Users who have been deducting fees for many months are unaware, "Is it so difficult to remind the App before deducting fees"?

At the beginning of April this year, the "Rule of Law Daily" published a draft of "I wanted to try it for free, but I was deducted from my one-year membership fee, and the reporter investigated the chaos of "free trial" and "low-cost enjoyment" of the app", which sparked heated discussions and related topics rushed to the hot search. After that, many readers called to say that there were still many apps that did not remind them before deducting fees, resulting in their subsequent failure to use the App but being deducted from membership fees every month.　　

"There was no reminder before the deduction, I found out when I checked the bill×× App was deducting my money" "I uninstalled the ×× App, and it sent a message every once in a while to remind me to go online, but it never reminded me when I deducted the money" "The reminder was a reminder, but the message was pushed in the App, mixed in a lot of messy information, and I couldn't find it at all"...... The reader complained.　　

Should the app remind the user before deducting the fee? How should the user be reminded? How should the phenomenon of some apps deducting the fee without reminding the user be rectified? With the question, the reporter conducted an investigation and interview.

"I was 'stolen' from ×× App for 3 months. Mr. Wang from Haikou, Hainan Province, recently complained to a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily". It turned out that not long ago, when he accidentally checked the mobile phone bill, he found 3 expenses in unknown directions, 18 yuan per month. Later, it was found that it was a deduction from the App ×× quietly.　　

After thinking about it for a long time, Mr. Wang remembered that at the end of last year, in order to set his favorite alarm, he opened a quiet ×× App membership, 0.1 yuan in the first month, and the system automatically checked the "automatic renewal", and then the monthly membership fee was 18 yuan. "I used it that month, and it has not been used since then, if the merchant could remind me before deducting the fee, I would have canceled it a long time ago. ”　　

"Is it so difficult to remind the app before deducting the fee?!" Mr. Wang said.　　

This is also the voice of many users. The reporter's investigation found that many respondents said that they had encountered situations where the App did not remind or did not significantly remind them, resulting in them being deducted.　　

Article 18 of the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Transactions stipulates that where an online transaction operator provides services by means of automatic extension or automatic renewal, it shall draw the attention of consumers in a conspicuous manner before consumers accept the services and 5 days before the date of automatic extension or automatic renewal, and the consumers shall make their own choice;　　

The interviewed experts pointed out that consumers have the "right to be reminded", and App merchants should fulfill their obligation to remind in accordance with the law, and remind and significantly remind in advance in accordance with regulations before the automatic renewal deduction, and the law enforcement departments should further strengthen supervision, increase the degree of punishment, and work with industry organizations to formulate self-discipline regulations, technical standards, and service specifications, and jointly improve the reminder mechanism for automatic renewal to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

Before the deduction, there was no reminder to delete it, and it was still charged for half a year

Ms. Li from Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, also had a similar experience to Mr. Wang - recently, she found that her mobile phone bill was more than in previous years, so she downloaded the client to check the detailed bill, and found that the bill showed that she had opened a ×× video App membership, and it had been automatically renewed for 8 consecutive months at a monthly fee of 21.9 yuan.　　

Ms. Li has no impression of when she opened the App membership, she checked her mobile phone text message, and the other party did not send any prompt before the deduction. She called the mobile phone operator and contacted the app's customer service, but was either told that "automatic deduction does not accept refunds", or she reported it to her superiors, and there was no news after that.　　

If I don't check the phone bill, I won't be able to find out if I automatically renew for 80 months. Ms. Li said indignantly.　　

In order to lose fat and fitness, Mr. Tang from Fengtai, Beijing, downloaded a sports app and opened an auto-renewal membership, with a monthly membership fee of 19 yuan. After exercising for a while, he slowly stopped using it and then simply uninstalled the app.　　

However, the monthly membership fee continues to be deducted. "The app has never reminded me before the deduction, and I only received the SMS reminder after the deduction. Mr. Tang flipped through his mobile phone SMS record and showed the reporter, "After deducting the fee, I thought that I had already deducted the fee, and I would continue to use it this month, and then cancel the subscription before the next deduction, but as soon as I forgot it, I was deducted another month's membership fee."　　

After being deducted for several months, he finally canceled the app subscription as soon as he received the deduction SMS. "Although the money deducted is not much, it is very unhappy, and I feel that I have been tricked by the merchant. Mr. Tang said that the ×× music app and ×× network disk app he had used before were not reminded before the deduction.　　

On social platforms, many netizens complained about their experience of being "unknowingly" renewed by the App: "The bank card was deducted in the morning, thinking it was stolen, but the result was that the App was automatically renewed, and there ××was no reminder before" "I had nothing to check the bill today, only to find that there were multiple apps that had been opened before the automatic renewal was not closed, and there was no notification before the deduction, and it has been deducted for several months, if you don't look at the bill, you can't find it at all"......　　

The reporter searched for "automatic renewal" on a third-party complaint platform, and more than 150,000 complaints popped up. The main complaints include: deducting fees without being reminded after the app is enabled for auto-renewal, deducting fees even though auto-renewal has been turned off due to an unreasonable auto-renewal mechanism, deducting fees for auto-renewal before the deadline is reached, sending auto-renewal reminders to the App message box, etc., which are difficult for users to find, and auto-renewing the app without any SMS prompt after logging in for a long time or even deleting the app.　　

The reporter noticed that many consumers were particularly angry that an App had not been logged in for a long time, and some had even been uninstalled, and the App merchant also sent text messages to remind it to go online every once in a while, such as "there are ××× preferential promotions", "come back to make new friends", "prepare a return gift", etc., but they have never been reminded that they forgot to cancel the automatic renewal, and they are still deducting fees.　　

"Since the merchant knows that I haven't logged in to use the app for so long, and knows that I have been paying the membership fee, why can't they remind me to do it? Ms. Zhang from Jinan, Shandong Province, said.　　

Wang Qi, an associate professor at the Law School of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said that consumers have the "right to be reminded" when the App charges, which is also to protect consumers' right to know and choose, so that consumers can cancel or change services at any time during the service period to avoid unreasonable fees, and businesses should fulfill their reminder obligations in accordance with the law.

In-app reminders are easy to ignore, and the obvious way needs to be refined

The reporter's investigation found that in fact, some apps will send a reminder message before deducting the fee, but many users are not satisfied with this.　　

Ms. Li, from Qingdao, Shandong Province, downloaded the ×× Music app in the second half of last year, and was unknowingly deducted from her membership fee for the following month a month later. She contacted the app's customer service and asked for a refund on the grounds that the merchant had not fulfilled the stipulation of "reminding users in a conspicuous manner such as SMS and message push 5 days before the automatic renewal and automatic renewal".　　

Unexpectedly, the customer service said that the App prompted. It turned out that the merchant reminded in the form of message push in the app. Ms. Li searched for a long time and found this deduction reminder in a bunch of information mixed with music comments, likes, and reminders of new songs being launched. "If it weren't for the customer service prompt, I would never have entered this interface, let alone paid attention to and clicked on the relevant information. ”　　

"Can this be called a 'significant' reminder?" Ms. Li was not satisfied with the customer service's reply and chose to continue to complain, at first the other party refused to refund the fee on the grounds that "the automatic renewal was checked by yourself", and Ms. Li finally agreed to refund the fee after many days of communication and rights protection.　　

"A non-'significant' reminder is an invalid reminder. Ms. Li said.　　

Many of the consumers surveyed felt the same way. For example, one interviewee said that the deduction reminder of the ×× network disk App requires users to open the App message bar to find it, and the App message bar has a lot of useless message pushes every day, and a lot has accumulated in a few days, and the average user will not pay attention to it, so it is difficult for such a reminder to work.　　

Mr. Tang believes that it is necessary to distinguish between situations: if it is an active user who reads messages online frequently, the merchant can definitely identify it, and sending a message reminder in the app is a significant way; if it is a user who has not been online for a long time or has even uninstalled the app, it is a significant way to use SMS or even phone notification.　　

According to Ms. He, from Chaoyang, Beijing, charging a one-time annual fee, especially for apps with a relatively high annual fee, is a significant reminder that it should be different from a monthly fee with a lower fee. For example, she said that she used a learning app in February this year, "free trial on the 14th, 588 yuan a year after the trial". The App only sent a text message prompt on the 7th day of the free trial, and then did not prompt again, and I was busy with work and ignored it, and was finally deducted 588 yuan. "Later, when I searched for the use of this app on social platforms, I found that many people were deducted for a year's membership for carelessness like me. ”　　

In the interview, a number of interviewees also pointed out that many elderly people now often use the app, and how to "significantly" and "effectively" remind before deduction is a difficult problem that needs to be solved urgently.　　

"I didn't pay attention to the reminder in the app. SMS reminders, sometimes the reminder is forgotten after turning around, and the money has been deducted when you think about it again, and sometimes it takes a long time to find out that the prompt text message is quarantined as a spam message. Aunt Zong of Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, told reporters that she usually likes to use her mobile phone to read books and watch videos, downloaded a lot of apps, and was deducted a lot of money.　　

"If you send a text message, can you remind you a few more times, or call for seniors over 60 years old?" Aunt Zong said.　　

Some netizens shared their experiences: last year, I looked at my mother's mobile phone and found that she had opened multiple apps for automatic renewal, and the longest one had opened a membership since 2014, and she had been deducting fees so far, but her mother never noticed it.　　

"Now that technology is so developed, when opening a membership, it is associated with social networking, payment accounts, etc., and it is completely possible to identify which users are elderly, and it is recommended that merchants use the phone to remind them. In fact, many merchants have long used AI customer service, and the deduction reminder can be completely reminded by AI customer service phone. Aunt Zong's daughter said.

The content and methods should be significantly standardized, and supervision should be strengthened

The interviewed experts pointed out that the app "draws consumers' attention in a conspicuous way", and "significant" should include the conspicuousness of the notification content (such as font, color, location) and the conspicuousness of the reminder method, and it is recommended that merchants adopt a reminder method that is more in line with the habits of consumers, especially the elderly.　

According to Ma Yong, an associate professor at the School of Economics and Law at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, a "significant way" refers to a way that can attract users' attention and accurately convey reminder information regardless of whether the app is opened or used.　　

"For specific groups such as the elderly, their hearing and visual abilities and smartphone operation skills are relatively weak, so it is recommended that network service operators adopt reminders that are more in line with the habits of the elderly to ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of information transmission. Wang Qi added that in consideration of personal privacy and the protection of personal life, telephone reminders and other methods should be carried out under the premise of obtaining the explicit consent of consumers, and should not be too frequent.　　

Zhang Guodong, managing partner of Beijing Jincheng Tongda & Neal Law Firm, believes that telephone reminders are a prominent method, but it is not appropriate to identify call reminders as a mandatory obligation of network service operators, "which can guide network service operators to combine them with telephone methods on the basis of text messages and message pushes in combination with user conditions and usage".　　

Experts pointed out that deleting the App is not equivalent to canceling the automatic renewal, and the merchant can continue to charge, but if the merchant does not remind the deduction after the user uninstalls the App or the reminder method is not significant enough, it violates the principle of good faith. "When the user uninstalls or deletes the App, the platform or mobile phone system should remind the user that he has subscribed to the paid items on the App, and on the one hand, he or she is free to decide whether to continue to uninstall it, and on the other hand, remind the user that if he decides to no longer use the paid service, he should cancel the subscription in time to avoid losses. Ma Yong suggested.　　

The Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Transactions make it clear that if an online transaction operator violates Article 18 of these Measures and other provisions, and there are provisions in laws and administrative regulations, such provisions shall be followed;　　

In the opinion of the interviewed experts, such penalties may not be enough to urge some businesses to strictly implement the obligation of early reminders and significant reminders, and it is necessary to increase the cost of illegal activities for merchants.　　

Ma Yong believes that relevant departments should form a joint governance force, clarify their respective regulatory functions and establish an effective coordination mechanism. Industry organizations and relevant institutions may formulate self-regulatory protocols, technical standards, and service specifications to jointly improve the reminder mechanism for automatic renewal. In particular, the leading enterprises should assume social responsibility, and force the reform of the industry-wide reminder mechanism by improving internal management and giving full play to the demonstration effect.　　

"To further standardize the problem of not reminding in advance and not reminding in a significant way, two paths can be considered: first, consolidate the responsibility of the platform, strengthen the management function of the platform, and require it to actively urge the operators who do not perform the obligation to remind to rectify, until the relevant services or apps are removed from the shelves. The second is to restrict the payment business of password-free payment + automatic deduction, such as requiring relevant payment platforms or financial institutions to make significant reminders before deducting fees. At the same time, the maximum period of automatic renewal and renewal is limited, so as to avoid consumers from continuing to deduct fees for many years due to negligence, uninstallation and other behaviors. Ma Yong said.　　

Wang Qi suggested that the law enforcement department should carry out special governance, and conduct greater spot checks and exposure of the chaos of automatic renewal in the daily "double random, one open" supervision. At the same time, industry associations and social organizations should also play an active role in improving industry self-discipline, providing consultation to consumers, formulating self-discipline norms and standards for automatic renewal of enterprises in the industry, and standardizing and guiding enterprises to implement the protection of consumer rights and interests.

Source: Rule of Law Daily