My New Samsung Core DUOS- 300 Baht for 12 minutes of local phone calls

[maphraw]

I just bought a new Samsung smart phone at the AIS centre in Central Festival. I am using my old phone number from my ancient 2G phone. They put in a temporary Sim, gave me another new Sim that I have to insert into the phone after about three days. They said they would notify me by SMS when to put the new Sim into the phone. When I left, I stopped at a 7/11 and bought a 100 Baht 1/2 phone slip to top up my account. I called my wife and chatted for a few minutes. In about 2 hours I got a message from AIS telling me that they will give me an emergency 20 Baht to use until I put more money into the phone. The next day I bought a new 1/2 card, topped up the phone called my wife, talked to her for about five minutes. At the end of the day I got another message from AIS saying that i had used up my 1/2 account but they would give me another 20 Baht worth of call time until I topped up my account. Knowing something must be wrong I waited for my wife to call me. In the meantime I bought another 100 Baht 1/2 call card, inserted the number and now had another 80 Baht worth of calls. I called my wife, talked for about three minutes and the next morning I got a message from AIS saying that I needed to top up my account but they would again provide 20 baht worth of time until I topped up my account again. Does anyone know what is going on? Three hundred baht for three phone calls that did not exceed 12 minutes of telephone conversation. I sent no SMS messages either. Since it is a brand new smart phone I thought I must have inadvertently been pressing things that were triggering unwanted calls or messages. Of course, there was no user manual that came with the phone. Can anyone suggest why this new marvel of technology is gobbling up my 1/2 phone cards?

[Jdietz]

Check if your internet is on (3G) Usually this is on by default on modern cellphones.

If it is on and you don't have a plan with AIS it will default to 0.5 to 1 Baht per minute.

Anyway with a smart phone you do want a 3G plan, it's not so smart without one

To turn data on or off:

[Crossy]

Yup ^^^, 99.99% certain you have data enabled, without a data plan it's a good way to swallow your credit at Mach-2

[lopburi3]

They are called smartphones for a reason - smart for the operators to gouge money from us who are not quite as smart. Even finding where to turn off can be a nightmare. Imagine how much money is taken every day in this manner, needless checking of internet, with most people not having a clue. Dumb phones have a place. I don't leave home without one.

[WorriedNoodle]

Yup ^^^, 99.99% certain you have data enabled, without a data plan it's a good way to swallow your credit at Mach-2

Speed of light I think you'll find - we're gone wireless these days.

[dddave]

A friend had a similar situation with AIS. In his case, it was pay services like "Calling Melody" or some such useless thing eating up his balance. He immediately went back to AIS and they sorted out his phone for him and showed him how to avoid these services as well as how to control data charges. They also credited him with a substantial portion of the money he had lost.

You probably get free AIS wifi with your plan...there are many AIS hotspots around Bangkok (BTS Stations for one) and you should try to use the free wifi for most of your data needs...keep your 3G data OFF until you actually need it.

AIS will give you a wifi password. Once you enter it, your mobile should automatically connect whenever there is an AIS wifi signal available, as long as your wifi is turned on.

[Suradit69]

Yes, I got a new Samsung smartphone recently and watched Baht 300 disappear fairly rapidly. Then went to notifications and turned off the synch and mobile data and anything else that looked suspicious. Since then the charges are only for usual phone use. One time since then a couple of them were switched on again rather mysteriously, but I turned them off again and they've behaved since then.

[RichCor]

I just bought a new Samsung smart phone at the AIS centre in Central Festival.

[...]

Since it is a brand new smart phone I thought I must have inadvertently been pressing things that were triggering unwanted calls or messages. Of course, there was no user manual that came with the phone. Can anyone suggest why this new marvel of technology is gobbling up my 1/2 phone cards?

If it is MOBILE DATA, as said, you have a decisions to make:

Keep letting 1-2-Call gouge you at 1 baht/min

Preempt that nonsense and sign up for a drastically cheaper Mobile Data package. Subscription can be based on TIME or AMOUNT OF DATA, Or BOTH.

There are several, some ranging from minutes, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly usage, while other subscriptions are based on application types (ie: All Social Media, FaceBook only, LINE only, etc). AIS Add-on Data Package

Turn DATA off at your phone ...and hope it doesn't turn it back on (as they do from time to time)

Turn DATA OFF on the Mobile Account, by entering * 129 * 1 # SEND (use * 129 * 2 # SEND to re-allow DATA)

[jethro69]

And said that, if you go for a data plan, and don't want to go for the (too expensive) monthly recurring plans, there are options for daily/ weekly data plans (among others) which are not recurring, once you forget to switch off before subscribe to another plan, it will basically drain your balance overnight.

[Langsuan Man]

Well if it will make anyone feel better I got banged for a lot of minutes from DTAC due to this "hidden" feature and it really goes fast. So it is not limited to AIS and is probably also done by TRUE

It defaults to using your "voice" minutes to "data" minutes and I can't help but feel that the network vendors allow this on purpose. Seems to me that if I buy "voice" minutes the network operator should know that I only want voice, not them providing me with un asked for data

Once you know it is easily fixed but as other posters have said, the network operators must make a killing until it is discovered by the customer

[Whyamiandwhatamidoinghere]

The same exact problem I had except it only had to eat my 500 baht once. I didn't make any call too. I called and talk to a representative. She explained that the new site I bought was for voice calls only and that my phone was trying to access the Internet without a data plan and that it would continue to do this. She advised me to disable the Internet. Also they would not give me a 500 baht credit. The cards are on default. Just think how much money ais as taken from consumers in this manner. There should be bases for a class law suit.

[Whyamiandwhatamidoinghere]

I switched to dtac and stopped donating my money to the Thaksin family.