Network operators "advance" money to subscribers with no money

Have you ever been in a situation where you really needed to make a call but your phone ran out of credit, and it was difficult to find a store nearby that sells top-up cards?

Ms. Nguyen Thu Huong, a bank branch manager in Hanoi, recalled an unforgettable experience when she and her family went on vacation to a resort isolated from the mainland. "That day, the branch had a problem. I had to call several places to resolve the issue, but my account ran out of money. There was no place on the resort that sold top-up cards, and if I wanted to go to the mainland, I had to wait for a canoe. In the end, I had to borrow everyone's phone to use temporarily. I was shaking while using it, afraid that everyone's phone would run out of money too."

Also in the situation of running out of phone credit in the middle of a crisis is Nguyen The Manh, a television reporter. Due to work requirements, he often has to go to the provinces to do reports, especially in remote, mountainous areas. Many times while contacting the station, the phone ran out of credit, and in the middle of nowhere, he could not find a single person, let alone a phone card store. "There were days when I had to accept losing contact for a whole day, and when I was able to contact the station, I received new instructions and had to start all over again," Manh lamented.

In fact, even for the most careful users, who always check their accounts before going on business trips or traveling far away, situations like this can still happen, causing all kinds of trouble and inconvenience. That's why the emergence of prepaid subscription services is considered a "savior" by users like Ms. Huong and Mr. Manh.

For example, the Fast Credit advance service that MobiFone has just provided to the market exclusively for prepaid subscribers, with the maximum advance amount being up to 50,000 VND, equivalent to a top-up card with an average face value.

It should be emphasized that the "advance payment" service for prepaid mobile subscribers is not too new. Some advance payment services have been available since 2006, but a subscriber being advanced up to 50,000 VND is unprecedented in Vietnam. MobiFone itself previously only advanced money for prepaid subscribers with a limit of 3,000 VND, equivalent to less than 3 minutes of on-net calls, 2 minutes of off-net calls and about 10 text messages.

"Previous cash advance services only gave users a very small amount of money, and before they could call or text, the advance account was already empty, and the registration process was complicated, so not many people used it," Mr. Manh shared. But with Fast Credit, things have become very different. When the subscriber falls into a state of having a low account balance (5,000 VND), the service's cash advance system will immediately send a message to the subscriber requesting "support", including the advance amount that the system has calculated the fee for. The amount each prepaid subscriber can advance ranges from 5,000 - 50,000 VND/time. Later, when the subscriber recharges the card, the system will deduct the advance amount plus the service fee.

Conditions for using the service are also very flexible, just need to be a prepaid subscriber with two-way active service on MobiFone network; have a minimum 3-month active history from the date of incurring charges; have a minimum usage amount in the most recent month of 15,000 VND (on the main account) and the subscriber recharges at least once a month within the last 2 months.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Chien, Deputy General Director of MobiFone, shared that for a long time, many prepaid subscribers often encountered difficult situations when their phones suddenly ran out of money while they were far away, and they could not call or text their relatives to buy a top-up card or it was quite inconvenient. With Fast Credit, Mr. Chien believes that this service "will be very useful for customers, especially in unexpected, unpredictable situations, especially suitable for those who often have to go on business trips to remote areas and need to make urgent contact without having time to top up".

According to telecommunications experts, this 50,000 VND limit can be considered an extremely flexible change, completely hitting the habits and needs of many users. The amount is dozens of times higher than before, meaning that MobiFone subscribers will almost never have their connection cut off mid-way due to the unexpected reason of "running out of money".

According to Thanh Nien