PRESS: Russian cell subscribers can unwillingly pay for services

MOSCOW, May 26 (PRIME) -- Clients of Russian mobile operators can be involuntarily subscribed to pay services when visiting shady Web sites, but the communications service does not see a wave of complaints on the matter, business daily Vedomosti reported Thursday.

Several of the daily’s employees – clients of MTS and VimpelCom, known as Beeline – were subscribed to certain media resources without knowing about it, and money was immediately charged from their accounts.

Vedomosti found similar repeated complaints from clients of MTS, VimpelCom and T2 RTK Holding, known as Tele2, in the operator’s official pages in social networks for the recent three months. People said they had given no consent for pay subscriptions, but visited different Web sites and found themselves immediately subscribed to services costing 20–100 rubles per day.

Responses of the operators were almost identical: subscription is confirmed without being noticed when a client clicks a banner on a dubious Web site.

AC&M Consulting’s partner Oksana Pankratova said that operators’ incomes from pay content have been declining over last years, proving that companies effectively tackle fraud. MTS earned 11.6 billion rubles on content in 2015 as compared to 14.7 billion rubles a year earlier; MegaFon’s proceeds slid to 13.2 billion rubles from 15.4 billion rubles.

(65.8949 rubles – U.S. $1)

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