Payments are put in order – Kommersant FM

The government supported the bill banning hidden charges from cards. We are talking about a document that was submitted to the Duma in the summer of 2023. This also applies to online subscription services. If it is accepted, companies will have to remind the client about the next transaction no later than 24 hours in advance. In addition, marketplaces will be prohibited from debiting money from cards that the client has unlinked from his profile. Social activists had previously complained about this practice.

It is assumed that Rospotrebnadzor will monitor compliance with the requirements. Chairman of the organization “Public Consumer Initiative” Oleg Pavlov considers unexpected write-offs a serious problem. According to him, the bill should solve it at least partially:

“Tens of millions of users are connected to one or another service. And the vast majority of them experience various difficulties in canceling these subscriptions.

Regardless of which mechanism will be implemented, the main thing is that this story is conceptually supported. First, consumers will receive timely notifications of upcoming charges. Secondly, they will contain a refusal procedure, which will make it easy to find the very mechanism for preventing unauthorized write-offs.

A certain number of companies voluntarily inform users about the next transaction, but they are a minority. Making such notices mandatory would be a significant step forward for consumers. Whether or not this letter ends up in spam is the responsibility of the consumer, who checks his mail and spam filters so as not to miss such an important notification.

“Kommersant” wrotethat a more radical version of the bill was initially discussed. It was assumed that the write-off reminder would have a button for instant unsubscribe, but this norm was softened. Nevertheless, the market still has questions about the document, notes General Director of the Internet Video Association Alexey Byrdin: “Our attitude to the bill is similar to the government’s position.

We believe that it is important to encourage conscientious behavior towards consumers. But some of the proposed mechanisms do not seem to us either effective or suitable for solving the problem.

In certain circumstances, they can harm both the services themselves and users. We are in dialogue with the authors of the bill and plan to propose certain changes. I think that they will be supported by all participants in the process.

The notification that the bill focuses on will be superfluous, because it complements the other two that are already sent to the user. At the time the money is written off, the service itself, in accordance with the legislation on cash register equipment, sends an OFD check. Then a notification that the amount has been written off (with the purpose of the write-off) is sent by the bank. Despite the fact that these notifications come after the fact, if you did not subscribe, your money will most likely be returned upon request.

People will simply perceive additional notifications as spam. There is no evidence anywhere in the world that warning notices have any positive effect on consumer protection.”

According to Kommersant FM’s interlocutors, the Central Bank and the Federation Council are now discussing another way to control subscriptions. The point is that a person can cancel regular payments not through separate resources, but through his bank, for example, in an application.

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Ilya Sizov