Pattaya - AIS Cell Service - 8/2014

[Grin Grasser]

Cell phone or mobile usage can be useful in a foreign country.

Examples include emergency calls to police or a friend, confirming reservations, calling a taxi, etc.


SIM and Load.

To use your cell phone in Thailand if you have not set your home country's cell service to roaming or for use in other countries, you need a SIM card of a local Thai cell phone service company and you need "load".

Load is the prepaid purchase of a certain amount of credits for use of the Thai cell phone service.

Both SIM card and load can be purchased at a convenience store.

Local chains of convenience store include 7-Eleven and Family Mart. Some stores are opened 24-hour.

Frequently, a cell phone vendor or repair shop will sell a SIM card, but not load.

Two brands of SIM card were offered: AIS and True.

Not knowing whether one brand is better than the other, I selected AIS.

Cost for the AIS SIM card was 50 baht.

AIS SIM card probably has an expiration date, if not activated by a certain date. But, the packaging was written in Thai and the User Manual was mostly in Thai.

Unlike purchases of a year ago or two years ago, the SIM card came without any load.

Load can be purchased in various amounts. A convenience store clerk said that the lowest amount was 50 baht. I paid 50 baht and received a receipt written mostly in Thai -- which did not seem to indicate how to add the load to the SIM card.

User Manual stated in English: "To top up with Refill Card: Press * 1 2 0 * [ pin number ] # [ phone symbol or dial button ] ". [ Note that I added for readability the spaces between
the characters and numbers. ]

Also, the User Manual stated to check balance, press " * 1 2 1 [ phone symbol or dial button ], * 1 2 1 # [ phone symbol or dial button ] ".

However, only the latter code gave the balance.

The User Manual indicated that the network was 3G


ACTIVATION.

I opened my cell phone and inserted the AIS SIM card.

I powered on my cell phone. The cell screen showed AIS and then went to the usual cell phone's opening screen, which showed cell service connection and signal strength.

I pressed the code for adding load.

AIS service replied, activate first.

User Manual stated: "Press * 1 2 0 [ phone symbol or dial button ] and follow the instructions".

I pressed the code for activation.

AIS voice said to press 1 for English.

I pressed 1.

AIS replied that a credit of 5 baht would be added free.


ADDING LOAD.

As listed above, I pressed the code for adding load. For pin number, I keyed in a long string of numbers that was on my convenience store's cashier receipt.

Afterwards, a text or SMS was received indicating a load of 50 expiring in 60 days.


TEXT or SMS.

I sent a text and checked my balance.

A text cost 3 baht.

Several years ago, an expat using his cell phone called me at my hotel. We chatted about 20 minutes. A few days later, my hotel bill showed that the hotel charged me about $10 for my receiving the cell phone call.

So, using my own cell phone for 100 baht seemed better than using the hotel phone.


LOAD DISAPPEARED.

Two to four times a day, texts in Thai were received. The name of the sender was INNCLIP.

I have no idea was the Thai texts were about.

After a few days, I checked my load balance. About 15 bahts had disappeared.

I spoke to the hotel manager. She said that her load had disappeared too. She said that the cause was probably Innclip and to cancel Innclip, dial 1175.

Luckily, there was a tourist policeman sitting in the lobby watching sports on the big screen. I explained that I was a tourist, I did not read or speak Thai, and my AIS load was disappearing.

The policeman said, dial 1175.

I asked him if he could do for me, because I did not read or speak Thai. I passed my cell phone to him.

He dialed 1175. He listened and dialed again. This went on for about ten minutes. Finally, he seemed to listen to a recording. Then he asked me, what is your cell number? I gave him my cell number. He dialed 1175 several more times, than eventually dialed my cell number.

After another 10 minutes, the policeman explained you may have to wait 24 hours before Innclip is cancelled.

He handed my cell phone back to me. I thanked him for his help.

About an hour later, I received a text. The text said that text service would be cancelled.

I hoped that the text referred to Innclip and not all text service capability.

For the rest of my Pattaya stay, there was no more Innclip texts. However, I did receive more texts in Thai.


MORE LOAD DISAPPEARED.

One AIS text stated, "3G NetSIM Free Net30MB5Week has been activated".

I wondered what it meant? Unless the above was explained in Thai, it was not in the User Manual.

My cell phone was not a smart phone. That is, it has no camera, no radio, no internet capability, no nothing except text and voice call capabilities. I paid about $20 for it.

I decided to turn off my cell phone. Receiving texts in Thai was irritating. Once a day or two days, I turned it on for a few minutes to check the load balance and incoming texts.

For the next several days, my cell phone balance stabilized at over 30 baht.

After about a week, I checked my cell phone balance. Another 30 baht had disappeared from my load. I only had about 5 baht of load left.


SCAM on Non-Thai Cell Phone Users?

I have seen nothing to indicate that AIS or some other cell service thief has a way to take away load.

Maybe some of those Thai texts sent to my cell phone were Opt-out warnings. That is, service would be automatically rendered and load would be automatically deducted -- if you do not take action and actively expend your time and effort to say NO.

I guess my solutions were:

-- let my balance go to zero and refill with minimum load at the time of my next cell phone use or at expiration date of the initial load.

-- try the other cell phone service company on my next visit.

If you know what is going on with AIS cell phone service, I would appreciate an explanation.

Otherwise, all non-Thai speakers/readers should beware of predatory AIS (or Thai) cell phone service.

[RichCor]

Your original post is very difficult to follow.

I assume you had THREE issues.

One of them, unwanted SMS from INNCLIP was hopefully dealt with.

The Second, "3G NetSIM Free Net30MB5Week has been activated" in a no-cost feature of the SIM you purchased.
You can forcibly disable any DATA/INTERNET on your account by dialing *129*1# Send and wait the the USSD and SMS confirmation messages.

The Third question or comment dealt with TopUp.

There are six or more methods you can top up a phone account.

"Instant TopUp", available at 7-11 or other partner retailer

Quasi Instant TopUp available by Mom 'n Pop running Web TopUp account

"Printed Receipt" TopUp code

"Scratch-Off" cards

ATM or TopUp Vending Machines

"Balance Transfer" from another carrier customer

"WebSite TopUp" provided by carrier, or third party

All confusing the first couple of times is occurs, then old hat afterwards.

Yes, there are many SMS scams out there. And sometimes your balance can just disappears for no reason whatsoever but rest assured you can put more money on your account and everything will work as before. There is never any reward without risk.

[Suradit69]

Your original post is very difficult to follow.

I assume you had THREE issues.

One of them, unwanted SMS from INNCLIP was hopefully dealt with.

The Second, "3G NetSIM Free Net30MB5Week has been activated" in a no-cost feature of the SIM you purchased.

You can forcibly disable any DATA/INTERNET on your account by dialing *129*1# Send and wait the the USSD and SMS confirmation messages.

The Third question or comment dealt with TopUp.

There are six or more methods you can top up a phone account.

"Instant TopUp", available at 7-11 or other partner retailer

Quasi Instant TopUp available by Mom 'n Pop running Web TopUp account

"Printed Receipt" TopUp code

"Scratch-Off" cards

ATM or TopUp Vending Machines

"Balance Transfer" from another carrier customer

"WebSite TopUp" provided by carrier, or third party

All confusing the first couple of times is occurs, then old hat afterwards.

Yes, there are many SMS scams out there. And sometimes your balance can just disappears for no reason whatsoever but rest assured you can put more money on your account and everything will work as before. There is never any reward without risk.

"Your original post is very difficult to follow."

And giving War and Peace competition for length.

[BuddhistVirus]

It appears you bought a Net SIM where data is pre-activated.

You can still call AIS call center to resolve your issues. They can deactivate data/SMS subscription from their end.

And they have very good English reps at AIS. Just punch in the number when voice says, 'for English press X'. Just tell them you don't want data and that you keep getting SMS and of course that your balance is running out.

[NanLaew]

Simply dial 1175 and answer the prompts to get the English speaking operator. It seems like you are hearing the Thai language greeting and not waiting for the English greeting to press 2 for other language and then press 1 for English. Then press 0 to speak to an operator who will be able to talk you through your issues and resolve them.

If that is beyond your capabilities, take the phone to Telewiz upstairs at Big C Extra on Pattaya Klang and they will sort it out.

Edited September 2, 2014 by NanLaew

[Grin Grasser]

Thanks for the replies.

Sorry for the lengthy recitation of what happened over 3 weeks. I tried to indicate events and little use of my cell phone while my load evaporated. As I viewed it, I paid 100 bahts and was able to send out 5 texts or SMS -- expensive.

The key is apparently knowing to dial 1175 or *129*1# .

Nothing in the User Manual about 1175 or *129*1#. Nothing in the Innclips about 1175 or *129*1#.

So, a cell service company that does NOT disclose how to stop load disappearing is not an ethical company.

Stealing load is stealing.

Thankfully, we foreigners have ways to share information that might stop thievery.

[4evermaat]

I just had a situation where my baby mama's phone started getting INNCLIP messages several times a day. She asked me to fix it.

You can also send an email to callcenter /at/ ais.co.th . Do not write a book. Just include the phone number of the sim card and summarize the problem in a couple of sentences per problem and ask how to make it stop. I usually use bullet points or numbered paragraphs if I have multiple requests to make it easier for them to read. You can also call the call center 1175 as well, but email allows for written clarity. I've seen some service emails replied to in 5-10 min. But i suspect more people are having an issue with INNCLIP. I just got another SMS from them as I am typing this.

Write a separate email for each phone # you have a complaint with. You should get an automated reply that your request is received, followed by a followup email within an hour with a resolution.

I've had my phone service for 4 years and I think I might have had the spam message once. They added the SMS spam filter to the phone, but the negative to that is that they do not have the ability to whitelist certain companies.... Only private phone #s and certain companies are allowed through, which I guess works in 90%+ of the cases.. Once you get on a plan where you have 0 monthly fees and like 1 baht/min voice for all thai networks, I suggest you keep it and only layer on added services like internet/sms/call melody/etc.

btw, to change your default language to english (SMS/USSD text), you can make the request via email, call the callcenter, or [for free] dial *118 and follow the prompts.

edit: btw2, you can turn off the internet on your sim card with the *129 method, but if you have a PLAN (subscription), you still need to cancel that separately.

Edited September 12, 2014 by 4evermaat

[Grin Grasser]

I just had a situation ... INNCLIP messages several times a day ... She asked me to fix it.

You can also send an email to callcenter /at/ ais.co.th .

... they do not have the ability to whitelist certain companies....

btw, to change your default language to english (SMS/USSD text), you can make the request via email, call the callcenter, or [for free] dial *118 and follow the prompts.

edit: btw2, you can turn off the internet on your sim card with the *129 method, but if you have a PLAN (subscription), you still need to cancel that separately.

Thanks. You sound like you know what you are talking about.

As for me, I really did not know if INNCLIP was causing my load to disappear. Also, I did not know if INNCLIP was an AIS activity or that of another company.

My email to AIS would read: I have sent 3 text messages and received one text message reply. My 50-baht load has dropped to 5-baht. What is the problem for the lost of most of the 45 baht? Can you stop the lost baht?