Paid subscriptions and paid content services of mobile operators

Other operator: after clicking on this button during mobile surfing, you will be signed up for a paid service.

By itself, the system was originally invented perfectly: to pay with one action anything on the Internet, or with one SMS — anything outside the network. But rather quickly, these dishonest companies, whose activities can be classified as fraud, "hooked" on these paid subscriptions.

Given the more than significant commission operator, you can go two ways:

• Create an ecosystem that allows abuse and generates profits.
• Either do the opposite, and lose money.

At the moment, Beeline earns on commission for paid subscriptions about 10 times less than other operators of the big three - you can check my words in a few months when the financial performance of all companies will be open. Now we practically do not earn on subscriptions and continue to reduce the turnover on this channel.
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Since February 2014, we have greatly thinned the ranks of content providers thanks to your help, data analysis and investigations of our security service. For two months, we returned 30.2 million rubles to subscriber accounts and, in addition, we transferred fines received from content providers as moral compensation to those who suffered from dishonest charges.

Informing subscribers

On May 1, 2014, the Federal Law of July 23, 2013 N 229- “On Amendments to the Federal Law“ On Communications ”, which requires operators to provide content services, came into force. In particular, a mandatory indication of the cost of the service prior to their activation.

In the summer of 2013, we began work on a whole set of measures:

1. In October, subscriptions activated on the mobile Internet on modems and tablets were banned.
The fact is that this subscription form involves clicking on a button on the site as an acceptance and receiving an SMS with what it is and how it is connected. It’s not always possible to read this SMS on the modem and tablet, and it’s not always obvious to subscribers that by pressing something on the computer, they interact with the balance of their phone.

2. In November, we always began to indicate the cost of the service on the button itself, introduced standards for its appearance.

Here is one of our buttons, where the fulfillment of our requirements is already “on the verge”:





But this may look like the button of another operator. Pay attention to how well it disguises itself as a button on a standard player:



The requirement of the law is formally fulfilled - the conditions are written in fine light gray and white. You see them not the first time.

3. Since December 25, for all services from 100 rubles, we have entered an additional confirmation by SMS.
That is, to connect something accidentally or insufficiently consciously became very, very problematic.

4. From January 16, all SMS-subscriptions, regardless of the amount, received such confirmation.

Here is the format of our message:



But the format of another operator. Find 3 differences:



5. Then we introduced the following procedures:

• To the existing SMS before activation and SMS informing you about the action and disconnect methods after you added a monthly SMS about the connected services and how to disable them.
• Limit the duration of any subscription, a maximum of 5 months, after which we send an SMS with a request to confirm the renewal, and if the subscriber does nothing, she is forcibly disconnected.
• We have closed the option of default service providers on the First Children's, Veteran and Mobile Pensioner tariff plans.

6. Since February, a rule has been introduced that the fine imposed on the content provider is distributed among all subscribers affected by its actions.
For example, if you have written off 50 rubles due to fraud, we return these funds to you, plus you get 50-200 rubles of a share from the penalty from this provider (though not immediately, but after 1-2 months, after fined).

Here are the sms you get:



7. Began to make returns without treatment.
Thanks to the new rules for working with content providers, in the case of fraud detection, our security officers checked all payments for this short number, and we made a refund, regardless of whether the subscriber complained or not.

8. With the help of our data analysis department, we went through all the providers and their sites, and also identified the profiles of a clearly “poor” subscription usage.
Well, for example, when subscribers make multiple attempts to send SMS to different short numbers within a few seconds (the virus or malware has obviously worked here). Ultimately, this led to serious fines of many players in the content services market.

9. Considering that a rather large share of write-offs fell on Android viruses that can send SMS and send reply SMS with confirmation of subscription, launched a free antivirus for this platform.
It automatically updates the anti-virus database. Put and forget - a smartphone or tablet under protection.

Note that, by law, we were absolutely not obliged to do this, and could continue to earn on "accidentally hooked" subscriptions. Nevertheless, we want to set standards for fair play in this market, since, I repeat, the method of payment itself can be very convenient in the future.

Appeals

One of the most painful places is the inaccuracy of the reported data. As a rule, out of 200-250 subscribers who applied, only one person is able to give an accurate picture, enough for an instant understanding that this is really fraud, and response.

The first problem is that the actions of fraudsters are extremely unobvious for an ordinary subscriber. For example, there was voice spam with an IVR in the spirit of: “You have a voice card, do something for it”. The victim did as said, but received a subscription instead of a postcard. To understand what is happening, to put it mildly, far from being a voluntary subscription to a service, we had to spend quite a lot of time. But in the end, the source of fraud was found.

The second problem is that many subscriptions belong to the group of 18+, and people are simply embarrassed to designate with sufficient accuracy where and how they “picked up” them.

The third problem is that subscribers are not always technically literate to understand what happened.

Return

During this time, we returned 30.2 million rubles to subscribers. Supposedly, for the next similar period, we will return about 4 times less, since the most prominent violators left the market or realized that we are playing seriously and will not get in touch with us any better.

Procedure

After receiving a claim, a refund is made right during the call to the contact center or within a couple of days after contacting, if more detailed verification is required.

When there are no applications, and the data came from our monitoring system, each case is sorted out, and all the victims are identified, it may take about a month - there are legal challenges that cannot be automated. After we install all affected subscribers, we make a return.

Fair play

Our position is: we are for fair play. The actions of operators, formally and minimally fulfilling the requirements of the law, but at the same time seeking to increase the turnover of their paid subscriptions, we find unethical. For our part, we (it should be noted, with difficulty) refused a substantial part of the profit in favor of honest relations with the subscriber. We plan to compensate for these and other similar aspects of lost profits by increasing the subscriber base in the future. We still have work to do in many areas. We do it in places slowly, but we do. And we are for fair play.