TOT’s mistrust of its subscribers is causing foreigners in Thailand to pay unnecessary costs, receive continued billing long after requesting service termination, and is leading to loss of property rental deposits.

Foreigners renting property in Thailand, a country which prohibits all foreigners from land ownership, are subjected to prejudicial policies and serious levels of punative charges when subscribing to the Telephone Organisation of Thailand’s (TOT’s) ADSL broadband internet service.

The financial disadvantaging appears mainly at the start and the cessation of contract.  Whilst during the normal lifetime of the service foreigners pay the same subscription as Thai nationals, they do not receive the same opportunity to change to new lower cost subscriptions due to a lack of marketing in languages other than Thai, which few foreigners speak fluently, and even fewer can read or write.

For rental property occupants there are three routes to obtaining TOT ADSL service -

The first, is to gain the agreement of the property owner, the landlord, to extend ADSL onto the existing telephone line, which requires the landlord providing certified copies of their Thai ID card and house registration document (known in Thai as a “tabian baan” and similar to a combined land deed and electoral roll registration entry).  Providing these documents from a Thai property owner enables the ADSL installation to be done without payment of a service deposit, installation fee, or payment for the terminal equipment to use the service.

The second, is to use the foreigner’s identity documents (showing both the original document e.g. passport with suitably long entry visa, and providing certified copies of it – the foreigner can self-certify the copies by signing them).  However this route will require the foreigner to buy the ADSL router from TOT (or supply their own), pay for the terminal adapter and ADSL splitter box (connection point for telephone and internet router), and pay an installation fee for bringing the telephone line from the streetside pole to the residence where the service is to be used.  Depending on distance, the latter element can be a small sum or a considerable one.

The third route, and one which presumably applies to Thai nationals renting property too, is to use the identity papers of a Thai national who is not the property owner.  This gains access to the free supply of the router and terminal adapters, but not to the free installation of the line between the pole and the house (at least not inside Chiang Mai City by my experience).

As can be seen from these installation and connection options, foreigners are being heavily discriminated against financially.  However, there is a further financial penalty when moving out of the broadband connected residence.

In the case of option 2 above, when ending the service due to moving out of the old residence, foreigners present themselves and their identity papers at the TOT office, provide certified copies of their ID and arrange a date for service disconnection.  Any “deposit” for the router is not refunded – the deposit was not a deposit, but a subsidised permanent purchase it seems.

In the case of options 1 or 3 above, the ID documents of the Thai national whose name was used for obtaining the service must also be used to terminate it.  If not the service remains connected and continues to be billed on the monthly telephone bill, even with no-one in residence.  This causes property owners to retain the rental deposit paid by the foreigner until such time as the service is disconnected or another tenant agrees to take over use and payment of it.

This then opens the property deposit to abuse by the property owner – it provides the opportunity for them to with-hold supply of ID copies that would permit the tenant to have the service disconnected and billing to stop.  Superficially the landlord gains nothing, however, the landlord can also cancel the service without informing the foreigner, yet claim they are still being billed for it and deduct such billing from the property rental deposit until the deposit is exhausted, thus defrauding the foreigner of the contracted refund of deposit.

Foreigners renting property in Thailand have no protection from such practices other than the honesty of the landlord.  Court recovery is too difficult, too slow (can take years), and too expensive relative to the average deposit price.

A further complication occurs with Option 3.  If the Thai national who supplied their papers was a wife or life-parter, and the relationship has ended acrimoniously, then it may not be possible to obtain further ID copies to terminate the service – at least not without a court order (see above comments about using the judicial system).  This again opens the foreigner to ongoing financial loss, and potentially the landlord too, once the deposit has expired and if the foreigner has left the country.

TOT’s service subscription rules and identity document provision requirements are therefore contributory to ongoing discrimination against foreigners, and facilitative of fraud by dishonest landlords.

This situation needs addressed and remedied by the Thai government quickly.  TOT (a government owned State Enterprise) needs dragged into the 21st Century’s commercial reality zone.  They should not be continuing to operate Victorian Colonial Era practices with their paying customers.

Such practices will not be tolerated as readily by foreign expatriates during a global economic recession, as they were when business was good and revenues high.  Maintenance of such practices could lead to a loss of investors and expatriate non-investors at a time when this kingdom needs every foreign cent and penny it can attract.

I am fortunate that my last landlord is an honest and sincere person.  They are working with me to resolve problems of the above nature that have arisen this month, caused by property ownership being in the name of one of their relatives – a person resident 700 Km south of here, and therefore not easily available to go to the Chiang Mai TOT office with their ID documents.  Just another type of problem that TOT’s rules do not cater for.

Garry