Post-breakup: AIS and 7-Eleven play hard to get

By Asaree Thaitrakulpanich, Staff Reporter -

 

1-2-Call products out of stock after 7-Eleven suspends services related to AIS.

 

BANGKOK — There were few signs of reconciliation Thursday, one month after the messy public breakup between 7-Eleven and AIS, which left millions of customers cut off from services at the ubiquitous convenience store chain.

 

A sign saying that 1-2-Call cards were out of stock was hung on cash registers at 7-Eleven branches nationwide. Prachachat reported Saturday that the cause of the schism was 7-Eleven’s attempt to increase its top-up commission from 5 percent to 7 percent, the same rate paid by telecom giants DTAC and TrueMove. True is a subsidiary of Charoen Pokphand, the conglomerate which owns the convenience store chain in Thailand.

 

Full story: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/business/2016/11/03/post-breakup-ais-7-eleven-play-hard-get/

 

-- © Copyright Khaosod English 2016-11-03

Can AIS not talk to others - Family Mart, the mini Tesco's etc ?

Silver linings.... this prompted me to do my first ever top up via BKK Bank iBanking.  So simple.  No more trips to 7-11 for me.

How were these customers cutoff?  There are several other places to buy top-up or pay post-pay bills:

• AIS/Telewiz shops
• eService topup
• 3rd party mobile shops
• ATM
• bank branches
• internet banking
• mobile banking
• topup machines in front of 7-eleven and numerous other convenience stores
• Tesco and/or Big C 

Break up? Or politically motivated?
AIS chief financial officer gives us some clues as to why.

What about the poor customers now..... screwed???

5 minutes ago, tukkytuktuk said:

Break up? Or politically motivated?
AIS chief financial officer gives us some clues as to why.

You think too much.

 

It is simply Pokphand versus Shinawatra... to unspeakably rich families vying for one-upmanship at the expense of the proles.

3 hours ago, JoePai said:

Can AIS not talk to others - Family Mart, the mini Tesco's etc ?

Already there.

2 hours ago, MaxLee said:

What about the poor customers now..... screwed???

Open your eyes.

No more 7/11 for me, even if they do eventually get 12Call back.   A couple of weeks ago I got the 'no have' from my local 7/11.  Someone on TV said you could do online topups through your bank.  So I checked out my Bangkok Bank ibanking and sure enough, there it was.  All I had to do was register.  So I did.  From now on, that is the way I will be topping up.  Much more convenient than going to 7/11.

 

If I understand correctly, you can also top up at an ATM machine.  I think there are probably more ATM machines nationwide than 7/11s.  On top of which, pretty much every 7/11 has an ATM outside too.

 

So I think 7/11 (CPAll) screwed themselves.
 

Far as I can see AIS sucks.  They screw Thais by locking them into plans like top ups then when they want to change make it difficult by telling them have to go to certain store.  Pathetic.

1 hour ago, losworld said:

Far as I can see AIS sucks.  They screw Thais by locking them into plans like top ups then when they want to change make it difficult by telling them have to go to certain store.  Pathetic.

 

Plus they bought the whole company from mr. Dubai which was an illegal move but they didn't care.

 
Plus they bought the whole company from mr. Dubai which was an illegal move but they didn't care.

So who owns AIS presently? And why is a Shinawatra a major part of the operations staff, i.e in control of finances?

57 minutes ago, Wilsonandson said:

So who owns AIS presently? And why is a Shinawatra a major part of the operations staff, i.e in control of finances?

 

It was sold to some Singaporese telecomcompany iirc.

2 hours ago, fruitman said:

 

Plus they bought the whole company from mr. Dubai which was an illegal move but they didn't care.

It's funny I know farangs and Thais who think that Thaksin really cared about the country.  The most ironic thing is that the guy who said he was fighting for the poor Isaan Thais was taking money hand over fist with his top up plans.  He took far more than he ever gave back. 

49 minutes ago, fruitman said:

 

It was sold to some Singaporese telecomcompany iirc.

 

Yes, that's correct. It was sold to Temasek Holdings which is the investment arm of the Singapore government for US$1.88 billion. Here's the Wikipedia article which shows how it all came about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intouch_Holdings

 

1 hour ago, Wilsonandson said:

So who owns AIS presently? And why is a Shinawatra a major part of the operations staff, i.e in control of finances?

Maybe she is good at her job?

 

As someone  just said, they are essentially owned by Singapore . They always strike me as shrewd, so it is unlikely that she would be emailed for any other reason

Edited November 3, 20169 yr by JAG

Maybe she is good at her job?
 
As someone  just said, they are essentially owned by Singapore . They always strike me as shrewd, so it is unlikely that she would be emailed for any other reason

Yes, your quite right, good business sense and economic genuis must run in the family.

10 minutes ago, Wilsonandson said:

Yes, your quite right, good business sense and economic genuis must run in the family.

 

He gave all the poor farmers a loan so they could buy themselves a new cellphone and look so hi-so. They used his network so he got the money back multiplied.

 

Then when he became minister president he wasn't allowed to have stocks of his company so he put those on his sons name. He let his son sell the stocks to the foreigners in Singapore. That gave a lot of stress in the Thai government but they couldn't stop it.

Also foreigners were not allowed to own all the stocks or something like that.

 

Then he bought a big piece of land where coincidently Swampy airport was planned so he sold it for 5 times the purchase price to the Thai government (or whoever owns Swampy).

 

As MP it was easy to make money this way, nobody could stop him. On top of all he refused to pay tax over all the profit he made. Finally he fleed away. First he tried to buy a mansion in Australia but they refused that, they didn't want to give a home to criminals on the run. Then he tried London but again they refused. So he bought an island in Kroatia to get a European passport. 

 

I don't understand him at all, he owns 4 billion us$ so why not pay let's say 2 billion tax to Thailand and he still could live here as a super rich person but no he wanted it all and decided to keep on running. Then his sister took his place and became MP. The farmers were happy, she promised them a high price for the rice which led to a huge scandal and finally the farmers didn't get paid for many months since the money wasn't there. When the farmers threatened to come to Bangkok en mass suddenly the coup came and since then the army is in control.

9 hours ago, NanLaew said:

You think too much.

 

It is simply Pokphand versus Shinawatra... to unspeakably rich families vying for one-upmanship at the expense of the proles.

 

No, it is Pokphand against the rest of Thailand, or perhaps Hokkien (Singapore) vs Teochiew (Thailand).  The CP Group has become one of the biggest vertical monopolies in the region, taking a huge bite out of the Thai GDP and exporting that capital back to the homeland.  They don't need AIS as much as AIS needs 7/11 to provide service to the poor rural customers who have few options other than topping off at 7/11. 

 

For further background on inter-Chinese conflicts in Thailand I give you a link to the late great scholar Benedict Anderson:

 

https://newleftreview.org/II/97/benedict-anderson-riddles-of-yellow-and-red

8 hours ago, fruitman said:

 

He gave all the poor farmers a loan so they could buy themselves a new cellphone and look so hi-so. They used his network so he got the money back multiplied.

 

Then when he became minister president he wasn't allowed to have stocks of his company so he put those on his sons name. He let his son sell the stocks to the foreigners in Singapore. That gave a lot of stress in the Thai government but they couldn't stop it.

Also foreigners were not allowed to own all the stocks or something like that.

 

Then he bought a big piece of land where coincidently Swampy airport was planned so he sold it for 5 times the purchase price to the Thai government (or whoever owns Swampy).

 

As MP it was easy to make money this way, nobody could stop him. On top of all he refused to pay tax over all the profit he made. Finally he fleed away. First he tried to buy a mansion in Australia but they refused that, they didn't want to give a home to criminals on the run. Then he tried London but again they refused. So he bought an island in Kroatia to get a European passport. 

 

I don't understand him at all, he owns 4 billion us$ so why not pay let's say 2 billion tax to Thailand and he still could live here as a super rich person but no he wanted it all and decided to keep on running. Then his sister took his place and became MP. The farmers were happy, she promised them a high price for the rice which led to a huge scandal and finally the farmers didn't get paid for many months since the money wasn't there. When the farmers threatened to come to Bangkok en mass suddenly the coup came and since then the army is in control.

...or something like that.

6 hours ago, Johpa said:

 

No, it is Pokphand against the rest of Thailand, or perhaps Hokkien (Singapore) vs Teochiew (Thailand).  The CP Group has become one of the biggest vertical monopolies in the region, taking a huge bite out of the Thai GDP and exporting that capital back to the homeland.  They don't need AIS as much as AIS needs 7/11 to provide service to the poor rural customers who have few options other than topping off at 7/11. 

 

For further background on inter-Chinese conflicts in Thailand I give you a link to the late great scholar Benedict Anderson:

 

https://newleftreview.org/II/97/benedict-anderson-riddles-of-yellow-and-red

As I said, two unspeakably rich Sino-Thai families, etc, etc..

Its a long time since Thaksin had anything to do with AIS. There are other shareholders but, in effect, the company is owned by a combination of Temasek of Singapore and also Singapore Telecom. Temasek is the national (peoples) investment fund of Singapore and it is also itself the largest shareholder in Singapore Telecom.  Most commentators would expect that, in time, AIS will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecom.  Allthough there are Thai faces running the company the big decisions, these days, are made in  Singapore.

Edited November 3, 20169 yr by wordchild

10 hours ago, losworld said:

It's funny I know farangs and Thais who think that Thaksin really cared about the country.  The most ironic thing is that the guy who said he was fighting for the poor Isaan Thais was taking money hand over fist with his top up plans.  He took far more than he ever gave back. 

Um, this is about AIS and 7/11, let's not turn it into another Shin bashing session, I'm getting sick of it, you guys spoil the actual topic.

Edited November 3, 20169 yr by Rorri

People do banking, stock trading, invoicing, bill payment, flight booking and more from their smart phone, yet need to go to 7-11 to keep the phone topped up???   Just pay online. 

10 hours ago, trunknuk said:

People do banking, stock trading, invoicing, bill payment, flight booking and more from their smart phone, yet need to go to 7-11 to keep the phone topped up???   Just pay online. 

There's a whole generation of chronologically challenged 'tourists' that not only count on the 7 eleven for buying cell phone top ups, but rely totally on the staff doing the top up PIN loading for them.

Go and compare the prepaid plans. AIS r nowwhere as good as DTAC or TRUEMOVE. I have had it b4. when i tried to terminate my contract, i was offered a discount and better a plan but when i compared it with other telcos AIS still falls short. nowadays i pay all my bills via ibanking but before then it was hard to find somewhere that i could pay my AIS bills and if guys didnt know AIS bill payment was never accepted n 7-11s before.

 

perhaps someone from AIS can read this and take it as good feedback and give better competitive offers to their customers.

On 04/11/2016 at 10:58 AM, trunknuk said:

People do banking, stock trading, invoicing, bill payment, flight booking and more from their smart phone, yet need to go to 7-11 to keep the phone topped up???   Just pay online. 

Just tried, payment denied. Either them or my beloved bank smells a fraud. Semms I have to use one of orange machines, the next one is 75m from the house

On 11/8/2016 at 11:05 PM, jethro69 said:

Just tried, payment denied. Either them or my beloved bank smells a fraud. Semms I have to use one of orange machines, the next one is 75m from the house

 

Which portal did you use (eService)?  Were you paying with credit/debit card or with internet banking bill pay?  In some cases with billpay or mobile banking, you may have to pre-register your payee information on the first attempt.....the subsequent attempts will be much faster.  

If it is a debit card, is it issued from Thai bank?  Did you sign up with VbV or MC SecureCode first?  It would have prompted you to do it.  Also, it is possible that the credit limit is set to 0 on the card.

 

But yes, using the orange/green topup machines are faster if you need immediacy..... Or just go to a local convenience store/phone shop.  They can topup credit.