Lost sim card

[SCARLETIBIS1]

My New Year's resolution was to stop complaining about anything Thai. Well, that came to a screaching halt yeserday. I had just returned from a two month trip out of Thailand. Upon my return I noticed I had lost my phone sim card. My phone number has been the same one for many, many years. I usually just go to the AIS phone store near the night bazaar and refill my phone and internet once a month.

Well, when I went to the store it was closed and had been moved. So I went to the Telewiz shop in Kad Suan Keaw. There was a line of about a dozen people so I simply asked the counter girl if I could get a new sim card there. She said sure just take a ticket and get in line. No problem. I took my ticket and waited 45 minutes in line. When I got to the agent and explained I lost my card and simply needed a new one she told me that no can do that I have to go to the police station and make a report if I want to keep my old phone number. I was incredulous. First of all I had waited 45 minutes in line AFTER being told I could get a new sim card there and then when I asked why in the world would I need to go to the police station I was told that it was a new law this year. Apparently, someone had used a stolen phone down south to set off a bomb. Now, what that has to do with anything I have no idea.

If you want to set off a bomb you don't have to steal someone's phone. And last time I looked you can go to any phone store and buy a sim card with no ID.

But it gets worse. So I drive to the police station by the river and explain to the cops what happened and of course I am told to go buy a new sim card. I wind up talking to half a dozen cops who have no clue <deleted> my problem is. Finally, I get a cop who informs me that I have to go to the police station on Walking Street. That one is just for traffic. Apparently, they aren't trained to take reports. Making a report is that you lost your phone takes years of experience to learn how to do.

It would have been nice if the phone company told me which police station I needed to go to but hey... So I go to the police station and I am instructed to talk with a tourist policeman who is Thai. I explain my problem. Of course the first thing they ask for is your passport which I just figured I would need and brought it. Why, I do not know. Then he asks me where did I lose the sim card? I said if I knew where I lost it I wouldn't be there. I would know where it was. I said I don't know for sure which country I lost it in. But I think maybe Hong Kong the first place I visited. He says if I lost it there I could not get a new sim card with my old phone number. So I said whoops, I meant I lost it in Thailand. So then he asks me where in Thailand? I'm getting the drift that my answers are meaningless but I need to give him something. So I said the parking lot of my apartment. Then he asks me what time did I lose it? I said am. Then he wants to know exactly what day did I lost it? So I gave him a date.

It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. So then we go to the officer in charge. The tourist policeman explains to the cop what the problem is. The cop then proceeds to check out my sunglasses and then my phone. We exchange some bantering. He was cool. He pulls out a standard report form and makes the original plus 3 copies. I had no idea what it said but it was only one sentence long. I pay him baht.

Oh, I forgot. After I got done answering all the stupid questions the tourist policeman asked me I asked him what the purpose of all the questions were. His response was that they just needed to verify that I had really lost the phone. Of course, if I hadn't lost the f... phone I would be there in the first place but I guess that is beyond their logic quotient.

So I go back to the phone company and hand them the report. I asked the girl what it said. I quote, "Kun ... reports his phone was lost with the phone number. That's it. NOTHING ELSE. So I pay the girl for topping off the phone and paying for internet service. She then says you are all done here. I kindly remind her that she hasn't given me the new phone card yet. LOL

This has to be for me that absolute most asinine, ridiuclous example yet of the Land Of Senselessness.

The question is does anyone out there have a clue why a police report is necessary?

[outstripp11]

This is probably related to some kind of international antiterrorism agreement. It has long been impossible to get a cell phone in Japan without providing all kinds of ID.

[eyecatcher]

That was a story and half about nothing......I have grown a beard since I read the first line.

The thing to do is buy a new sim card and learn from your carelessness...I bet the cops we're p1ssing themselves when you turned up.

[2020]

That was a story and half about nothing......I have grown a beard since I read the first line.

The thing to do is buy a new sim card and learn from your carelessness...I bet the cops we're p1ssing themselves when you turned up.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........agreed..........

[Suradit69]

Did you really think you could just pitch up at the phone company, say you lost a sim card with phone number xxx and they'd hand you over a new one with that number?

The phone company wasn't expecting some secret message from the police, just something that showed you claimed it was stolen or lost and that the police accepted the claim. If it turns out that you used deception to get someone else's number fraudulently, then you'd be charged with making a false claim to the police. The phone company can't be blamed and they would have proof you lied to the police.

It was you who lost the thing. Blaming everyone else for the inconvenience it caused you is pretty lame.