Options If A Company's Product Is Not As Promised?

[bonobo]

What happens in Thailand if you are sold a bill of goods that the company cannot make good on?

In this particular case, I want a better internet provider and am considering a company that promises a true 7 MB upload and download. However, on some Thai websites, some people complain that it works, but intermittently and when it goes down, service is poor.

I am willing to give it a go for a month to see if it works. I told them that if they deliver as promised, all will be well. But if they can't deliver, then I will not want the remaining 11 months. I was told that if I cancel, I will go on some sort of blacklist and they will pursue legal avenues to get me to pay the remaining 11 months whether I have their service or not.

I know this isn't the US, but there, if an American company cannot deliver the contracted services, they cannot force payment for the remainder of a contract. I would assume there is some sort of similar protection here in Thailand, but I simply do not know.

[mrtoad]

The internet provision in Thailand is awful in terms of service, and getting what you are paying for. I don't think any of the companies really give a stuff about delivering on their promises.

[GottaGo]

There may be in theory, in practice it probably isn't worth your while to pursue it unless you enjoy the process and have a lot of free time on your hands.

Just buy your own equipment and sign up month by month or per-MB until you get an idea of the quality of service.

Or sign up at the lowest-cost option, then ask if you can upgrade "temporarily" later on?

In any case the blacklist threat isn't that big a deal in reality, can always get the service one way or another later on.

In reality "good enough" has to be good enough, they aren't actually guaranteeing anything if you look at the fine print, too many variables and bottlenecks at the various connection points.

5am weekdays will always be best bandwidth times, after school and weekend days will always be slower, no provider can wave a magic wand and change those realities.

I've been happy with True myself, since they used to be Asia Infonet 14 years ago.

[bonobo]

There may be in theory, in practice it probably isn't worth your while to pursue it unless you enjoy the process and have a lot of free time on your hands.

Just buy your own equipment and sign up month by month or per-MB until you get an idea of the quality of service.

Or sign up at the lowest-cost option, then ask if you can upgrade "temporarily" later on?

In any case the blacklist threat isn't that big a deal in reality, can always get the service one way or another later on.

In reality "good enough" has to be good enough, they aren't actually guaranteeing anything if you look at the fine print, too many variables and bottlenecks at the various connection points.

5am weekdays will always be best bandwidth times, after school and weekend days will always be slower, no provider can wave a magic wand and change those realities.

I've been happy with True myself, since they used to be Asia Infonet 14 years ago.

I would keep True if they serviced this area. But I am stuck with ToT or AIS' system. ToT promises 1 MB upload, but it never reaches that despite the fact that there are very few users here and DCs are rampant. I wanted to try the AIS offering, and they swear by the upload speed due to the different technology, but reports on the internet indicate their service is poor. I don't know if it is true, but I have heard that people might have no service for three days sometimes

[bangkokstick]

It's so cheap anyway, why not just taking every connection available and expect that they will work well ?

As you said, this is Thailand and it's even crazy to expect having the best quality in anything or customer service, rights, etc...

[meatboy]

not fit for purpose,some light years away,pay your money and take a chance.

[wamberal]

Amusing idea. What next? A consumers' rights tribunal? Hah, hah.

[rookball]

look at your contract again. there are no sane isp that truly promise you the subscription speed. with some exceptions in dedicated line

[chrisinth]

You have to understand your bytes & bits on these promises/guarantees from the providers. Theoretical figures rather than practical.

IMHO, through experience from 1997 to date, no ISP in Thailand can or will provide advertised service 100% of the time. It is an impossible claim and should be taken as best possible case, and not average service.

False advertising? Tough one................

[lomatopo]

Agree it is best to review the terms and conditions of the contract you entered into to verify acceptable performance, escalation of issues and cancellation terms.

In most cases ISPs can guarantee bandwidth/throughput from your premises to their local POP. After that it is not possible to make guarantees, in case that wasn't inherently obvious.

What is the access technology? DSL? Who is the service provider?

There have been some threads with mention of various regulatory and consumer advocate quasi-governmental agencies, but I'm too lazy to search for them,

[bonobo]

You have to understand your bytes & bits on these promises/guarantees from the providers. Theoretical figures rather than practical.

IMHO, through experience from 1997 to date, no ISP in Thailand can or will provide advertised service 100% of the time. It is an impossible claim and should be taken as best possible case, and not average service.

False advertising? Tough one................

I understand that the advertised rates are never reached. However, when you are paying for a 1 MB upload and you get 200 KB at best, even at 3:00 AM, or you get DC'd four or five times an hour, that, in my opinion, is not satisfactory.

With True, I regularly hit 60-70% of what was on my contract, and on the rare times I lost connectivity, their service department was readily reachable.

If I am to pay 1500 baht for a new service, but it goes down for three days at a time, no, I don't think that is acceptable, and if that in fact happened, I would stop paying for the service. My question is not on the internet provider or on upload or download speeds, but rather if a service is not satisfactory, for whatever reason, is there a recourse for cancelling a contract.

Make this a cell phone contract instead. If you cannot get connectivity, would you be able to cancel the contract? Or a water service. If they kept failing to make deliveries on time, could you cancel that?

I've been told about the infamous "blacklist." GottGo responded that the list isn't that much of a thing, so I am tempted to just try the service, and if it is not satisfactory, just live with the blacklisting.

[Jasun]

What they quote is the potential upload and download speeds. There are a lot of factors that can bring those speeds down - things you'll struggle to hold your provider accountable for.

[pattayadingo]

If you sign the contract and do not get what is promised, they will no doubt cite certain problems and different problems each time.

I very much doubt you will ever get what is offered on a regular basis. Half the time here in Thailand you cannot even get a decent response from companies.

Expect to be put on their blacklist for non payment of the contract and next time you try to use the company they will expect full payment left on the contract before even considering you for a new one.

Remember where you are. The smiles hide a lot of lies and deceit. Never take anything at face value.

[chrisinth]

You have to understand your bytes & bits on these promises/guarantees from the providers. Theoretical figures rather than practical.

IMHO, through experience from 1997 to date, no ISP in Thailand can or will provide advertised service 100% of the time. It is an impossible claim and should be taken as best possible case, and not average service.

False advertising? Tough one................

I understand that the advertised rates are never reached. However, when you are paying for a 1 MB upload and you get 200 KB at best, even at 3:00 AM, or you get DC'd four or five times an hour, that, in my opinion, is not satisfactory.

With True, I regularly hit 60-70% of what was on my contract, and on the rare times I lost connectivity, their service department was readily reachable.

If I am to pay 1500 baht for a new service, but it goes down for three days at a time, no, I don't think that is acceptable, and if that in fact happened, I would stop paying for the service. My question is not on the internet provider or on upload or download speeds, but rather if a service is not satisfactory, for whatever reason, is there a recourse for cancelling a contract.

Make this a cell phone contract instead. If you cannot get connectivity, would you be able to cancel the contract? Or a water service. If they kept failing to make deliveries on time, could you cancel that?

I've been told about the infamous "blacklist." GottGo responded that the list isn't that much of a thing, so I am tempted to just try the service, and if it is not satisfactory, just live with the blacklisting.

Understand where you are coming from! From my post above, be clear about your bytes and bits................

Normally, ISPs advertise there connection speeds (up & down) in megabits and not megabytes.

There are 8 bits in a byte, so for your advertised 1 MB upload, if the MB stands for megabits, that would equate to 128 kilobytes per second.

Of course, if it is advertised in upper case, ie, MB, then that should be megabytes. The correct acronym you should see for megabytes is MBps (megabytes per second)

For megabits, the acronym is Mbps (megabits per second).

Confusing or what?................

[gavin310]

Yeah, what chrisinth said. You're getting the correct upload speed. Being disconnected 4 or 5 times a day isn't correct, but neither is your electricity going out and that's somewhat common here.

I've been using TOT for about a year and 6 months in two different homes. At my first home I lived way out on a rural farm an had a tall antennae thing. The Internet was awesome. I moved away for a while and came back about 6 months later and the Internet was crap. If there was ANY wind, even a gentle breeze, I would be disconnected. They techs said it was the coconut tree farms blocking the signal.

I recently moved to a new house and the Internet was horrible. I'd drop about 50% of packets sometimes which made the Internet basically unusable. I called many times, but with my limited Thai language ability and their limited English ability we didn't get further than them giving me the number for the local office. And this isn't a tourist town so they can't speak English at the local office. One guy can speak a bit. Anyway, I went in and got them to agree to come out the next day. They didn't show so I thought maybe there was a misunderstanding in the day, so I waited two more days. I went back and he told me to bring my router in. I knew that wasn't the problem but I needed Internet and wanted to be friendly and let them do their routine. I brought the router in, if was fine, so he said maybe he can send someone out if the rain stops. So I told him, very politely, that I need to cancel and switch to CAT because I have too many problems with TOT. He said he will send someone that day. Someone else called me later and said it appears to be working, which it was at the time, and said if I had problems again to call them. Obviously this was irritating, but I was polite and said OK and planned on canceling it in the morning. Next morning I saw my landlady and told her everything, so she went into TOT and the next day she told me they fixed something on the street and it should work now. And it does.

Anyway, long story so sorry, but the point is be polite, be persistent, don't get frustrated, and say you'll need to cancel their service if they can't fix it. I've asked many thai people and they don't understand why I feel if I don't have Internet, I shouldn't pay. That's beyond me, but that's the mindset and you just need to go in person and make them deal with your problem.

[sunlong]

Give them a test run at the cheapest package rate, with you buying the equipment so you don't have to lock into a long-term contract.

[gavin310]

Give them a test run at the cheapest package rate, with you buying the equipment so you don't have to lock into a long-term contract.

Still gotta be careful about that. I was a bit naive when I first signed up for my TOT account. They didn't mention anything about a contract. I bought my router, modem, and antenna, and it still turned out they got me into a 1 year contract. Everything written down was in Thai so I had no idea. No matter what you think is happening, make sure to confirm you're not in a contract.

[sunlong]

Still gotta be careful about that. I was a bit naive when I first signed up for my TOT account. They didn't mention anything about a contract. I bought my router, modem, and antenna, and it still turned out they got me into a 1 year contract. Everything written down was in Thai so I had no idea. No matter what you think is happening, make sure to confirm you're not in a contract.

If you start out on the cheapest package, and then want to also get the better service from the other provider, can just use the poorer connection dedicated to torrent downloads and as a backup, not a big expense.

[chrisinth]

Give them a test run at the cheapest package rate, with you buying the equipment so you don't have to lock into a long-term contract.

Yes, that is good advice, but I would ask for a trial period on the package you intend getting, most ISPs will do this for about a one week period.

However, it is not unknown for these trial packages to be 'enhanced' to help make up your mind. Very difficult to prove of course and no definite proof it is being done. For your own peace of mind, I would keep a daily record, maybe 3 times a day, of your actual upload/download speeds for comparison to your contract package.

At least it would be a form of documented proof if your speeds vary greatly between trial and contract packages.

[joeaverage]

It's so cheap anyway, why not just taking every connection available and expect that they will work well ?

As you said, this is Thailand and it's even crazy to expect having the best quality in anything or customer service, rights, etc...

while poorly worded, this is the best approach i have dfound a load balancing dual wan router and redundant internet connections from 2 different providers has worked very well for me in the past