Several French people have noticed a surprising withdrawal from their bank account.
Karen (assumed name) seems helpless. On a consumer forum, she worries about a suspicious withdrawal from her son’s bank account. This mother is not the only one. Other messages of the same type are easily found on various platforms. Each time, the story is the same: Internet users swear that they do not know the sender and that they have not made a purchase from the company mentioned in the description. The amounts debited are often similar: around 10 to 15 euros per month. But then, what about these payments that raise questions?
In recent months, many French people have been warned to check that a direct debit in the name of SFAM does not appear on their account. Here, the name is completely different: Air Média Lyon. A name that could lead one to believe it is a press company in the Rhône prefecture. However, all of them affirm it: they do not subscribe to a local news title. Not philanthropists of journalism, our witnesses…
If these Internet users are worried, it is nevertheless easy to find the origin of this levy. Air Média Lyon actually hides a site that no one boasts about visiting: MYM, for “Me, You, More”. It is a platform on which people publish photos and videos of themselves, whatever they may be: cooking, sports… and (especially) much more. The site is mainly known for the distribution of content “in skimpy outfits”.
But it is not freely accessible. To view them, you have to pay. Various packages exist: from €4.99 to €49.99 per month. A way to access the images, but also to pay the people who post them. However, given the type of publications that are mostly sought after, this is the kind of transaction on which we prefer to remain discreet. The company therefore understood this by displaying a different wording from the name of the site.
These withdrawals are therefore absolutely not fraudulent but are the result of a transaction carried out and validated by the card holder. So obviously, when it is not done with his own, the question of the origin of the payment is legitimate. Between 12 and 14 million users are registered on MYM.