Beeline patronizes SMS scammers?
Yesterday, the wife became a victim of SMS scammers - 700 rubles were written off from the Beeline account. Employees of the company did not understand and recognized the fact of debiting funds as legal, despite the prompt appeal. Details under the cut.
The wife has long been seriously using Beeline services. About six months ago, I wanted a new phone - we bought Sony-Ericsson XPERIA Ray on Android. It is used mainly for calls, periodically exchanging mail. Yesterday I received a request to update Google Translate - it allowed, and after a few minutes SMS from short numbers rained down that there were not enough funds on the account to pay. I checked the balance - instead of 700 rubles, 60 remained. They began to sort it out - immediately there was a suspicion, another program was working under the guise of updating Google Translate. It turned out that in the general list of programs there are two with the same translator icon, one of them is called simply “Installation”. It is clear that under the pretext of updating it, funds were written off. How she got on the phone - I don’t know, maybe the spouse once clicked on a link in SMS spam and installed it for herself by accident.
We call Beeline, explain the situation to the operator. The operator sends us to the company RM-Invest (website sms911.ru), with which they have an agreement on the provision of short numbers. The logical question, why do we need to communicate with scammers who have already deceived us once, is left unanswered. On the Internet, by the way, there are a lot of complaints from those who suffered from the activities of this campaign.
We remind the operator that Beeline everywhere declares that it is enough for them to only report the fact of fraud - and they will immediately take action. In response, the offer “to get a discount on the services rendered” and put a ban on sending paid SMS using the 0858 team. Since there was practically no money left on the account, we agreed to return 200 rubles and left a statement. As a result, today a message came that “verification has been carried out, information about the fact of ordering content has been confirmed. The charges are correct and correspond to the cost of the services provided. ”
It's no secret that mobile operators receive a good percentage with SMS sent to short numbers. Judging by the current situation, Beeline allows SMS scammers to calmly do their job for sharing their income.
In order to avoid the recurrence of a similar situation, they put a ban on sending paid SMS using the 0858 command (by the way, for some reason, MTS needs to contact the office to perform a similar operation). In a good way, such a ban should be the default on all tariff plans.
PS The post would be more logical to transfer to "I am a resent", but I do not have enough karma for this.
UPD:
In the comments, they tell me that 200 rubles is Beeline’s share in the scam and the operator is trying to relieve all responsibility of this amount by returning it.
I’ll clarify with a dissatisfied post why I consider the situation a fraud and what does Beeline have to do with it:
Funds were debited from the account under the pretext of updating the useful Google Translate program. There were no messages about sending paid SMS.
The operator was informed about the fraud in a timely manner and we are not the first victims - it is enough to type sms911.ru in the search.
In response - a reply that "the charges are true."
Before my eyes is an example of banks that, according to a client’s statement about fraud, return money.
Conclusion - SMS payments, at the moment, are too risky and it is more expedient to refuse to use them.
The wife has long been seriously using Beeline services. About six months ago, I wanted a new phone - we bought Sony-Ericsson XPERIA Ray on Android. It is used mainly for calls, periodically exchanging mail. Yesterday I received a request to update Google Translate - it allowed, and after a few minutes SMS from short numbers rained down that there were not enough funds on the account to pay. I checked the balance - instead of 700 rubles, 60 remained. They began to sort it out - immediately there was a suspicion, another program was working under the guise of updating Google Translate. It turned out that in the general list of programs there are two with the same translator icon, one of them is called simply “Installation”. It is clear that under the pretext of updating it, funds were written off. How she got on the phone - I don’t know, maybe the spouse once clicked on a link in SMS spam and installed it for herself by accident.
We call Beeline, explain the situation to the operator. The operator sends us to the company RM-Invest (website sms911.ru), with which they have an agreement on the provision of short numbers. The logical question, why do we need to communicate with scammers who have already deceived us once, is left unanswered. On the Internet, by the way, there are a lot of complaints from those who suffered from the activities of this campaign.
We remind the operator that Beeline everywhere declares that it is enough for them to only report the fact of fraud - and they will immediately take action. In response, the offer “to get a discount on the services rendered” and put a ban on sending paid SMS using the 0858 team. Since there was practically no money left on the account, we agreed to return 200 rubles and left a statement. As a result, today a message came that “verification has been carried out, information about the fact of ordering content has been confirmed. The charges are correct and correspond to the cost of the services provided. ”
It's no secret that mobile operators receive a good percentage with SMS sent to short numbers. Judging by the current situation, Beeline allows SMS scammers to calmly do their job for sharing their income.
In order to avoid the recurrence of a similar situation, they put a ban on sending paid SMS using the 0858 command (by the way, for some reason, MTS needs to contact the office to perform a similar operation). In a good way, such a ban should be the default on all tariff plans.
PS The post would be more logical to transfer to "I am a resent", but I do not have enough karma for this.
UPD:
In the comments, they tell me that 200 rubles is Beeline’s share in the scam and the operator is trying to relieve all responsibility of this amount by returning it.
I’ll clarify with a dissatisfied post why I consider the situation a fraud and what does Beeline have to do with it:
Funds were debited from the account under the pretext of updating the useful Google Translate program. There were no messages about sending paid SMS.
The operator was informed about the fraud in a timely manner and we are not the first victims - it is enough to type sms911.ru in the search.
In response - a reply that "the charges are true."
Before my eyes is an example of banks that, according to a client’s statement about fraud, return money.
Conclusion - SMS payments, at the moment, are too risky and it is more expedient to refuse to use them.