has been bombarding me with mms's at a cost of about 40+ baht every day for about 2 weeks.Although i am unaware of ever receiving whatever content they were sending."

Generally one does not pay for received MMSes, other than for the data connection time/volume. How did you arrive at the 40 baht figure?

Finally, you can request that your number be removed from any 3ed part promotional SMSes. This has worked for many in the past, but sometimes they start back up again after a few months. I have not received any promotional SMSes from One-2-Call in well over a year. Truemove was less accommodating on this front, and DTAC/Happy has been good: I have not received any 3rd party promotional SMSes from them since signing up ~ 7 weeks ago.

As i said ,i was scratching my head as i found the explanation a bit unlikely, but it had the atmosphere of saving face, and they were very vague about how it could have happened when i kept asking them,that's why i stressed they used the word "probably"

I now have access to my account details and the charges which started the day after i started my package are listed like this, under MMS'S

mEntertainment - 1 unit - 12.84 baht

they would send 3 every day , all within a 30 minute period, as i've already said i was unaware of receiving anything that i may have been being charged for, but they cleared out about 700 baht in over 2 weeks. I am very careful about opening up or clicking on things i don't understand, so i really i am still unclear how this happened, other than a version of their explanation.I don't think they would have so readily replaced my balance unless the blame lay somewhere in their court.

[NanLaew]

More likely you have data connectivity enabled on your smartphone and you don't have a data package so you are getting raped on that? It happened to me when I first turned on data on the old Nokia and again when I fired up the new android smartphone. Once you subscribe to a data package, it reverts to decent data rates but you do need to watch that you don't go over your data allowance as that will trigger the high charges again.

Edited October 1, 2011 by NanLaew

[bungalowbob]

If it was an SMS that took your cash simply call 1175 and go through the automated options to stop all promo messages.

[infernalman7]

If you read on any popular Thai forums related to cellphones, there are SO MANY threads about these so-called "content partners". Problems are with AIS and DTAC.