CTH billing problems

[Rob5060]

I have been a CTH subscriber for 2 years and had a period at the start with no bills. However after about 6 months the bills started to arrive and I paid them up to date including the first ones

Now I have received a bill for about 6 months of outstanding bills spaced throughout the 2 years , all have been paid at the bank on their statement

A call to them was a waste of time

Just wondering if anybody has had similar problems and how they sorted it out

Cheers

[evenstevens]

yes the bludgers, have my a/c 2 months fees in arrears, paid all

but they gave me credit line of 2000 baht so just paid the normal fee this time around

the credit line has taken care of the 2 month fees they think i owe them

so far, so good they have nt cut me off yet

CTH are a pack of fluffing idiots.thats putting it mildly

a nice early evening to all my fans on the footy forum

[wjhall]

I am having the same problems. No invoices for many months at the start of the service then they gradually begin to catch up with 2 or 3 invoices some months. I have paid everything apart from the invoice that has just arrived for September. Now I get an SMS from them saying I owe over 8000 baht...in their dreams.

By the way I notice the Credit limit box has disappeared from the latest invoices.

I'm tempted to offer to go and sort out their system for them....for a big fee of course!

[tomwct]

I had a problem in Korat! I paid for the first 3 months and then stopped paying because the channels I paid for CTH never gave me access! I then

waited around for 6 months and no one ever contacted me! I finally got fed up and bought a satellite and now get my channels through a GMMz subscription.

Around 3 months later, I got sms from them saying I owed 8000 THB, which was crazy. I ignored them and 2 years later, I am very happy with GMMz!

[Bredbury Blue]

Just noticed today that we have a similar problem. We pay around baht 900 per month. This month's bill says we have +B18000 outstanding from previous months plus this months B900 = +B19000!!!

My wife pays it every month via 7/11. When the next months bill comes for B900 she pays that and keeps the last bill. She has the last 3 bills and none of them show the huge amount in arrears.

She's just called them and they say we paid for the first 4 months but haven't paid for 20 months! As my wife said to them, its very hard to believe that CTH has been providing the service to us for 20 months without us paying (as above, none of the last 3 bills show any amount in arrears).

What's going on at CTH. Looks like we have a battle on our hands.

[SantiSuk]

Seems obvious. They don't know who their customers are*, so the ones they do know are being double billed!

My wife used to wonder why I religiously file/keep all the utility bills. It's an anal ex-accountant thing, but it pays dividends in Thailand. Both the village water and the local PEA (electricity) branch deliver bills door-to-door and collect money. At different times both organisations have suffered from thieving collectors who ran off with customers money and disappeared (TIT). Many locals who did the normal Thai thing of throwing away the old bills found themselves having to pay twice.

*Some of us on the football ThaiV threads and in my local Isaan falang bar are well into our second free season. CTH obviously lost the record of many customers when they replaced a whole load of installer/agents after their initial frantic first year of the franchise.

[delboy]

I received a similar demand, in my case for 7,000 baht including the current month.

I never received a bill for several months at the start, despite contacting them, and when the bills started to arrive, they never showed an outstanding balance, just the charge for the current month. Their call centre just told me to pay what is shown on the bill, so I did.

I too, keep all my receipts, I've been accused before of missing payments, and it's always proved useful.

Checking my receipts, I noticed that they had not logged that I had paid 1,800 for the receiver, as well as some of the months I had paid. I calculate that I owe them around 2,800 baht.

I'll send them an e-mail listing the differences I found. I don't believe it will do any good, but I'll give it a try.

The problem is that there is no office, apart from the main office in Bangkok, where you can go and see somebody face to face, and they always have the ability to cut you off if they think fit, although they don't appear to have used that in the past.

They probably only have coverage of the Premier League until the end of the current season, so they can cut me off then if they like.

[Sparkles]

CTH from day 1 have been a total shambles. They have some big monied investors to prop them up who you would have thought would have brought in some experienced people with expertise.

We ,as yet , have not had any invoicing problems. We pay monthly at the Bangkok Bank and the "invoices paid' are kept for future reference as is every other bill we pay.They also SMS us as a reminder.

Just last week we received a 3 page letter detailing every payment we have made since day one not quite sure what that achieved.

Good luck to the ones that are getting it free,it would be just our luck to get cut off if we didn't pay.

If you have a problem forget about going to the original installer they have a totally toxic relationship with CTH.

I never understood ,but do now, why in CM they never had a small office like WETV at least you could actually talk to someone without spending hours on the phone.

Of course its highly unlikely that CTH wil be part of the next football contract with the BPL so we wil wait to see where that leads us.

[NE1]

Totally agree about them being a shambles. I receive my bill sporadically , could be one a month , then miss three months , then three bills will turn up on the same day.

I also kept all my receipts from day 1 . I received a letter yesterday that was sent out or dated 9th September , ( 33 days milling around somewhere ) telling me I owed 10,000baht. ( My Sept. and Oct. bill arrived on the same day )

I rung them and asked for the dates of non payment , which they have supplied .

I scanned the receipts for these dates and sent them off in an e-mail , and I am now waiting for a reply.

Sunday i rung them as there was no English commentary on the MotoGp racing Fox Sport 3 , from Japan , they told me the fault was at source , ( my mate has True Vision and he had commentary on Fox Sport 3 )

They asked me , " if the commentary comes on in English " , would I telephone them and let them know.....<deleted>

[evenstevens]

yes the bludgers, have my a/c 2 months fees in arrears, paid all

but they gave me credit line of 2000 baht so just paid the normal fee this time around

the credit line has taken care of the 2 month fees they think i owe them

so far, so good they have nt cut me off yet

CTH are a pack of fluffing idiots.thats putting it mildly

a nice early evening to all my fans on the footy forum

further to my above post, rec a new bill a few days back, they are now saying i am three months in arrears(3848 baht) despite paying last months

today they have cut me off,no credit line on new invoice.

they can stick their dish rite up their arse

has any one been cut off?????????

[NE1]

Don't know , I watched the T.V. earlier today , it was okay.

Then about 4 oclock , all I get is E016-0 " No Valid Entitlement found " whatever that means , it is still like that now. I have been trying to ring CTH up since 4 oclock , and there switch board is swamped ( automated message )

Edited October 20, 2015 by NE1

[Rob5060]

Yes I have been cut off too

Bye bye CTH

[SantiSuk]

Cutting off genuine subscribers while letting others watch for free. Truly a feeble organisation.

Are you listening Scuddamore?

[Nah - money is the only thing that talks and we'll probably be treated to the same proclamations about a "quality and experienced satellite operator" as we did when the FA awarded them the Thailand franchise - they proved themselves to be neither]

[nev]

My wife called me and said a bill for 14,000 baht arrived, I know I owe a few back payments but no where near that amount.

I contacted the guy who installed my dish to come out and put a dish up and connect gmm on our other house, he said he does not do installation no more as CTH owe him 200,000 baht, seems they are not paying up too.

I made the mistake when they was not sending bills out of paying with the same old statement.

[kikka]

Exactly the same problem - 2 months ago I was sent a bill for around 5000 Baht to cover ' initial installation charges in September 2013 ( boxes, dish, etc ) ' - an amount which had not appeared on any of the 24 or so previous bills from CTH.

All my monthly payments have been up to date since September 2013 . I spoke to the call centre about this at the time and they told me that it was simply a 'glitch in the system' ( not the phrase they used ) and that I should pay the normal monthly amount - which I did.

However , apparently at exactly the same time as others, at 4 p.m. yesterday ( just as I had returned from paying my October monthly bill ) I was cut off - since when the 1619 number has redirected me to a pre-recorded message and my emails have gone unanswered .I can only watch the 'free to view' Thai channels .

The installers , who I visited today to try to nake some progress, could not get through to them on either 1619 ...or 1629, a number they were suggesting we might try ... neither could they get through to the CTH Head Office Number - which was answered , but again re-directed them to a pre-recorded message,

It looks rather as if they are doing their best to squeeze as much money as they can from existing subscribers for spurious reasons.

I think they may cease trading soon .

Edited October 21, 2015 by kikka

[Sparkles]

Yes I have been cut off too

Bye bye CTH

Must be a major purge as we deliberately got behind in payment for 6 weeks. 2 days ago cut off.Just wanted an excuse to go with for an alternantive.

I knew we won't get our deposit back so we are almost even.The chances of them picking up the dish and box are zero.CTH's relations with local

installers is non existent.

I emailed them today, as per email address on their web site, the email bounced back.They don't answer the phone and when thay ever do its just a

"dont really care" attitude. Some big players put money into CTH to prop it up,people you would expect to have bought some professionalism into

the company, never happened. To not have an office in Chiang Mai was a sign thay had no idea what they

were getting themselves into.TIT in spades.

[TheLobster]

Same has happened to me, nothing outstanding in Augusts bill bar the monthly fee. September's bill was for the normal monthly fee but had an outstanding balance of 4,645THB that has appeared from nowhere.

We were cut off yesterday bar the Thai channels and there is no answer from the call center.

I'm thinking of paying the normal monthly fee then go back through my receipts to see if there is any more outstanding.

Has anyone been in the same position and been reconnected automatically having paid the bill?

[jellydog]

What an absolutely amazing cluster <deleted>>, even for Thailand.

[Bredbury Blue]

Sure you are aware of this, but somebody opened a new topic today. Getting complicated knowing whether to post there or here.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/864591-cth-is-no-more/

[Bredbury Blue]

Just noticed today that we have a similar problem. We pay around baht 900 per month. This month's bill says we have +B18000 outstanding from previous months plus this months B900 = +B19000!!!

My wife pays it every month via 7/11. When the next months bill comes for B900 she pays that and keeps the last bill. She has the last 3 bills and none of them show the huge amount in arrears.

She's just called them and they say we paid for the first 4 months but haven't paid for 20 months! As my wife said to them, its very hard to believe that CTH has been providing the service to us for 20 months without us paying (as above, none of the last 3 bills show any amount in arrears).

What's going on at CTH. Looks like we have a battle on our hands.

We too have had our service chopped sometime since last satudays premier games - not sure when as i only use CTH to watch premier.

We still have the normal tv channels I.e. ch3 ch7 etc but all the paid for extra channels now have an error message...E016-0.

It just took the wife 10 minutes to call though to the CTH call centre.

They confirmed they've cut our 'additional' service as they reckon we owe them B20,639.

The wife insists all bills received have been paid and all months have been paid.

We've had CTH sometime since just before the initial premier league season started 26 months or so ago.

The call centre guys advice conflicted with the earlier advice given 2 to 3 weeks ago (see my first post) and said we've only paid 2 times in 26 or so months. NO WAY!

The wife insisted all has been paid but asked why have they waited 24 months or so to now bill us for those months. The call centre guy confirmed their accounting have had problems but only in the month of September did they check to see which customers owed them money.

The wife asked why hadn't they sent us any details in writing itemising which months had been paid and which hadn't even though this argument had been going on for 3 weeks AND YET they'd proceeded to cut us off...no answer from the call centre guy.

He repeatedly took the attitude that he's just a call centre worker and not the owner of cth...he seemed to not realise that a call centre worker is cth for a customer and it is their task to help resolve customers problems. He had no ideas or proposals to offer us on behalf of cth.

To summarise the call, the wife insisted she'd paid all, call centre said we'd only paid twice, wife asked what was there suggestion, call centre comment was along the lines of up to you, wife said if you insist on continuing with this argument cth can collect their equipment as we ain't paying our bills twice. It ended with no conclusion as to how we proceed.

As I only use CTH to watch premier league games looks like I'll have to forgo it. Now we wait to see if CTH drops this nonsense or continues it and wishes to take us to vourt when we'll have a decision to make.

Very poor!

[nev]

Just noticed today that we have a similar problem. We pay around baht 900 per month. This month's bill says we have +B18000 outstanding from previous months plus this months B900 = +B19000!!!

My wife pays it every month via 7/11. When the next months bill comes for B900 she pays that and keeps the last bill. She has the last 3 bills and none of them show the huge amount in arrears.

She's just called them and they say we paid for the first 4 months but haven't paid for 20 months! As my wife said to them, its very hard to believe that CTH has been providing the service to us for 20 months without us paying (as above, none of the last 3 bills show any amount in arrears).

What's going on at CTH. Looks like we have a battle on our hands.

We too have had our service chopped sometime since last satudays premier games - not sure when as i only use CTH to watch premier.

We still have the normal tv channels I.e. ch3 ch7 etc but all the paid for extra channels now have an error message...E016-0.

It just took the wife 10 minutes to call though to the CTH call centre.

They confirmed they've cut our 'additional' service as they reckon we owe them B20,639.

The wife insists all bills received have been paid and all months have been paid.

We've had CTH sometime since just before the initial premier league season started 26 months or so ago.

The call centre guys advice conflicted with the earlier advice given 2 to 3 weeks ago (see my first post) and said we've only paid 2 times in 26 or so months. NO WAY!

The wife insisted all has been paid but asked why have they waited 24 months or so to now bill us for those months. The call centre guy confirmed their accounting have had problems but only in the month of September did they check to see which customers owed them money.

The wife asked why hadn't they sent us any details in writing itemising which months had been paid and which hadn't even though this argument had been going on for 3 weeks AND YET they'd proceeded to cut us off...no answer from the call centre guy.

He repeatedly took the attitude that he's just a call centre worker and not the owner of cth...he seemed to not realise that a call centre worker is cth for a customer and it is their task to help resolve customers problems. He had no ideas or proposals to offer us on behalf of cth.

To summarise the call, the wife insisted she'd paid all, call centre said we'd only paid twice, wife asked what was there suggestion, call centre comment was along the lines of up to you, wife said if you insist on continuing with this argument cth can collect their equipment as we ain't paying our bills twice. It ended with no conclusion as to how we proceed.

As I only use CTH to watch premier league games looks like I'll have to forgo it. Now we wait to see if CTH drops this nonsense or continues it and wishes to take us to vourt when we'll have a decision to make.

Very poor!

Mate, they will have to take a hell of a lot of customers to court, they are bankrupt by all accounts so how can they.

I have been hit with 14,000 bill and I owe no where near that amount,I will not pay simple as, I will only pay what I think I owe not a made up amount by them.

[OJAS]

Yes I have been cut off too

Bye bye CTH

Rob - we were cut off for several consecutive months earlier in the year for failing to pay their bills by the due dates, despite not yet having received them in the post! Admittedly they did reconnect us each time after my wife had made a stiff phone call to them, but, needless to say, we found this an increasingly tedious process to have to go through each month. So we went back to our original supplier to cancel our previous subscription and take out a new one - since when no further problems (so far, at any rate) as a result of late billing. Did have to fork out 4,000 THB for a new set-top box, though, after I had flung the previous box to the floor and then stamped on it in sheer frustration, though!

Incidentally, it strikes me that we should be hearing pretty soon who will win the rights to screen EPL games in LOS under the new 3-year deal starting from the 2016-17 season. Fingers firmly crossed for all our sakes that it won't be be CTH!

Edited October 22, 2015 by OJAS

[Bredbury Blue]

The wife called CTH call centre 1619 last night and argued with them. Ive just called their call centre 1619 in english and argued with them - POINT IS that you can speak to someone there in english or thai but you have to wait (on the english call centre holding pattern you get a message over and over in...yep, THAI).

We've been arguing with them since about the 6th of October, so I just gave them an ultimatum: I want an email in the next few days saying our service has been reinstated with their claim for undue paid cancelled, or, an email detailing their claim, and if I get the latter I will immediately respond cancelling their contract and they can proceed with their unpaid claim as they wish.

[SantiSuk]

One thousand baht a month for every Premier League game, plus other channels. Couldn't understand how they thought they were going to make money even if they had decent management (which clearly they have not). Equivalent UK prices are 2 to 3 times that amount for only one-third of that coverage.

It will go to True (unless FA CEO, Richard Scudamore falls prey to Asian sweet-talk promises, which is always a possibility) and the price will go up dramatically. Those of us who only have satellite options (poor internet options) better hope that True take some time over seeing off all the other fringe providers like GMMZ and PSI.

A few of us have not been billed at all for seasons subsequent to the first of the franchise. Have any of you in that position been caught up with yet? I'm expecting a letter any day now having seen that they are at least attempting to do something about their underbilled revenue even if the something is clearly crass

[Bredbury Blue]

Fixed my problem fixed today by going the GMMZ solution.

See:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/865070-help-no-cth-poor-wifi-options-to-watch-premier/?p=9999488

[Bredbury Blue]

All eyes on the ball in new TV bidding

The Nation October 12, 2015 1:00 am

Battle for rights to broadcast English football continues to scare Thai businesses, consumers

Thailand's love affair with English football - Barclays Premier League - has spawned immense commercial interests and complications. A key factor dictating the course of the telecom and media industry here is the exorbitant cost to capture those broadcasting rights. Befuddled are consumers, who are envied by those in many parts of the world but who are very much at the mercy of how the business wind blows.The current broadcasting rights holder, CTH Plc, will have to jump into another fierce bidding war soon. Its broadcast privilege ends at the end of the current 2015-16 season. The previous holder, True Visions, may or may not attempt to reclaim its prestigious but unprofitable status as the Premier League broadcaster in Thailand. Whatever happens will have profound effects on cable TV consumers in this country.In 2012, out of the blue, CTH swooped and snatched the broadcasting rights away from True Visions. The latter lost face, but as far as business goes, had little else to complain about.It was a win-win situation for both companies actually, because the broadcasting rights were so expensive and the prices were increasing every year. True Visions lost face but would have saved considerable money. CTH would have gained from football maniacs, who are abundant in Thailand.That left us with no choice but to pay more, especially those addicted to watching Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City play but unable to let go of programmes that True Visions had to offer.Some might have dumped their True Visions subscriptions for CTH, but the number of people willing to double as True Visions and CTH subscribers is bigger than those who gave up the former to embrace the latter.Thais have been envied by fans in many other countries because, here, Western football matches play out live in their living rooms. That luxury comes at a price, though, and that price threatens to rise even further.It should be noted that True Visions has proudly announced the rights to show big games from other major leagues, so all football addicts out there are finding it hard to throw away one subscription for another.CTH's programmes, other than the Premier League matches, are anything but attractive. Simply put, without popular football series, its subscriber base would shrink considerably. It's not an exaggeration to say that English football is the core business foundation of CTH, without which the company's financial health would be in serious doubt.But CTH's operations have come under scrutiny. The payment system has been criticised, and even the company has admitted that, in the rush to complete the subscription infrastructure in 2012, subcontractors were used and their roles led to a big financial headache. If the motive for grabbing the English Premier League broadcasting rights was profit, CTH's work toward that goal has been poor.Which leads us to the multibillion-baht question: Who will win the new broadcasting rights? Will CTH fight to hold onto what it has? CTH will need a lot of operating improvement to extend its surprising, renowned but hardly profitable status.Will True Visions seriously attempt to retake the rights, regain its face and slip back into the same old financial misery? After all, in business, there's a point where "face" gives way to more important considerations like balance sheets.The ultimate question, though, is whether we hapless consumers who have perhaps been wrongly envied by the rest of the world will be dealt a fair deal. This question is simple enough, although the other ones are anything but.

[TheLobster]

Went to CTH shop in Lamai (Samui) today as couldn't get through on the contact numbers. The girl at the shop was more than helpful, I presented all my receipts for the last two years, she checked against the payments CTH had registered and found 6 payments that weren't registered. She sent a fax to head office to confirm and all the previously blocked channels are now available (they need more staff these).

In short CTH blocked my access despite my account actually being in credit. I won't be holding my breath waiting for an apology.

[emilymat]

I've been cut off but don't care anymore.

I've found it more convenient to keep away from the results on Saturday (particularly easy now the 7hour time difference is imminent) and then watch Match of the Day on BBC on Sunday morning via Ex-pats TV.

[Bredbury Blue]

Went to CTH shop in Lamai (Samui) today as couldn't get through on the contact numbers. The girl at the shop was more than helpful, I presented all my receipts for the last two years, she checked against the payments CTH had registered and found 6 payments that weren't registered. She sent a fax to head office to confirm and all the previously blocked channels are now available (they need more staff these).

In short CTH blocked my access despite my account actually being in credit. I won't be holding my breath waiting for an apology.

"she checked against the payments CTH had registered and found 6 payments that weren't registered."

That statement says it all about this CTH problem everybody is writing about on the many ongoing CTH topics on here currently (the wife says there's loads of comments also in thai on pantip.com). CTH's own records are not correct. If you've paid and kept your payment slips you win in the argument. If like us you've paid but only kept the previous payment slip, you have a battle on your hands with CTH - my wife only kept the last 2 or 3 bills as they always showed outstanding balance as zero after she'd paid the previous bill so why would she think it necessary to retain ALL bills paid.

]

[TheLobster]

Went to CTH shop in Lamai (Samui) today as couldn't get through on the contact numbers. The girl at the shop was more than helpful, I presented all my receipts for the last two years, she checked against the payments CTH had registered and found 6 payments that weren't registered. She sent a fax to head office to confirm and all the previously blocked channels are now available (they need more staff these).

In short CTH blocked my access despite my account actually being in credit. I won't be holding my breath waiting for an apology.

"she checked against the payments CTH had registered and found 6 payments that weren't registered."

That statement says it all about this CTH problem everybody is writing about on the many ongoing CTH topics on here currently (the wife says there's loads of comments also in thai on pantip.com). CTH's own records are not correct. If you've paid and kept your payment slips you win in the argument. If like us you've paid but only kept the previous payment slip, you have a battle on your hands with CTH - my wife only kept the last 2 or 3 bills as they always showed outstanding balance as zero after she'd paid the previous bill so why would she think it necessary to retain ALL bills paid.

]

I can sympathise and agree with you, if there is a missing payment how can an outstanding balance suddenly appear months after the payment has been missed according to CTH?

Fortunately we keep our receipts.