When you are asleep late at night, your phone may be quietly experiencing cash flow. Not long ago, a message that "a certain account was hacked 162 times in the early hours of the morning" appeared on social media hot searches. Users claimed that without knowing it, their account was hacked 162 times continuously by criminals in the three hours of the morning, with a total amount exceeding 80000 yuan. On a certain complaint platform, there are tens of thousands of complaints related to secret free payments, including users being opened for secret free payments without their knowledge, unable to cancel functions, and opening unauthorized fees. The scenarios that occur are concentrated in e-commerce platforms, car rental platforms, membership opening, and second-hand platforms. Behind them is an urgent question that needs to be answered: why has the innovative technology that should have brought convenience become a loophole in consumer wallets? On November 12th, the China Payment and Clearing Association issued an initiative that directly addresses the core issue: non encrypted payments cannot be enabled by default. This initiative may seem simple, but it hits the pain point of the current payment ecosystem - many users have unknowingly activated this feature. Some elderly people are attracted by the extremely low prices when watching short dramas or playing mobile games, and with just one click, they default to enabling password free payments; Some users only find that their accounts have the "contactless payment" function after updating the system. This lack of significant prompts and unauthorized opening method is essentially a violation of consumers' right to know and choose. What's even more troubling is that the activation is almost 'seamless', while the cancellation is fraught with difficulties. Many users, including the author, have found that the closed entry for free payment is extremely hidden and requires crossing through layers of interfaces to find it. This asymmetry in design is a disregard for user rights. Not only that, many criminals have already figured out the pattern and controlled the amount of a single transaction within the limit, making high-frequency small deductions to bypass the system's risk monitoring. After discovering the problem, the responsibility boundaries between payment platforms, merchants, and banks are also blurred, and consumer rights protection often falls into the dilemma of being kicked. It is worth pondering why secret free payments have become a major area of chaos? On the one hand, this reflects the product logic of "experience first" in the digital age - enterprises continuously simplify verification steps in order to reduce payment friction, improve transaction and conversion rates; On the other hand, it also exposes the reality that regulation lags behind technological development. The initiative of the Payment Clearing Association is a timely correction of this imbalance. It requires payment service providers to complete user authorization through significant means, set limits for high-risk transactions, and ensure that users can easily cancel services. These regulations may seem basic, but they directly point to the core of the problem: returning the right of choice to users and prioritizing risk management over user experience. This is the direction that payment innovation should take. It is worth noting that the initiative mentions the elderly twice - once proposing a comprehensive assessment of their risk preferences and business tolerance, displaying core business terms in a significant way, and cautiously opening up the "secret free payment" function for the elderly; Another proposal is to proactively push real-time or regular information related to "secret free payment" transactions based on the actual needs of the elderly, provide a one click query function for relevant information in prominent locations, and offer a one click cancellation function for "secret free payment". These proposals fully reflect the special protection for "vulnerable groups" in the digital age. Technology should serve people, not make them prisoners. Convenient payment is certainly important, but it must be based on users' full knowledge and independent choice. Any business behavior that attempts to bypass this fundamental principle will ultimately be unsustainable, and only by finding a balance between convenience and security can digital payments truly become a trusted partner in life. For consumers, in addition to expecting industry standards to be implemented, they also need to improve their digital literacy, regularly check the automatic deduction management page of payment applications, and pay attention to transaction reminders. These habits, although small, are important defenses for safeguarding financial security. (New Society)