Porting Fee from mPay? Anyone else get one of these?

[qdinthailand]

Today in the mail, I received 2 pieces from mPay indicating a total amount of 58.00 baht. I can't tell if this is due, or a receipt for something I paid.

It says in English:

"Porting Fee (Paid by 3G Mobile Network Operator) 27.10 + 1.90 VAT = 29.00

This is for porting in to AIS 3G2100 network."

Now, from searching here on TV, mPay appears to be an AIS company.

So is this legit? A charge from an AIS subsidiary/affiliate company of AIS for upgrading to the 3G2100 network?

Is this a bill, or just a receipt, for something I already paid for, unbeknown to me?

Just another way for AIS to nickel and dime us to death?

[lomatopo]

The normal MNP fee is 99 baht.

My guess is that, for whatever reason - perhaps at your request - you were ported out of AIS, and ported in to AWN, the new AIS/2100 MHz/3G subsidiary. You may have been charged 29 baht for this service.

Are you a post-paid AIS customer? Did you request a change to 2100 MHz? Do you have two SIMs? Are there any due dates on the item(s)?

Again, just guessing here, but maybe these are notifications of a service, which might be included on your next bill? Obviously you could ring them on 1175 to get details.

[qdinthailand]

Yes, we have two cell phones - each piece of mail had the phone numbers on them. We did request to be 'switched' to 2100Mhz, but that switch happened around June 15.

We are post-paid customers. The invoices are mostly in Thai - some English where they probably don't have equivalent Thai words (like 'Porting Fee'). Both were dated 18 July, but I don't see any due date. They may indeed be notification of service, not invoices (hence, no stated due date).

My Thai wife (grad of Payap Univ.) does not understand what these are - a common malady - which is why I turned to TV for help in figuring out what these are.

My problem - why is MPay involved. They are an e-payment processing service, is me understanding. And a 'subsidiary' or something of AIS. Why doesn't AIS just put it on the damn bill, instead of having this thing sent in the mail.

This seems to me to be another way to extract a bit more revenue for a service already rendered by AIS. Who's pocket is this going into. (I understand, 60 baht is not a lot - but a few hundred thousand phone switches @ 30baht each - damn, some serious retirement jing).

[lomatopo]

Again these are just my guesses, obviously contacting AIS directly might yield the exact answers you require.

mPay may be the subsidiary which AIS chose to facilitate the transaction between AIS and AWN? For post-paid customers any porting fees would presumably show up on a subsequent bill, hopefully with an mPay/Porting Fee reference. For pre-paid customers mPay would deduct the 29 baht fee from the remaining pre-paid balance.

The porting fees typically go to the clearinghouse established by the NBTC and the service providers to cover their costs.

The NBTC reduced the MNP porting fee from 99 baht to 29 baht on/about May 21, 2013, perhaps to make the changeover of ~ 17 million TrueMove subscribers less financially impacting?