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.

i've been using AIS service on an old nokia (no camera, internet, etc) for about 8 years. never had any problems or heard about anything like you describe.

i made a visa run to macau and HK from 8/25 to 9/1 and upon arrival at bkk on 9/1, i was handed a sim card from dtac near the airport train/city line. you have to put money in the sim/phone (via 7-11) but they give you free internet usage for 7 days. they called it the 'happy holidays sim'. might be useful for some of you. you pay a bit for calls and texts but surf the net free (speed is supposedly 1GB).

I paid about 490 baht for an AIS plan that gave me unlimited internet for 10 days plus about 100 baht for calls. I was able to top up the calls. Seemed like a good deal, and speed was decent for 3G.

Buick,

Thanks for the tip.

Many times while waiting at the airport for the Bell bus to Pattaya, I have a little waiting time.

Next time, I will go downstairs to the area of the Bangkok train and see if I can find someone handing out a free SIM or a DTAC counter.

In Pattaya at The Avenue mall on 2nd Road, there used to be an information booth that handed out free SIMs. But that booth has been turned into something else. No more free info or free SIM.

On another board, a Pattaya expat said that dialing 1175 should get me a live AIS operator who speaks English and can solve the disappearing load problem. Maybe. Dialing 1175 was not in the User Manual and not in any of the texts sent to my cell phone.

At the airport as you are exiting customs in the "meeting area" all three of the major cell companies have big prominent flashy kiosks selling SIM cards targeted for tourists. Typically "tourist SIMS" include like a week of unlimited data, and calls for 300 Baht or so. They cleverly make it very easy for tourists to get online. Just walk up to the kiosk in the airport, hand them your phone and play dumb and they will fix you up.

They get you on texting though and you must subscribe a seperate unlimited texting plan separately if you want to text allot. AIS is the most popular and uses frequencies compatible with more foreign smart phones and probably has the best coverage for calling and texting but is also the most loaded network so might have slower 3G due to over usage. DTAC is second most popular. True is newest and a good choice 'if' your smartphone supports their frequencies since their network is less loaded. The data plans also frequently include Wifi plans and there are hotspots all over the country. "Top up" is available at any 7-11.