My Thai wife and I have had an unpleasant experience with mobile telephony in Thailand, using 49,90 € mobile internet in Thailand while we were not aware of it.
We live in Belgium, I think it could also happen to Dutch people We have just returned from a 3 week holiday in Thailand. Today I received a bill from Telenet, the Belgian company where we buy internet and mobile telephony. On the day of arrival at Suvarnabhumi Airport, we immediately went to an office of “True” to purchase 3 Thai Sim cards. One for my wife's iPhone, one for mine, and a third for my wife's iPad. Our Belgian Sim cards were removed from our iPhones by True staff and neatly stored away. Our iPhones were both on airplane mode, as far as I know you don't use mobile data.
We do not understand how it happened, but in that office of True, 4,988 Mb of mobile internet must have been used with my wife's Belgian SIM card. And that costs 49,90 €.
Next time I will of course turn off the roaming, I thought this would not be necessary with the iPhones on airplane mode, but that turns out to be better. Incidentally, it is strange that only my wife's smartphone used data and mine did not.
We will survive that € 49, we hope that it stays there.
Readers of this blog have been warned!
Submitted by B.Elg
You can still see the data what you have used, on the day and time. But yes, you do not tell whether you read this from the details on the invoice or whether you suspect it. Fairy tales do not exist, gnomes do not go on the internet and there must have been consumed…..and I suspect that the airplane mode was not on.
Something must have happened accidentally in the office of “True”. The employees of “True” have replaced the Belgian Sim cards with Thai Sim cards.
My wife and I are certain that both iPhones were on airplane mode when we gave them to the True staff. Indeed, the invoice states that on June 4, the day we arrived at the airport in BKK, 4,988 Mb was used.
My wife and I don't believe in leprechauns. It is clear to us that the employees of “True” have made a mistake.
I only write this message to warn fellow sufferers: putting your smartphone on airplane mode is not enough.
Change SIM, any idea what happens: SIM card out of your phone and then new one in, done. Employees have no influence on what is charged and do not earn anything from it, in fact the one who charges the costs is the Belgian provider, you will have to inquire there. You didn't just use 5 Gb in 1 secod, who knows, she may have had some conversations at the airport after flying via an App such as Line or WhatsApp and some FB activities; then the flight mode is switched off and the costs run through the Belgian provider until the SIM cards are changed.
hello ger,
I don't know if it matters, but the usage was 4,988 Mb (megabyte, not gigabyte). 49,9023€.
Dear B.Elg,
1Mb = one Megabit = 2^8 (1024, thousands and twenty-four) kilobits
1MB = one Megabyte = 2^8 (1024, one thousand and twenty-four) Megabits
The upload and download speed is nowadays expressed in megabits or kilobits per second. With a fixed connection also Gigabits per second.
4988Mb is written in English, American, Thai as 4,988 Megabits.
4988Mb is written in Dutch, Belgian, French, etc. as 4.988 Megabits.
If you do not want the SIM of a country to use data abroad, you must turn off roaming.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airplane_mode :
“Most devices allow continued use of email clients and other mobile apps to write text or email messages. Messages are stored in memory to transmit later, once airplane mode is disabled.”
You probably (unnoticed or unconsciously) had the airplane mode off in Thailand. And phones nowadays also continuously update apps, if you haven't turned that off. Ditto for updating Facebook, etc after an 11 hour flight (background process). That something happens to it is impossible at the time of the SIM card change.
The fact that it cost €50 will concern the automatic limit of data traffic outside the EU. Most providers use these nowadays to prevent situations like this.
And indeed “data gnomes” do not exist….
Hello all. The simplest way is to just turn off data on your phone, then you will certainly not use any data because that is not possible at all. Greetings Josy
Maybe I'm not reading correctly, but the writer had the Belgian sim cards removed from the phone ….
Then you can no longer receive data or even call traffic on those sim cards …
Belgian E-Sim ? 2nd Belgian SIM card ?
Assume the safekeeping consisted of handing over the sim cards to you
Did you make a stopover during the flight?
Hello Ron,
No idea what happened. If the “True” staff turn off the airplane mode while the Belgian SIM card is still inserted, I assume you have consumption.
By safe storage I mean that the Belgian SIM cards were stuck with tape on a cardboard envelope from True.
Dear,
This also happened to me recently.
I was at the maximum amount and that was € 60,50.
This happened to me by turning on my mobile phone without having opened an app.
I called Telenet, did my explanation and then the lady in question told me that some underlying apps are updating automatically.
She also immediately credited me for my charged costs.
Perhaps contact Telenet and explain your case to Telenet, so that you do not have to pay the extra amount charged.
It's just a tip.
Grt
Frank
Hi Frank
Thank you for your tip. The Telenet helpdesk employee was very friendly and helpful, but unfortunately Telenet does not intend to refund me the 49€.
I understand, I should have understood that only turning on airplane mode was not sufficiently safe.
it could also be that you landed in doha or qatar and that you got something there
No ludo,
It was a direct flight.
Grt
For me in January that was about 150 euros data plus phone call in Abu Dhabi. Received email from Telenet with warning. Removed the SIM card and in February a bill of about 70 euros. Same bill in March and April. Upon return call to Telenet, refunded for the last 3 months. I am not a fan of Telenet, the money wolf.
Hello,
i also went to thailand, in May, with a belgian card from Proximus. My phone switched off in Zaventem. Inserted a Thai card in BKK without turning on the device. And on the return flight I put my Belgian card in my Iphone at an altitude of 36000 m without switching on the device. Proximus also charged me €10. Have disputed this and they have issued a credit note, according to them a "commercial gesture". If you don't respond, you have to pay them. So you see, I think we get scammed everywhere, but most of the time we just don't realize it. Greetings Herman
Herman, what plane was that on? The normal cruising altitude is 10.000 to 12.000 meters and you were at 36.000 meters so that was a special aircraft. Or did you mean 3.600 meters?
Herman will probably have meant 36.000 feet (feet), then you will indeed end up around 12.000 meters.
Hahaha, he must have meant 30.000 feet. That is normally the expression of height in kite jargon. One foot is about 30 cm, so 10 km high! The normal cruising altitude.
Seems to me a scam of the Belgian customers of the telephone providers, not yet heard in the Netherlands and also in the reactions here no Dutch people who this happens to. Apart from putting it in airplane mode or switching on the phone with or without roaming, it is best, as you write, to remove the SIM as long as you are still within range of the Belgian cell towers, and also when putting it back in, make sure that you are within the range of a Belgian transmission tower. As soon as you are out of range it is registered and they try to charge you, I understand, like this 10 Euro.
Happened to me once about 10 years ago. Since then I invariably remove my SIM card from my device as soon as the flight takes off to leave the europe zone. You then have plenty of time for it, and prevent all unwanted costs.
Thanks, Jan. That is also what we will do next time….
have been coming to Thailand for wintering for 18 years, have worked with 2 devices for the first few years and since 12 years with a samsung with 2 SIM cards from Dtac and a Ben
Encountered no problems at all and can be reached in an emergency via NL and use the Dtac in Thailand
This eliminates the "help" of the intermediaries
maybe an idea? Hans
You don't use 5GB of data in a few minutes, it seems unlikely that they (accidentally) did something wrong at True.
Could it be that roaming was still on on the plane? With which airline and what type of aircraft did you fly?
5GB roaming traffic for 50 euros is dirt cheap by the way 🙂
The questioner is not talking about a consumption of 5GB but about 4,988Mb. Converted, that is 0,004988 GB.
You read the comma as a full stop….. as an English speaker…. wrong
4,988MB = almost 5MB
It once cost us 179 euros at KPN.
And someone spoke to 1200 euros, s cost had not been refunded.
That is precisely the dirty thing about not knowing that you also have to switch off roaming.
Hello Peter,
Both iPhones were on airplane mode on the plane, roaming mode on.
Would that roaming allow you to use data with airplane mode on, do you think?
Flown with KLM, with Boeing 777-300.
By the way, it was 49,9023 € for 4,988 MB (megabyte, not gigabyte). Still a waste of money 🙂
I am fairly tech savvy when it comes to computers and networks.
5MB of updates is done in no time. And if you are outside the EU…
For those reasons, I always carry two smartphones with me. One is always off, while the other is a cheap thing without a SIM card in it.
That's where the Thai (True) SIM card goes.
So why bring two smartphones? The 'landline' telephone is for urgent matters such as telephone banking. But then I'm on a VPN and the hotel wifi.
Turn off mobile data. Does your phone only work on wifi.
Still not difficult!!
If the True employees (or you yourself accidentally) switch off that airplane mode for a while (e.g. for whatever reason, perhaps ignorance, while exchanging the SIM cards), it will immediately push all your messages from during the bring in a flight, then you have those megabytes in a few seconds, it really doesn't have to take a minute.
A huge amount for such a small amount of data. For that money you can buy a DTAC Turbo card with 2GB per month for 60 years and free domestic calls ...
Insert the card that you do not want to use into a non-smartphone or dumb phone, you cannot use any data anyway and if desired, you can still receive or send SMS or make a call if desired, if desired, and then turn it off again if not necessary