Yandex has not announced any automatic compensation for Yandex Plus subscribers after several days of disruption to its services. Subscribers can still ask support for a recalculation covering the days the service did not work, though there is no guarantee it will be granted. Two things complicate the picture. On October 10, Yandex added a force majeure section to its user agreement. Fraudsters are also sending fake “compensation” offers. Plus is paid in advance, and during the outage Yandex Music played intermittently and Kinopoisk blocked access to films, even though the monthly fee had already been charged.
What you need to know
- On October 10, Yandex added a section to its user agreement that lists military action and terrorist attacks, including drone attacks, as force majeure.
- Yandex has not promised ordinary Plus subscribers free days, points or discounts for the outage.
- Analysts at Smart Business Alert found 52 domains referring to Yandex or using similar names between October 5 and 12. Of these, 44 appeared from October 8 onward.
- The only measure for ordinary users is in Yandex Pay. From October 11 to 17, existing Saves accounts earn 20% per annum, and Yandex promises that Split and loan payments due during the outage will not count as overdue.
Yandex Plus has been unstable following attacks on data centers
What broke after the attacks on data centers
Between October 8 and 11, drones attacked Yandex data centers three times. The sites were in Sasovo in the Ryazan region, in Kaluga and in Vladimir. After the third attack, almost all of the company’s services were disrupted, including the Plus subscription. Yandex Music worked intermittently and Kinopoisk had access problems. My Wave did not play at all without a connection to the server.
Services are being restored in stages, so users report different results. For some people everything already works, and for others it does not. Either way, subscribers received less than they paid for during several days of a paid month.
Yandex changed its terms between the attacks
On October 10, between the second and third attacks, Yandex’s user agreement gained a new section on exemption from liability. It explicitly lists the following as force majeure:
- military action and terrorist attacks, including those involving drones;
- shelling and explosions;
- evacuations;
- major failures of power grids and communications networks.
The general agreement covers all Yandex services, so it applies to Plus, Music and Kinopoisk.
The new terms for Yandex services
The company said the changes are clarifications and do not alter existing legal mechanisms, because force majeure is already provided for by law. That is true, but there is a caveat. Force majeure exempts a company from liability for failing to perform, meaning penalties, fines and compensation for losses. It does not erase the fact that the service was not provided on certain days.
No compensation has been announced for subscribers
Yandex has not promised ordinary users free days of Plus, points or discounts for the outage. Only business customers received special terms. Orders placed with Yandex Market sellers from October 11 were excluded from the sellers’ quality index, and Yandex Cloud customers were offered flexible data migration.
The only gesture for ordinary users is in Yandex Pay. From October 11 to 17, existing Saves accounts earn 20% per annum, and Yandex promises that Split and loan payments due during the outage will not be treated as overdue. Any offer of “compensation for Plus” should therefore raise suspicion rather than excitement.
Scammers are already offering “apologies for the outage”
While Yandex repairs its data centers, fraudsters are profiting from the disruption. Between October 5 and 12, analysts at Smart Business Alert found 52 domains mentioning Yandex or using similar-looking names. Of these, 44 appeared from October 8 onward, the date of the first attack. During the outage, new suspicious sites were registered 3.6 times more often than before it.
An example of a scam message offering compensation
The schemes vary, but all of them exploit the expectation that Yandex will apologize for the outage:
- “Compensation for the outage”, such as free taxi rides, delivery discounts or a free Plus subscription.
- “Refunds of stuck payments” and “restoring access” to Yandex Pay.
- “Your data has been damaged. Sign in to restore it.”
- “Your account was blocked because of the outage” or “Urgent migration. Open the attachment.”
Every scheme ends the same way. A page that looks like the real Yandex asks for a password, an SMS code or card details. Yandex and Yandex Cloud remind users that the company never asks for passwords, card details or remote access to an account by email.
What to do if you have already entered your details
If you followed such a link and entered your login and password, act immediately, before the fraudsters can sign in. These steps end all active sessions:
- Open Yandex ID and go to the Security section.
- Select “Your devices” and tap “Sign out everywhere”.
- Sign in again and change your password right away.
- In Yandex Mail settings, check whether email forwarding to an unknown address has been added.
The menu names above are English translations of the interface labels.
The button for signing out of Yandex on all devices
After signing out everywhere, you will have to sign in again on all your own devices, but any sessions belonging to someone else will be terminated along with yours. If you entered card details, block the card in your banking app straight away and call the bank using the number on the back of the card. If you did not enter anything but are unsure about a message, check it in the official Yandex apps rather than following links.
Turning off auto-renewal does not refund money
If the outage was the last straw, you can turn off auto-renewal of the multi-subscription on the plus.yandex.ru/my page. This will not refund any money: Plus keeps working until the end of the paid period, and no further charge is made. The cancellation flow shows several offers to stay, and if you close the page at one of them, the subscription remains active and you will be charged next month. If you paid for Plus through Google Play or a mobile carrier, the cancel button may be inactive.
Cancelling a Yandex Plus subscription on Android
Asking Yandex support for a recalculation
No one will refund the outage days automatically. Under the new terms, claiming penalties or compensation for losses is almost pointless, because that is exactly what the force majeure clause is meant to cover.
However, force majeure does not mean the service was delivered. According to the original report, Russia’s consumer protection law lets consumers demand a price reduction when a service is provided with defects, so subscribers are entitled to ask for a recalculation for the days Plus did not work. This is the publication’s legal reading rather than a ruling or official Yandex position, and it should be treated as general information, not legal advice.
The request goes through the support chat, reached via the “Help” link at the bottom of the plus.yandex.ru page. The report suggests stating the date and amount of your most recent Plus charge, listing the days and services that did not work, asking for a recalculation for that period and attaching screenshots of errors if you saved any.
Contacting Yandex support on a smartphone
Support is responding slowly because it has received many requests since the outage. If a request is refused, the report says the next steps would be a written claim and then a complaint to Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer protection regulator. Few people are likely to go that far, since only a few days of subscription and a small sum are at stake.
The bottom line
You can try to get money back for Plus, but only by asking support yourself. Yandex will not credit anything automatically, and anyone offering “compensation” through a link in an SMS, a messenger or an email is a scammer.
