The story of how a mobile operator wrote off money from the developer Dr. Tariff (grab popcorn)

Last week we decided to tell Habr's readers about how the subscriber's consumption profile of a cellular communication in Russia is arranged according to aggregated data from Dr. Tariff ( Google Play , App Store ). They considered various metrics, argued about whether there is seasonality in the communications market and how it would be more correct to consider price elasticity of demand. Suddenly the phone vibrated ...

Outset

Interesting! My favorite operator is testing ads - how does it work?

')





Clicking on "Accept" opened a list of some unfamiliar games, obviously not from the Top 10 App Store and Google Play. Next was the main surprise - by clicking on one of the games, this screen appeared:







There was neither a public offer, nor a warning about the debit of funds and the price (!) - the tick and the bill was reduced by 119.99 rubles. I wondered - what if 10 thousand were written off from me, for example. Brewing a good story for research.

Plot development

First of all, I got into the menu “Detailing” of the iPhone version of our application - after 3 minutes, an update came. There, this write-off was called “sim-menu”. A similar feature has recently appeared in the Android version :







Cool! So we have information about these "lucky ones" among our users. We decided to calculate more detailed statistics about “unusual” charges among our favorite users.

Decoupling

The sample size is 40 thousand subscribers with details for the last month. Coverage - Big Three across Russia.

After the automatic elimination of calls, SMS and the Internet, 744 different types of lines remained, which needed to be checked manually. In difficult cases, he saved the following criterion - it takes half an hour to find out what this service means, but the answer to the question “how to disable this service?” Is googled in 5 seconds.



So, among our users, the operators have the following "balance of power":







The proceeds from such write-offs are quite close and fluctuate around the mark of 20 rubles per month for 1 subscriber. The shares of such write-offs differ more significantly:







Leaders in write-offs are services:

Red: “rbtpro” (aka “GOOD'OK”). The service is at 8.1% of subscribers. The average check for the service is 70 rubles per month.

Yellow: "Additional partner service". The service is at 6.5% of subscribers. The average check for the service is 198 rubles per month.

Green: “premium wap (wap-clicks)”. The service is at 2.4% of subscribers. The average bill for the service 169 rubles. / Month.

The internet is for ...

It is noteworthy that one of the operators easily recognizes access to adult content - these services are used by 1.7% with an average check of 80 rubles per month.

Afterword

We must pay tribute to the operator - after calling the support service and filing a complaint about the scammers, I was returned the money to the account, but how many subscribers do not require a return and part with their hard-earned money?







In fact, we are not against the operators - we believe that they perform a very important task for the society, but in the pursuit of profit, they also allow excesses. Mobile subscriptions in their current form have become obsolete and will surely disappear - a matter of time. We urge to finish with them today, and not to create the illusion of customer care, connecting all the new "content partners".



As a result of the study, we decided to launch a system of push-notifications in the near future in case of detection of “suspicious” write-offs in detail.

What do you think about this feature?



Learn about others feature Dr. Tariff is possible, for example, in this article .



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