Competitors are click-fraudding the ads: what to do, step by step
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A suspicion that “this is competitors” is not the same as invalid traffic that has already been recognised. Direct returns spend on invalid traffic to the shared account balance, and in most cases that happens automatically. If you wrote to support and the suspicions were confirmed, the money is returned to the cabinet’s main account. Until there is confirmation, a click that looks like a competitor is not yet a refund in this scheme.
Click fraud here is the name of the problem, not the name of a culprit. Who clicks ads, and why is wider than one competitor. The order below does not replace the cabinet’s support and does not turn a statute into a ready lawsuit.
Who the examples actually name
In Google Ads examples, invalid traffic includes bots, accidental clicks, fraudulent placements and intentional clicks by people with no interest. Among the intentional ones, the help text names competitors who drive up your spend, and publishers who pay users to click.
That is a list of examples, not a verdict on your campaign. A competitor stands next to a bot, an accidental click and a publisher paying for clicks. Seeing a “foreign” visit and writing “it is them” skips three neighbouring items on the same list.
Click fraud and sklikivanie keep the term and the motive apart. The motive “drive up our spend” is in the Google examples. Proof that a particular business did it does not appear from the example.
What is already returned on its own
Direct returns spend on invalid traffic to the shared account balance. That is a refund of traffic already recognised, not an estimate of what remains in spend. “How much came back” and “how much is still sitting in clicks” are different jobs. The first is closed by the balance. This paragraph does not calculate the second.
The help text answers the question of a fraud refund like this: in most cases spend on invalid traffic is returned to the account balance automatically. A letter is not required for that majority. A letter is for when you want a suspicion checked separately.
Invalid clicks explain why not everything suspicious is already in the refund. Whether Yandex refunds click fraud is about the refund procedure itself. Here the fork is only: an automatic refund of what was recognised, or a letter with a data pack.
What to put in the letter
If the advertiser wrote to support and gave the ad number, the period of suspicious clicks, the Metrica counter number, links to reports and other data already reviewed, and the suspicions were confirmed, the money is returned to the cabinet’s main account.
The pack without which there is nothing to confirm:
The ad number, not “the whole campaign by eye”.
The period of suspicious clicks, with dates, not “recent weeks”.
The Metrica counter number.
Links to reports you have already reviewed.
Other reviewed data you have on these clicks. The help text does not replace them with a menu of clues. The letter contains what is already reviewed, not a feeling.
A refund after the letter depends on confirmation. This answer does not promise to return every click the advertiser considers suspicious. If there was no confirmation, money does not arrive from this letter, and that is not a “failure of the automatic refund”: the automatic refund applies to invalid traffic already recognised.
A refund of money you deposited to the account is a different procedure. Do not put it in the fraud letter. Otherwise support receives two different requests under one ad number.
Steps before you are in a thread
Separate invalid traffic already recognised from clicks that only look like a competitor. For what was recognised, look at the refund to the shared balance.
Do not look in the balance for an estimate of the remainder. The refund does not measure what stayed in spend.
Match your hypothesis to the whole example list: a bot, an accidental click, a fraudulent placement, an intentional click with no interest. A competitor driving up spend is one item. A publisher paying for a click is the next.
If you hold the “competitor” item, build the pack: ad number, period, counter number, report links, the rest of the review.
Send the pack to support and wait for confirmation. Until then the main account is not topped up from this letter.
Do not ask in the same letter to return money you deposited. That is a different procedure.
Do not attach “this is unfair competition under 135-FZ” until you have read the next section: the open text of the forms does not name it.
What 135-FZ says, and what you cannot derive
Article 4 of the competition-protection law defines unfair competition as any actions of businesses aimed at gaining an advantage in business activity, contrary to the law, business customs, integrity, reasonableness and fairness, that have caused or may cause losses to competitors or harm to their business reputation.
In the open text of the chapter on forms of unfair competition, ad click fraud is not named. From the definition alone you cannot derive that click fraud is already qualified as unfair competition.
The open edition against which this definition was checked lists changes through 19 April 2024. Later amendments were not part of this review. You cannot lean on article 4 as a qualification of clicks that has already been made: the definition by itself does not finish a qualification, and the edition check stops there.
For the cabinet this is practical. A letter to Direct support is built from an ad number and reports. A letter that cites 135-FZ instead of reports does not replace the pack from Direct’s help text.
Two weeks as an example
A teaching example.
In the first week the shared balance received a refund for invalid traffic Direct had already recognised. That is the automatic branch. The example does not allow you to estimate from that sum how many “competitor” clicks are still in spend: the refund is not about the remainder.
In the second week clicks rose, and there is no recognition. In the Google examples such a rise can be intentional competitor clicks, accidental clicks, bots, or a publisher paying users. The letter gets the ad number, the second week’s period, the counter number and links to reviewed reports. Until support confirms the suspicion, the main account does not change because of this letter.
The same letter does not ask to return the payment that topped up the cabinet. And it does not say “this is article 4 of the competition law”: the open text of the forms does not name click fraud, and the edition check runs through 19 April 2024.
Checklist before sending
Traffic already recognised is separated: its refund goes to the shared balance, usually automatically.
The remainder in spend is not estimated by that sum.
The hypothesis is matched to the whole example list, not only to “competitors”.
The letter has the ad number.
It has the period of suspicious clicks.
It has the Metrica counter number.
It has links to reports and other data already reviewed.
The expectation is labelled: a refund to the main account if the suspicions are confirmed.
A request to return deposited money is not in this letter.
A citation of 135-FZ does not replace the pack and does not announce a qualification the open text does not contain.
The five pack items come from Direct’s help text. The last two keep the letter off a different procedure and off an extra legal conclusion.
Sort the example list into folders
While the folder is one and it is named “competitors”, support receives a mixed pack. Sort clicks by the Google example items, without adding new kinds.
Bots. If the reviewed reports already show automatic visits, say so in the letter and attach the link. Do not call them a competitor only because spend rose.
Accidental clicks. They have no intent to inflate your budget. They enter the pack as a suspicious period you reviewed, not as another company’s name.
Fraudulent placements. This item is about a placement, not about a neighbour’s marketing desk. A link to the placements report fits better than a guess that “they open us from a phone”.
Intentional clicks by people with no interest. The help text splits them into two illustrations: competitors who drive up spend, and publishers who pay users to click. Pick one illustration in the letter and do not glue them. A publisher paying for a click does not need a competitor’s name. A competitor driving up spend is not proved by the fact that a placement can be paid.
If no item collected a link to a report, it is early to send. The help text expects reviewed data, not a choice from a menu of “who is guilty”.
The first sentence of the letter
The first sentence names the request: check the suspicion for the period and, if it is confirmed, return the spend to the main account. The second sentence lists the attachments: ad number, period, counter number, links. The third does not promise yourself an outcome. Confirmation is the condition of a refund on this path. It cannot be replaced with “please return it anyway”.
In a separate paragraph, if the balance already has an automatic refund, write its date and do not ask to count it again as “competitors”. That is traffic already recognised, on the shared account. Mixing the two sums looks like a double request for the same clicks.
The last paragraph does not quote article 4. If a lawyer reads the statute in parallel, give them the definition in full, the open text of the forms where click fraud is absent, and the note about the edition through 19 April 2024. Do not copy that paragraph into the Direct ticket: the cabinet confirms a suspicion from reports, not a legal qualification.
The example continued: an answer came, and an answer did not
Still a teaching example.
Support confirmed the suspicion for the second week. The refund landed on the cabinet’s main account. It is not added to the first week’s automatic refund on the shared account: different branches, different grounds. An estimate of “how much the competitor has not yet been billed” is still not made — neither branch measures the remainder in spend.
The other outcome of the same pack: no confirmation. The main account is not topped up from the letter. The first week’s automatic refund is not cancelled by that. A repeat letter makes sense only when there is new reviewed data: another period, another ad, other links. The same pack without new links does not become a new ground.
In both outcomes 135-FZ does not move. Direct’s confirmation is about spend and the balance. The absence of confirmation is too. A qualification of unfair competition does not appear from these letters, because the open text of the forms does not name click fraud, and article 4’s definition by itself does not reach that qualification.
Keep the pack as the letter, not as a retelling. The ad number, the period bounds, the counter number and the links themselves can still be checked a month later. The sentence “we wrote about competitors” cannot. If the automatic refund on the shared account and the refund to the main account after confirmation sit in one table, label the branch in a column: “already recognised” or “confirmed from the letter”. Without the column, accounting will add the sums and decide the competitor was measured twice. The measurement is built differently: one sum is the refund of what was recognised, to the shared account; the second is the refund to the main account after confirmation; and neither is an estimate of the remainder.