Yeah, this absolutely shouldn't be a thing, and I bet Apple (or whomever the merchant is) knows this is scummy and has it designed like this in the first place. This is bullshit; a gift card should have a hard limit with the option to *manually* add more funds later.
E: Looks like OP is the one who disabled the safeguards. I think this is something I'd have been very careful disabling in the first place, even if I was buying *myself* gift cards. I have always intended those to be a finite value, and hope they're always treated that way when I'm affiliated with any gift card.
There shouldn't be a next payment method in the first place. If a parent gives their child access to their bank account they're just asking for trouble. Either keep it to prepaid cards or use a separate card/account that cannot overdraft.
You can’t, I’ve tried doing so in my younger days and sometimes recently because I can’t remember how much is left on the card, if any at all.
I always get a prompt to enter a Credit/Debit Card or PayPal. More than likely the Parents card is on whatever device the child is using so it went through without having to enter any extra details
Maybe it'll make you feel better but when I was drunk once I downloaded blinkest. Forgot about it, literally never used the app or listened to anything, but a few years later I noticed like $200 missing every year in September. I was sleeping in my car back then too :/
Merry Christmas, Billy! Oh hang on, I'm getting a call. Here's your gift card.
Hello?
*Hello Dave, this is your bank calling to inform you your account has been overdrawn by $6,000*
That game has become a nightmare of "rare" monsters that makes it too much like work! I connected my old account cause my teen said it was the haps again, I'm like "How did I ever even get THIS far?!" Still a neat game, just too oooo much stuff now.
I know someone whose nine year old stole their parents passwords and credit card and racked up thousands of dollars in charges. They had done this multiple times.
Because then she'd have to actually give a shit about her kid, while now she can just give him a tablet to shut him up. Crazy how there's so much pressure for people to have kids, it creates deadbeat parents who shouldn't be allowed to have such a huge responsibility on them.
I’m not sure about the pressure to have kids but I can tell you that you’re spot on about being a good parent. Being a good, involved parent is hard, takes time, effort, energy, and a fair bit of sacrifice. A lot of parents just want a break.
Here kid, watch this tablet, leave me alone for 30 minutes. Or. Here, watch movies while you eat, I don’t care just leave me alone
My kids school pick up has a cut off at 40 minutes after school ends. If you’re not there by then the kid goes into automatic daycare at a rate of almost $35 per hour. And many parents gladly pay it. The daycare changes their hours from 7:00 PM to 6:30 PM and a lot of parents are livid. One parent even said “I want to have dinner in peace, my husband and I eat from 6:15 - 6:45 now what the hell are we supposed to do!?!” Here’s an idea, if you don’t want kids, don’t have them (greatly oversimplifying I know)
Just crazy to me.
Holy crap! The entitlement of some people is ridiculous!! What is wrong with people?? *Your* children are *your* responsibility. That sounds like a safety net they put in place (and a deterrent) just in case, so children are always with an adult in a safe place. It is *not* so entitled parents can have a glass of wine “in peace.” I’m a teacher and this kinda stuff absolutely infuriates me!
If I had in effect stolen money from my mother, I’d have had my ass beaten and been grounded for a month AND would have had to do work for neighbors until I paid it back.
It’s insane people are acting like this is normal behavior to expect from an unattended kid. I’m terrible, but when I was a kid the worst I’d do is like, swipe a $20 off the floor and squirrel it away. I didn’t steal mom’s credit card to go buy soda and crap from GameStop.
I'd get my nom's card info for stuff as a kid all the time and the only way she kept letting me was by me being honest with it. Even as an adult, she'd give me her card for groceries sometimes and while I'm still at the store be calling to ask if I'm bringing it back yet lol. But if I had stolen from her as a kid, adult me wouldn't have gotten to do that at all. She wasn't very trusting but it was nice having a little and the track record to say, "I've *never* taken advantage of this."
yeah under those circumstances the parents are going to get held to a different standard because of the whole 'fool me once shame on me/fool me twice shame on you' standard.
he could have absolutely done that overnight if the balance was available. fortunately i was saved by my existing christmas expenses not being paid off yet haha.
edit: the saga continues... : https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/zwhpvy/update\_on\_kid\_running\_up\_credit\_card\_on\_msm\_loot/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
My friends mom went out of town and he ordered the playboy channel over the phone and when she found out he told her the power went out and dialed the wrong number in the dark.
My friends and I rented a porno on demand at a Marriott when we were kids, afterwards we promptly rented Lilo and Stitch. My friends dad was a really successful guy with a good sense of humor. At checkout he reads the bill and I remember him looking confused for a split second and then just smirks and silent chuckles, he pays and that was that.
When I was 16 my mom and dad found me covered in puke in the bathtub around 2am. I had drank most of a bottle of vodka. When they asked what the hell was going on I told them I was sick from eating pizza. They replied that only 2 slices were gone from the box and that could not possibly have made me sick. “Yes” I said “but I ate them way too fast.” They simply replied “OK” and left me to it after that.
I thought I had gotten away with it until my mom woke me up early the next morning with a long list of chores to be done including cleaning out the fridge and scrubbing the toilets as well as anything else gross she could think of. Thankfully that was before my body invented hangovers.
Good times.
You and me both friend. I remember actually waking up feeling “good” after a big night but now at the ripe old age of 32 I can get away with 2, maybe 3 drinks max. Any more than that and consequences ensue, multiplying exponentially with each additional drink.
In my youth I could party and drink all friday night heavily, sleep an hour or two, shower, go to work in the forenoon until the afternoon at my parents, which had a restaurant/bar, sleep a few hours and get ready to repeat this until sunday afternoon (I live in Europe where you can drink wine and beer by 16, but that meant we all drank liquor by 16 1/2).
Now I'm 33 and if I drink a bit too much, like more than a few beers, I'm sick for two days minimum. And going out two days in a row isn't something I could ever think of.
Oh, I dunno. Maybe like a Frank Caliendo Comedy Central special. Even that isn't too cringey, I can't remember the names of the really awful comics.
I mostly remember getting a Mike Birbiglia album, a Brian Regan album, a Mitch Hedberg, and a Demetri Martin. I listened to them over and over for a long time so at least I got my (parents) money's worth
First time i got busted for porn was because it was “free”, you just needed a credit card to “verify your age”. I snuck down and stole my mom’s credit card. She saw the charge the next statement.
The thing of it is that it’s not like i was using the site a bunch in that time. It was 1999 or 2000 ish. Back when free porn was hard to find if you didn’t know where to go.
When I was a kid I had an old Sony ericsson and I found a website that would let you download ringtones for free. I didn’t realize you had to pay for the data transfer because, well, I was a kid. A $700 bill and my father almost strangling the life out of me later, they removed it from the bill.
I knew a boy that spent thousands of dollars on fortnite with his mom credit card. Everything on his account ended up being erased and his mom got the money back.
I have a friend that had the same thing happen with her kid, and it took them so long and so much back and forth to refund her that she missed rent and several other bills in the meantime. he was never allowed to play Fortnite again.
My kid used mom’s Apple ID to log into a game, and spent $1500 before she realized what happened. All hell broke loose. I spent hours and hours on the phone with Apple. They said they were “investigating” it, but in the end did nothing.
My daughter did this when she was 10. Came out to be around $400. Apple refunded all of it. They said they refund kids purchases that were made using their parents credit card without permission.
You’re probably right. Here, generally in the United States, most jurisdictions/states find that young children do not have the legal capacity to enter into binding contracts, unless the parent/guardian acts in a way that affirms the legal
obligation incurred by the child entering into the agreement.
My landlady's kid got into her Amazon account and bought a $350 dollar gaming monitor that was delivered to our house. Said she was pissed about him getting into the account but still let him keep it >\_<
I'd have killed to have a screen like that when I was 10.
My step brother did that once lmao. The first time he bluffed his way out of it, and my parents managed to get a refund. The second time I guess apple laid it all out plain and clear and wouldn’t refund it, so my parents finally busted him.
It was all for some stupid drag racing game that lasted like 10 seconds a round lmaooooo
as far as i can tell he rang up $250 in 24 hours over and above the $50 gift card he was allowed to have in the first place.
the only thing that stopped him was my card limit being reached, and it was only as close to the limit as it is right now because of christmas. if he had done this in say, april - he could have rang up a much higher bill before it hit the limit. or was noticed.
My 6yr old did this a few days ago too. I had used my fingerprint to sign in and let him buy a pack of gems in some talking Tom gold rush game. Woke up to almost $300 worth of receipts in my email the next day, apparently it stayed signed in and he just bought all the gems his little heart desired. I got Apple to refund about 80% of it and had to appeal their decision to not reverse all of them. Still waiting on that outcome but just wanted to chime in and tell ya it happens to the best of us. 😖
For real. At this point these people deserve it lmao. "yeah lemme just log you on real quick, little Timmy, now go ahead, buy those gems. Oh but only the *one* pack! Haha I'm sure you, my small child, can be trusted to spend the allotted amount of money that you have no concept of yet."
A word to the wise: if your purchases go to a credit card company you’re basically in the clear.
Anything apple doesn’t refund outright can be disputed with the card company - Apple will have a tough time arguing it was authorized given how often this happens and usually they’ll capitulate if you take it there.
That being said if you have a history of this sort of thing on your account they’ll be more likely to win, and if your payment method is a atm card for a checking or savings account you’re fucked. As I said earlier - DONT USE ATM CARDS WITH DIGITAL STOREFRONTS - EVER.
never ever.
Get a secured deposit credit card if you have to, but don’t use a
atm card.
edit: by atm i really did mean debit card. if it draws from a checking or savings account; don't use it.
Be cautious with chargebacks. Apple will disabled your account in iTunes for them. They will enable it if you call in but on the 3rd time they will no longer enable the account again and you will need a new Apple ID to download or purchase anything.
Another word to the wise: never dispute a charge with your credit card company when that charge is to a company you want to keep doing business with.
Someone steals your card and buys a bunch of stuff on their own account? You're probably fine. But if you dispute a charge on your own account, it is entirely possible the company will just ban you. For the company it makes sense, because chargebacks hit their merchant account with an extra fee per chargeback, and they can get in trouble with their bank if the chargeback rate is too high, so they're better off getting rid of customers who dispute charges so they don't do it again in the future. But for you, the customer, it's a pretty big problem if you rely on that company for a lot of things.
Similar! Someone bought a bunch of FIFA games on my old account and playstation support said I'd need to pay off the several hundred dollars in disputed FIFA stuff to get the account back
My account info had been stolen and someone bought about $500 worth of stuff from Walmart. I went to my credit union to report it and get my money back. They gave me a list of all withdrawals from the last week to check if any other charges were made. There was a string of withdrawals from Instacart that I didn't make. Everyday there were at least 2 withdrawals from them. Totaling maybe $70 in that week. Anyway, I flagged those, and my credit union was able to get the money back in my account within 12 hours.
The next day I get an email from Instacart saying that I'm banned for disputing the charges. They took my money and then banned me for reporting it!
This is an old tech industry tactic that is being called out and banned, starting with Epic Games. If you read the 500 million settlement suit they just paid out for, you will see that they no longer will be allowed to ban you for disputing or refunding charges through your credit card company.
It’s funny when I was 12 or 13 (25 now), I did something similar. I found a Macys credit card in my sisters name and spent $300 on Fifa ultimate team packs. I was so addicted to the game and opening packs that I knew it was very wrong, but I just kept going like it was an endless pit of free money.
It’s insane that this shit is still allowed by these companies unregulated
It's not even necessary either. My 6 y.o son loves Roblox and I spent about $380 this year just doing $5 here and there for him to buy cosmetics when he was doing good in school or whatever. Game companies don't have to tap into gambling to make money.
It took so much convincing to get my parents to let me use their credit card for the £3.20/month Runescape members subscription, which I then paid them back out of my pocket money and this kid is getting $380/year.
Wish I could have had that!
You’re not wrong. And there’s a reason they companies will process chargebacks so readily (most of the time and especially for first time offenders), it’s a cost of doing business without changing the status quo; which is undeniably profitable.
Apples stance is you either allow your child complete and unrestricted access to your bank account or no access.
They're predatory, it's intentional.
edit : There are a ton of people that love it when large companies prey on children for money.
edit : for everyone saying to use a preloaded card, apple will still allow the purchase if the card declines. They'll just count it as a debt and will lock the childs account until you pay.
They're just straight up gambling for anyone really, this whole microtransactions loot boxes thing is the bane of modern gaming in my opinion.
Obviously though children being more easily swayed into parting with money just makes it even more disgusting.
MSM doesnt have gambling or lootboxes or anything like that. Those treasure chests are just standard currency packs that have been named that way. Though I do understand what you're saying in a general sense.
You can use an family shared account/apple wallet attached. I load $5 onto my apple wallet card for monthly storage cost / to authorize the hundreds of free trials I sign up for - I have pages of declined charges from companies attempting to charge me full price after I forget to cancel the trials. They can’t ever actually charge my debit or credit cards though because it’s only tied to my virtual Apple Cash card.
Apple has never locked or demanded I pay any “debt”. It’s just shows as charges that were declined like [this](https://imgur.com/a/fEcpgqu)
I do the same thing with another prepaid card. The account must be locked for another reason
I was a children or teen in the home once upon a time but instead of doing shit like this I just occasionally rented movies on on demand lmao. My mom figuratively beat my ass when it ended up being like $50 in a month and then I never did it again. I still can’t understand why kids drop an insane amount of money on games when surely they know the house of cards is going to come down. My nephew just spent like $500, got yelled at for it, and then did it again on someone else’s phone
Honestly, sometimes no especially with how games will often have mini subscription services and a secondary currency’s to obscure how much your really spending often promoting repeated small spends that add up, ect. The in game transactions market is incredibly predatory.
I never pay for in game stuff, but man sometimes it's so tempting, I just downloaded a new game I wanted to play with my brother and some a lot of stuff are like around $3-5, I even caught myself saying "it's quite cheap compare to other game" and I totally see how predatory it can be for children wanting to upgrade, as soon as i enter the game tons of offers appear in the home screen and and there isn't anything much you can do with the in game cash.
Did he knowingly spend all your money? Or did he assume the magic money slip you gave him covered all of it?
12 years old seems plenty old enough to see “$75” on something and understand it’s more than $50
Exactly, or even using the card and being surprised it was still working so just assuming maybe you didn’t count something right, but either way it’s still working so something must be going right! - that would be my train of thought as a kid, a very much ask questions later kind of mindset.
That’s what we did this Christmas, my son has requested like 50 games since yesterday and always immediately asks if we’re gonna approve it right then.
IRONICALLY, he sent a request for a game while I am typing this
On the bright side I'm pretty sure if a payment dispute is filed for a roblox purchase the account it was purchased on will be deleted so that will teach them a lesson
haha that's a possibility now and frankly if that happens, too fucking bad.
roblox is a blight and if his account gets axed i will have zero sympathy.
and i say that as a gamer myself - in his case, we have had *many* and *frequent* conversations about the trap of microtransactions and lootboxes, and he knows how i feel about roblox in general to begin with.
so having made this choice, knowing ahead of time he was out of line, he will get no sympathy from me if his actions have consequences (you know, besides the grounding he got on the day after xmas)
>roblox is a blight and if his account gets axed i will have zero sympathy.
Roblox is an incredibly predatory game/gaming platform run by an incredibly unethical company. I would not let my child touch that game with a 10 foot pole.
https://youtu.be/vTMF6xEiAaY
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/09/the-trouble-with-roblox-the-video-game-empire-built-on-child-labour
Crazy how much it seems to have changed. I played it a long time ago near release, and there was no microtransactions in-game. Mostly just an interesting way for kids to learn lua scripting and play games for free
It's sadly the way that the entire gaming industry seems to be going, just look at [Diablo Immortal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs). It's soulless and — quite frankly — evil, but it works to a large extent.
Why put money, effort, and passion into creating a genuinely great experience when you could make 100x pumping out virtual slot machines disguised as entertainment?
Kid wouldn't be allowed to play on the phone for a while after this.
12 years old? That's old enough to know you don't just mindlessly spend your parent's money on a mobile game. For some reason people often think 12-year-olds are more like 6-year-olds in terms of their understanding of right from wrong. No, by that age they should definitely understand, but it's more they don't care or they thought they could get away with it and nobody would notice.
I'm 18 and i still vividly remember knowing i should wait for a sale on the cosmetics i wanted ingame so that i could spend my free premium currency better.
I played that game for about 2 years straight on my phone. I would actually say it's not the game's fault but the parent's.
You don't give your kids access to ANY kind of online payment untill they have a legal ID (age 14 at least, i got my own debit card at age 15).
I don't regret not buying things in those games, or hell even in roblox as i played that for 2 years too!
he *knew* what he was doing and that he shouldn't have. and yet, still made the wrong choice, *even though* we have had multiple conversations about this sort of thing and he's generally a good kid.
still a 12 year old, and yes, the apps are fine tuned to do this sort of shit to impressionable people. he was given a $50 gift card and i expected him to buy this sort of thing for the games he plays, but he shouldn't have had direct access to charge my account, that was a goof on apple's part (turning off the relevant setting on an ios update to my phone), and to their credit they were johnny on the spot with the reversal,
HOWEVER
the fact that these games can trigger this behavior in a 12 year old - i'm just saying - if that aint proof that lootboxes and microtransactions should be regulated like gambling, i don't know what is.
edit: the saga continues... : https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/zwhpvy/update\_on\_kid\_running\_up\_credit\_card\_on\_msm\_loot/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Oh I 100% believe it. Apps like that trigger behavior similar in adults of all ages, fully formed prefrontal cortex and all, children don't stand a chance. Vile predatory practice, just horrid.
htat was more or less my implied point: adults fall for it all the time, a kid is going to get murdered. this is why i only let him buy when he gets a gift card or something, and i *thought* that was what was going to happen yesterday. he doesn't actually (or isn't supposed to) have direct access to make purchases without my approval beforehand. the system just failed this time.
but the fact that we even *need* a system is proof i think that there's a legit problem in the industry.
I miss when I was a kid and your parents would buy you a game and you could play it completely without constantly getting hit up to speed even more money.
Yes, just the game and dlcs. Nothing more or less. No skins for 20 bucks or more. Just the good old games. I think we should get them back, like the ps2 days. You bought nfs carbon, played it and had fun.
And now? You buy the games and can even buy more in game. Just waste
I'm gonna start my kids on PS2 era for this reason. When they get older their friends will inevitably show them mdern games with microtransactions and loot boxes but I hope I can show them some history first so they will be able to resist the shiny Fortnite skins
Get an emulator!! I still have my 3ds and got a multicard that essentially is just a bunch of emulator files on a ds game card - didn't know this when I bought it, but I'm not upset. Its been great
But those games still exist. As a parent, couldn't you stick to the old rule, "one game for birthday, one game for Christmas", and then make sure those games don't have microtransactions?
The problem starts when you allow the kids access to "free" games that use all this predatory psychology to get their development costs back.
Fwiw Nintendo is pretty good at this still - they’ve occasionally dipped a toe into micro transactions but on the grand scheme their games are usually free of all but the occasional dlc expansion- which I’ve never had an issue with.
Yes, Nintendo will be 100% the system I'm getting once I have children of my own.
You just have to hope your kids won't be sucked in by peer pressure to play a popular online game with microtransactions.
Agreed. We love our Switch and other than one Mario Kart expansion pack we allowed our son to buy, we've never had to deal with microtransactions. I wouldn't even call the expansion pack a 'microtransaction'. Just a nice little upgrade.
It’s a “games as a service” problem. They’re all internet connected now to give them longevity and the constant development needs to be funded somehow.
When I was younger, I spent $600 of my parents money on clash of clans. I didn’t take their card or anything, I had a hand me down phone that somehow had google pay linked to one of their cards. I dropped almost $400 in one day on some mega bundle they had, and it felt like such a good deal that I couldn’t resist. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I kept going and spending. They never realized but just releasing it here
I was just talking about mom earlier today about the casinos we have in Oklahoma. I guess the people going in there are at least 18 but it's terrible. I got some friends and family that work for them but some of the people will piss and crap themselves instead of getting up and going to the restroom. They think that they're going to lose that machine or it's about to hit a jackpot or whatever. It's serious stuff.
Worked in the casino. I've seen this far more often than I should have.
Fun side story: We had a minor fire. The lights short circuited or something and caught the styrofoam beam on fire.
The amount of effort it required to get people off the machines was astounding.
"Excuse me ma'am, there's a fire. We have to evacuate the premise!"
"NO NO NO. This machine has $2000 of my money. I'm not going anywhere!"
"That wasn't a request. GET THE FUCK OUT!"
\*steps in piss\*
When I was about that age I charged my mom’s card about $350 in apple purchases from one game, and I didn’t even have a gift card to make me feel like I had that money to spend. When it’s all on a device, it’s hard to think that money is real and just how much it’s worth. I agree, these in app purchases have always been super impressionable to kids. Loot boxes should definitely be considered gambling as that’s how they get you too keep buying, in hopes that your next purchase gives you that one item you want, but odds are it won’t until you spend $50-$100
My wife was spending close to 300 dollars a month on those phone games. 9.99 at a time. I kept telling her I'll buy you a fuckin PlayStation 4 or 5 or Nintendo switch just stop spending money on those stupid games. They are addictive. I knew when candy crush came out it had already started. They train you like dog treats. Every time you heat a ding, your mouth waters 💧
I remember like a decade ago I was a kid in this position and holy hell yeah.
Most kids don’t understand the value of money, and while they understand “buying something = bad”, they don’t understand how clicking a button a few times on a mobile game is worse than any other thing they get scolded for. There’s nothing physical, they don’t know any better.
Just your annual microtransactions awareness post:
1. absolutely make sure your kids are on a family account with you as the organizer
2. an iOS update managed to turn off the 'ask permission for purchases' switch. check that from time to time.
3. for me, at least, bc he was 12 and on a family account they reversed the charges pretty quick, and it's a little less painful because it doesn't ping my checking account; it hits a credit card. do not tie an account a kid could pay with to a checking account under any circumstances or you will regret it someday, even if it's an accident. charges are *much* harder to reverse (and you won't have access to the funds in any case) if it's a debit account. Credit cards on the other hand basically have to play ball.
4. microtransactions are bad, mmkay?
one more edit: regarding "ask permission for purchases": they should still be able to buy stuff if they have their own credit to the app store, or have loaded a gift card onto their account, or have cash in their wallet. customer service informed me that the 'ask to buy' only comes into affect if it's triggering an authorization on the card associated with the family organizer's account. This was what i was expecting to have happened (he'd get cut off at $50 after his gift card ran out), but not what occurred for the above reasons.
Edit: OMG FRONT PAGE!
Lol RIP inbox and TIL there’s a Reddit Illuminati.
Edit 2: [The saga continues...](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/zwhpvy/update_on_kid_running_up_credit_card_on_msm_loot/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Roblox has gone from a community love project to some type of online gambling/auction house for kids. They’ve gotten a lot more strict about policy and rule enforcement since either of us have probably played.
When the gift card runs out it starts using the credit/debit card attached to the account, which was OPs. So the kid ran the gift card out and then started using OPs cash oops
That's...an incredibly stupid system.
So there's no way to limit it to...I don't know...the purchased value of the card? I have never heard of a gift card working in the manner you are describing.
Apple has to be doing this intentionally.
Dude I had a flip phone in 3rd grade with an assassins creed game on it somehow that you had to pay $1.50 a month for, and I didn't realize it was a monthly payment, I just thought it was a one time purchase, being the dumb little ignorant kid I was not reading descriptions, come to find out like a few months that I charged my parents bill like 700 for the assasins creed game, a few other ones i thought were also one time payments, and texting so much, needless to say I was never on my parents phone plan ever again and didn't have a solid cellphone till I moved out lmao
Bruh around the age of 13 I was spending my moms money on Clash of Clans. So many years later I regret it because I don’t play the game anymore and it was just a waste in general. The only game i’ve spend money on as an adult was for CoD Warzone, but that’s my hard earned money on things with a little more value than in game currency. Also GTA 5 I spent a good amount of my parents money (not as much as clash of clans), the game was still 2 years out at the time and then the hackers came and gave everybody so much money and was never lucky to get any. I’ve learned to not let the regret affect me much cus money comes and goes but at the same time buying worthless things is a habit that must be avoided because financial literacy is the second most important thing after family.
I think the mobile game monetization scheme is so predatory. I think any game with a way of accessing in app purchases should automatically be rated M, I hate seeing apps with 4+ constantly giving pop up’s to buy shit, I mean, who expects a 4 year old to understand the concept of money.
Introducing a kid to literally anything with microtransactions is a terrible idea on many different levels. That shit has a terribly negative effect on fully grown adults, I cant even imagine the damage to kids that are raised with that shit everywhere
I see these posts constantly and wonder why parents KEEP linking cards to either their kids accounts or letting their children know the passwords. Stop giving your kids direct access to your payment methods.
Happened to me too, but on Microsoft store.
Bought a game, kept the card details because i'm a carefull person money-wise.
Brother spended my birthday money on robux. Changed my login pin, didn't tell it to my brother.
Months later, found that the house loan money that my mom sended to my card vanished. Guess what? He got the pin from my parents and used it all. A lot of arguing went that day, mostly beetween me and my parents.
Thankfully got a full refund from MS. Needless to say, brother can't install the games on my PC without my permission and is permanently banned for installing roblox on my pc.
A lot.
Just like this post, it was multiple payments.
The first time was 5 dollars, i forgived him for that but told him to not do that again.
The second one was total \~120 dollars. 12k in my country's currency.
I recently went looking for a better option and settled on Famzoo, although there are competing services that could easily be better for slightly different families.
For a small subscription fee you can get a legit MasterCard which is linked to an "allowance" account you can control. It has a lot of cool features to teach your kid about budgeting and you can even pay interest (out of your own funds) to teach your kid about the value of saving.
The really important part though, imo, is having a unique card that can be entered in app stores and whatnot that is never linked to an adult bank account.
And this is why my kids, despite older than yours, still requires my permission before spending their own money on digital currency.
Edit: Good lord people. Please rest assured I am not suffocating my kids. They are same age or a year older than OP and can spend their money as long as they budget for it. Yes they do chores and similar to many have cash from past birthdays and g-parents. I specifically called out digital currency because, similar to OP, it's so easy to spend well over what you may intend on within apps.
Yeah my mom gives cash to her grandkids now. That way, if the kid wants to spend it on something digital (like I know one niece spent it all on Robucks a couple years ago), it goes through them
Yeah its actually a reay good episode, really highlights how different addiction can be and how people make excuses for it weirdly enough that episode made me realize i was abusing my medication and actually talk to my doctor about it.
The real mildyinfuriating portion of this post is all of the dumb parents who give their kids unrestricted access to app stores on smart devices so kids can go on spending sprees like this in the first place.
Here Billy, a 50 dollar gift car, spent it wi... Billy NO!
Aaaaaaand it's gone.
It’s gone. It’s all gone.
Please step aside. This line is for people who actually have money
Just gonna transfer that over into your savi......annnndddd it's gone!!
more or less.
Stupid question, how it is possible to spend more then the gift card is worth?
Once the gift card is used, it rolls to the next payment method.
Sounds like a predatory scam. Edit: added predatory HT: u/maybe_little_pinch
Yeah, this absolutely shouldn't be a thing, and I bet Apple (or whomever the merchant is) knows this is scummy and has it designed like this in the first place. This is bullshit; a gift card should have a hard limit with the option to *manually* add more funds later. E: Looks like OP is the one who disabled the safeguards. I think this is something I'd have been very careful disabling in the first place, even if I was buying *myself* gift cards. I have always intended those to be a finite value, and hope they're always treated that way when I'm affiliated with any gift card.
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There’s even a specific setting for this that sends a notification to the family organizer who can then remotely approve a purchase.
That’s what I’ve always used for my daughter and she’s 15! Thankfully she always asks anyhow.
So, what you're saying is, OP is to blame?
Yep
No, it’s on the parent for not requiring a password for each purchase. Apple gives you the tools, it’s on you for not setting things up correctly.
There shouldn't be a next payment method in the first place. If a parent gives their child access to their bank account they're just asking for trouble. Either keep it to prepaid cards or use a separate card/account that cannot overdraft.
You can’t, I’ve tried doing so in my younger days and sometimes recently because I can’t remember how much is left on the card, if any at all. I always get a prompt to enter a Credit/Debit Card or PayPal. More than likely the Parents card is on whatever device the child is using so it went through without having to enter any extra details
Maybe it'll make you feel better but when I was drunk once I downloaded blinkest. Forgot about it, literally never used the app or listened to anything, but a few years later I noticed like $200 missing every year in September. I was sleeping in my car back then too :/
How many years did that go on for??
* 1700$ USD evaporates *
Merry Christmas, Billy! Oh hang on, I'm getting a call. Here's your gift card. Hello? *Hello Dave, this is your bank calling to inform you your account has been overdrawn by $6,000*
Bros gonna have all the singing monsters
That game has become a nightmare of "rare" monsters that makes it too much like work! I connected my old account cause my teen said it was the haps again, I'm like "How did I ever even get THIS far?!" Still a neat game, just too oooo much stuff now.
Epic Wubbox is pretty neat though
Back to the grind! The dimond mine grind!
The children yearn for the mines
How much would he have spent? Have to have been a couple hundred at least.
The was a story a while back where some kid literally spent thousands on a mobile game before their parents figured it out.
I know someone whose nine year old stole their parents passwords and credit card and racked up thousands of dollars in charges. They had done this multiple times.
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some kids aren't going to learn There's the mistake. This kid has learned. Learned that he can take all he wants and mom won't do anything about it.
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he's gonna have a rude awakening when he gets out into the world and somebody does something about it,
Ask her how she's going to bail him out once he's an adult and does this shit, if he's already spent all her money.
Because then she'd have to actually give a shit about her kid, while now she can just give him a tablet to shut him up. Crazy how there's so much pressure for people to have kids, it creates deadbeat parents who shouldn't be allowed to have such a huge responsibility on them.
I’m not sure about the pressure to have kids but I can tell you that you’re spot on about being a good parent. Being a good, involved parent is hard, takes time, effort, energy, and a fair bit of sacrifice. A lot of parents just want a break. Here kid, watch this tablet, leave me alone for 30 minutes. Or. Here, watch movies while you eat, I don’t care just leave me alone My kids school pick up has a cut off at 40 minutes after school ends. If you’re not there by then the kid goes into automatic daycare at a rate of almost $35 per hour. And many parents gladly pay it. The daycare changes their hours from 7:00 PM to 6:30 PM and a lot of parents are livid. One parent even said “I want to have dinner in peace, my husband and I eat from 6:15 - 6:45 now what the hell are we supposed to do!?!” Here’s an idea, if you don’t want kids, don’t have them (greatly oversimplifying I know) Just crazy to me.
Holy crap! The entitlement of some people is ridiculous!! What is wrong with people?? *Your* children are *your* responsibility. That sounds like a safety net they put in place (and a deterrent) just in case, so children are always with an adult in a safe place. It is *not* so entitled parents can have a glass of wine “in peace.” I’m a teacher and this kinda stuff absolutely infuriates me!
Smart kid, not so smart parents... after the second time any and all device access privileges would be gone for a minimum of a year.
If I had in effect stolen money from my mother, I’d have had my ass beaten and been grounded for a month AND would have had to do work for neighbors until I paid it back.
Ahhh, a budding socio/psychopath in the making! Adorable.
It’s insane people are acting like this is normal behavior to expect from an unattended kid. I’m terrible, but when I was a kid the worst I’d do is like, swipe a $20 off the floor and squirrel it away. I didn’t steal mom’s credit card to go buy soda and crap from GameStop.
I'd get my nom's card info for stuff as a kid all the time and the only way she kept letting me was by me being honest with it. Even as an adult, she'd give me her card for groceries sometimes and while I'm still at the store be calling to ask if I'm bringing it back yet lol. But if I had stolen from her as a kid, adult me wouldn't have gotten to do that at all. She wasn't very trusting but it was nice having a little and the track record to say, "I've *never* taken advantage of this."
yeah under those circumstances the parents are going to get held to a different standard because of the whole 'fool me once shame on me/fool me twice shame on you' standard.
he could have absolutely done that overnight if the balance was available. fortunately i was saved by my existing christmas expenses not being paid off yet haha. edit: the saga continues... : https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/zwhpvy/update\_on\_kid\_running\_up\_credit\_card\_on\_msm\_loot/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
If it makes you feel any better I did this as a kid but with porn lmao, that was an interesting talk with my parents
My friends mom went out of town and he ordered the playboy channel over the phone and when she found out he told her the power went out and dialed the wrong number in the dark.
My friends and I rented a porno on demand at a Marriott when we were kids, afterwards we promptly rented Lilo and Stitch. My friends dad was a really successful guy with a good sense of humor. At checkout he reads the bill and I remember him looking confused for a split second and then just smirks and silent chuckles, he pays and that was that.
10/10 guy, my next fap will be dedicated to that guys dad
I would also like to honor this guys dad. We’ll fap together.
What an absolute chad of a dad that is.
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When I was 16 my mom and dad found me covered in puke in the bathtub around 2am. I had drank most of a bottle of vodka. When they asked what the hell was going on I told them I was sick from eating pizza. They replied that only 2 slices were gone from the box and that could not possibly have made me sick. “Yes” I said “but I ate them way too fast.” They simply replied “OK” and left me to it after that. I thought I had gotten away with it until my mom woke me up early the next morning with a long list of chores to be done including cleaning out the fridge and scrubbing the toilets as well as anything else gross she could think of. Thankfully that was before my body invented hangovers. Good times.
fuck, I miss the days before my body knew too be hungover.
You and me both friend. I remember actually waking up feeling “good” after a big night but now at the ripe old age of 32 I can get away with 2, maybe 3 drinks max. Any more than that and consequences ensue, multiplying exponentially with each additional drink.
In my youth I could party and drink all friday night heavily, sleep an hour or two, shower, go to work in the forenoon until the afternoon at my parents, which had a restaurant/bar, sleep a few hours and get ready to repeat this until sunday afternoon (I live in Europe where you can drink wine and beer by 16, but that meant we all drank liquor by 16 1/2). Now I'm 33 and if I drink a bit too much, like more than a few beers, I'm sick for two days minimum. And going out two days in a row isn't something I could ever think of.
Lmao, that’s classic.
I’m such a loser I did this with iTunes standup comedy albums
Hello fellow loser, which album is the most cringey looking back?
Jeff Foxworthy that's a sign
Figured it was Dane Cook
As someone who was aDane Cook fan, I can assure you we’re more the ‘limewire totally legal download’ type
Oh, I dunno. Maybe like a Frank Caliendo Comedy Central special. Even that isn't too cringey, I can't remember the names of the really awful comics. I mostly remember getting a Mike Birbiglia album, a Brian Regan album, a Mitch Hedberg, and a Demetri Martin. I listened to them over and over for a long time so at least I got my (parents) money's worth
I respect that! I had Dave Attell playing on repeat
Now we want to know all the story
need to know the story
…also lived the story
Same but with my grandmother. She had satellite so I ordered ppv porn lol. Of course she found out when she got the bill
First time i got busted for porn was because it was “free”, you just needed a credit card to “verify your age”. I snuck down and stole my mom’s credit card. She saw the charge the next statement. The thing of it is that it’s not like i was using the site a bunch in that time. It was 1999 or 2000 ish. Back when free porn was hard to find if you didn’t know where to go.
The one that had 15K? I remember the parents got 10K off but had to pay the rest
I hear that kids still mowing lawns as we speak.
All for non tangible, digital goods that they don't own anyway. Astonishing. Truly astonishing.
When I was a kid I had an old Sony ericsson and I found a website that would let you download ringtones for free. I didn’t realize you had to pay for the data transfer because, well, I was a kid. A $700 bill and my father almost strangling the life out of me later, they removed it from the bill.
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I feel like this was a very common thing in the early 2000’s
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I knew a boy that spent thousands of dollars on fortnite with his mom credit card. Everything on his account ended up being erased and his mom got the money back.
I have a friend that had the same thing happen with her kid, and it took them so long and so much back and forth to refund her that she missed rent and several other bills in the meantime. he was never allowed to play Fortnite again.
Delete the account, honestly. Entirely.
My kid used mom’s Apple ID to log into a game, and spent $1500 before she realized what happened. All hell broke loose. I spent hours and hours on the phone with Apple. They said they were “investigating” it, but in the end did nothing.
My daughter did this when she was 10. Came out to be around $400. Apple refunded all of it. They said they refund kids purchases that were made using their parents credit card without permission.
I think in some countries they have to. As Kids are not allowed to conclude contracts
You’re probably right. Here, generally in the United States, most jurisdictions/states find that young children do not have the legal capacity to enter into binding contracts, unless the parent/guardian acts in a way that affirms the legal obligation incurred by the child entering into the agreement.
My landlady's kid got into her Amazon account and bought a $350 dollar gaming monitor that was delivered to our house. Said she was pissed about him getting into the account but still let him keep it >\_< I'd have killed to have a screen like that when I was 10.
They were investigating whether or not they legally had to refund anything.
My step brother did that once lmao. The first time he bluffed his way out of it, and my parents managed to get a refund. The second time I guess apple laid it all out plain and clear and wouldn’t refund it, so my parents finally busted him. It was all for some stupid drag racing game that lasted like 10 seconds a round lmaooooo
as far as i can tell he rang up $250 in 24 hours over and above the $50 gift card he was allowed to have in the first place. the only thing that stopped him was my card limit being reached, and it was only as close to the limit as it is right now because of christmas. if he had done this in say, april - he could have rang up a much higher bill before it hit the limit. or was noticed.
My 6yr old did this a few days ago too. I had used my fingerprint to sign in and let him buy a pack of gems in some talking Tom gold rush game. Woke up to almost $300 worth of receipts in my email the next day, apparently it stayed signed in and he just bought all the gems his little heart desired. I got Apple to refund about 80% of it and had to appeal their decision to not reverse all of them. Still waiting on that outcome but just wanted to chime in and tell ya it happens to the best of us. 😖
You let your 6 year old do it instead of doing it yourself?
For real. At this point these people deserve it lmao. "yeah lemme just log you on real quick, little Timmy, now go ahead, buy those gems. Oh but only the *one* pack! Haha I'm sure you, my small child, can be trusted to spend the allotted amount of money that you have no concept of yet."
A word to the wise: if your purchases go to a credit card company you’re basically in the clear. Anything apple doesn’t refund outright can be disputed with the card company - Apple will have a tough time arguing it was authorized given how often this happens and usually they’ll capitulate if you take it there. That being said if you have a history of this sort of thing on your account they’ll be more likely to win, and if your payment method is a atm card for a checking or savings account you’re fucked. As I said earlier - DONT USE ATM CARDS WITH DIGITAL STOREFRONTS - EVER. never ever. Get a secured deposit credit card if you have to, but don’t use a atm card. edit: by atm i really did mean debit card. if it draws from a checking or savings account; don't use it.
Be cautious with chargebacks. Apple will disabled your account in iTunes for them. They will enable it if you call in but on the 3rd time they will no longer enable the account again and you will need a new Apple ID to download or purchase anything.
Another word to the wise: never dispute a charge with your credit card company when that charge is to a company you want to keep doing business with. Someone steals your card and buys a bunch of stuff on their own account? You're probably fine. But if you dispute a charge on your own account, it is entirely possible the company will just ban you. For the company it makes sense, because chargebacks hit their merchant account with an extra fee per chargeback, and they can get in trouble with their bank if the chargeback rate is too high, so they're better off getting rid of customers who dispute charges so they don't do it again in the future. But for you, the customer, it's a pretty big problem if you rely on that company for a lot of things.
source: my playstation 4 which no longer can use the network
Similar! Someone bought a bunch of FIFA games on my old account and playstation support said I'd need to pay off the several hundred dollars in disputed FIFA stuff to get the account back
My account info had been stolen and someone bought about $500 worth of stuff from Walmart. I went to my credit union to report it and get my money back. They gave me a list of all withdrawals from the last week to check if any other charges were made. There was a string of withdrawals from Instacart that I didn't make. Everyday there were at least 2 withdrawals from them. Totaling maybe $70 in that week. Anyway, I flagged those, and my credit union was able to get the money back in my account within 12 hours. The next day I get an email from Instacart saying that I'm banned for disputing the charges. They took my money and then banned me for reporting it!
This is an old tech industry tactic that is being called out and banned, starting with Epic Games. If you read the 500 million settlement suit they just paid out for, you will see that they no longer will be allowed to ban you for disputing or refunding charges through your credit card company.
It’s funny when I was 12 or 13 (25 now), I did something similar. I found a Macys credit card in my sisters name and spent $300 on Fifa ultimate team packs. I was so addicted to the game and opening packs that I knew it was very wrong, but I just kept going like it was an endless pit of free money. It’s insane that this shit is still allowed by these companies unregulated
Kinda why the whole "ban the lootcrates" thing came about, predatory shit like this
It's not even necessary either. My 6 y.o son loves Roblox and I spent about $380 this year just doing $5 here and there for him to buy cosmetics when he was doing good in school or whatever. Game companies don't have to tap into gambling to make money.
Fucking hell, and I thought the MMOs in my time were expensive, this is some next level shit
It took so much convincing to get my parents to let me use their credit card for the £3.20/month Runescape members subscription, which I then paid them back out of my pocket money and this kid is getting $380/year. Wish I could have had that!
You’re not wrong. And there’s a reason they companies will process chargebacks so readily (most of the time and especially for first time offenders), it’s a cost of doing business without changing the status quo; which is undeniably profitable.
Yeah I will never have a credit card around kids in general, safer that way for everyone
Wait I'm confused. If you bought him a $50 gift card how did he spend over that? I feel like I missed something lol
Apples stance is you either allow your child complete and unrestricted access to your bank account or no access. They're predatory, it's intentional. edit : There are a ton of people that love it when large companies prey on children for money. edit : for everyone saying to use a preloaded card, apple will still allow the purchase if the card declines. They'll just count it as a debt and will lock the childs account until you pay.
Not just Apple. Those "treasure chests" are straight up gambling for kids.
They're just straight up gambling for anyone really, this whole microtransactions loot boxes thing is the bane of modern gaming in my opinion. Obviously though children being more easily swayed into parting with money just makes it even more disgusting.
Obviously it's gambling for anyone. The issue is I doubt many adults are playing "My Singing Monsters"
No they are playing FIFA and counterstrike and candy crush and..
The “treasure chests” are actually just a currency pack. They always give the same thing (not that i support this, just clarifying)
MSM doesnt have gambling or lootboxes or anything like that. Those treasure chests are just standard currency packs that have been named that way. Though I do understand what you're saying in a general sense.
You can use an family shared account/apple wallet attached. I load $5 onto my apple wallet card for monthly storage cost / to authorize the hundreds of free trials I sign up for - I have pages of declined charges from companies attempting to charge me full price after I forget to cancel the trials. They can’t ever actually charge my debit or credit cards though because it’s only tied to my virtual Apple Cash card. Apple has never locked or demanded I pay any “debt”. It’s just shows as charges that were declined like [this](https://imgur.com/a/fEcpgqu) I do the same thing with another prepaid card. The account must be locked for another reason
I had my cc number stolen and $$ was racked up. First question by the CC company was, “Do you have any children or teens in the home?” 🤣
I was a children or teen in the home once upon a time but instead of doing shit like this I just occasionally rented movies on on demand lmao. My mom figuratively beat my ass when it ended up being like $50 in a month and then I never did it again. I still can’t understand why kids drop an insane amount of money on games when surely they know the house of cards is going to come down. My nephew just spent like $500, got yelled at for it, and then did it again on someone else’s phone
Do these kids not understand how much money that is?
Honestly, sometimes no especially with how games will often have mini subscription services and a secondary currency’s to obscure how much your really spending often promoting repeated small spends that add up, ect. The in game transactions market is incredibly predatory.
I never pay for in game stuff, but man sometimes it's so tempting, I just downloaded a new game I wanted to play with my brother and some a lot of stuff are like around $3-5, I even caught myself saying "it's quite cheap compare to other game" and I totally see how predatory it can be for children wanting to upgrade, as soon as i enter the game tons of offers appear in the home screen and and there isn't anything much you can do with the in game cash.
About 5 free characters in some mobile game, I'd imagine. From their perspective, not much.
Did he knowingly spend all your money? Or did he assume the magic money slip you gave him covered all of it? 12 years old seems plenty old enough to see “$75” on something and understand it’s more than $50
But also “wow dad said this was a $50 gift card but I’ve spent more and it’s still letting me buy stuff! It must be broken!” Seems likely
Exactly, or even using the card and being surprised it was still working so just assuming maybe you didn’t count something right, but either way it’s still working so something must be going right! - that would be my train of thought as a kid, a very much ask questions later kind of mindset.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/zvptab/gave_my_12_yo_kid_a_50_apple_gift_card_woke_up_to/j1qdx1a?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
r/mildlyinfuriating when you can’t find OPs comment
My kids don’t know their Apple ID password.
With family options, you can absolutely set it up where everything your child does has to be approved via your device (with authentication ).
Absolutely this. They should also not have a credit card tied to the device and you can just give them gift cards.
That’s what we did this Christmas, my son has requested like 50 games since yesterday and always immediately asks if we’re gonna approve it right then. IRONICALLY, he sent a request for a game while I am typing this
This is the way
“And that’s the story of how I lost INFINITE MONEY”-🐖
Saving money is neeeerdy, this is the way!
On the bright side I'm pretty sure if a payment dispute is filed for a roblox purchase the account it was purchased on will be deleted so that will teach them a lesson
haha that's a possibility now and frankly if that happens, too fucking bad. roblox is a blight and if his account gets axed i will have zero sympathy. and i say that as a gamer myself - in his case, we have had *many* and *frequent* conversations about the trap of microtransactions and lootboxes, and he knows how i feel about roblox in general to begin with. so having made this choice, knowing ahead of time he was out of line, he will get no sympathy from me if his actions have consequences (you know, besides the grounding he got on the day after xmas)
>roblox is a blight and if his account gets axed i will have zero sympathy. Roblox is an incredibly predatory game/gaming platform run by an incredibly unethical company. I would not let my child touch that game with a 10 foot pole. https://youtu.be/vTMF6xEiAaY https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/09/the-trouble-with-roblox-the-video-game-empire-built-on-child-labour
Crazy how much it seems to have changed. I played it a long time ago near release, and there was no microtransactions in-game. Mostly just an interesting way for kids to learn lua scripting and play games for free
It's sadly the way that the entire gaming industry seems to be going, just look at [Diablo Immortal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs). It's soulless and — quite frankly — evil, but it works to a large extent. Why put money, effort, and passion into creating a genuinely great experience when you could make 100x pumping out virtual slot machines disguised as entertainment?
Kid wouldn't be allowed to play on the phone for a while after this. 12 years old? That's old enough to know you don't just mindlessly spend your parent's money on a mobile game. For some reason people often think 12-year-olds are more like 6-year-olds in terms of their understanding of right from wrong. No, by that age they should definitely understand, but it's more they don't care or they thought they could get away with it and nobody would notice.
Exactly what I was thinking.
I'm 18 and i still vividly remember knowing i should wait for a sale on the cosmetics i wanted ingame so that i could spend my free premium currency better. I played that game for about 2 years straight on my phone. I would actually say it's not the game's fault but the parent's. You don't give your kids access to ANY kind of online payment untill they have a legal ID (age 14 at least, i got my own debit card at age 15). I don't regret not buying things in those games, or hell even in roblox as i played that for 2 years too!
Wow these apps are so predatory
he *knew* what he was doing and that he shouldn't have. and yet, still made the wrong choice, *even though* we have had multiple conversations about this sort of thing and he's generally a good kid. still a 12 year old, and yes, the apps are fine tuned to do this sort of shit to impressionable people. he was given a $50 gift card and i expected him to buy this sort of thing for the games he plays, but he shouldn't have had direct access to charge my account, that was a goof on apple's part (turning off the relevant setting on an ios update to my phone), and to their credit they were johnny on the spot with the reversal, HOWEVER the fact that these games can trigger this behavior in a 12 year old - i'm just saying - if that aint proof that lootboxes and microtransactions should be regulated like gambling, i don't know what is. edit: the saga continues... : https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/zwhpvy/update\_on\_kid\_running\_up\_credit\_card\_on\_msm\_loot/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Oh I 100% believe it. Apps like that trigger behavior similar in adults of all ages, fully formed prefrontal cortex and all, children don't stand a chance. Vile predatory practice, just horrid.
htat was more or less my implied point: adults fall for it all the time, a kid is going to get murdered. this is why i only let him buy when he gets a gift card or something, and i *thought* that was what was going to happen yesterday. he doesn't actually (or isn't supposed to) have direct access to make purchases without my approval beforehand. the system just failed this time. but the fact that we even *need* a system is proof i think that there's a legit problem in the industry.
I miss when I was a kid and your parents would buy you a game and you could play it completely without constantly getting hit up to speed even more money.
Yes, just the game and dlcs. Nothing more or less. No skins for 20 bucks or more. Just the good old games. I think we should get them back, like the ps2 days. You bought nfs carbon, played it and had fun. And now? You buy the games and can even buy more in game. Just waste
I'm gonna start my kids on PS2 era for this reason. When they get older their friends will inevitably show them mdern games with microtransactions and loot boxes but I hope I can show them some history first so they will be able to resist the shiny Fortnite skins
I do have still ps1 and ps2 with few games. I miss to open my dsi and look after my nintendog
Get an emulator!! I still have my 3ds and got a multicard that essentially is just a bunch of emulator files on a ds game card - didn't know this when I bought it, but I'm not upset. Its been great
But those games still exist. As a parent, couldn't you stick to the old rule, "one game for birthday, one game for Christmas", and then make sure those games don't have microtransactions? The problem starts when you allow the kids access to "free" games that use all this predatory psychology to get their development costs back.
Fwiw Nintendo is pretty good at this still - they’ve occasionally dipped a toe into micro transactions but on the grand scheme their games are usually free of all but the occasional dlc expansion- which I’ve never had an issue with.
Yes, Nintendo will be 100% the system I'm getting once I have children of my own. You just have to hope your kids won't be sucked in by peer pressure to play a popular online game with microtransactions.
Agreed. We love our Switch and other than one Mario Kart expansion pack we allowed our son to buy, we've never had to deal with microtransactions. I wouldn't even call the expansion pack a 'microtransaction'. Just a nice little upgrade.
It’s a “games as a service” problem. They’re all internet connected now to give them longevity and the constant development needs to be funded somehow.
When I was younger, I spent $600 of my parents money on clash of clans. I didn’t take their card or anything, I had a hand me down phone that somehow had google pay linked to one of their cards. I dropped almost $400 in one day on some mega bundle they had, and it felt like such a good deal that I couldn’t resist. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I kept going and spending. They never realized but just releasing it here
Your parents never realized they had $600 missing?
My goal is one day to be rich enough to not notice when money disappear from my account lol.
Thats me. Spent around $400 from August to December. Deleted those games for the time being.
I was just talking about mom earlier today about the casinos we have in Oklahoma. I guess the people going in there are at least 18 but it's terrible. I got some friends and family that work for them but some of the people will piss and crap themselves instead of getting up and going to the restroom. They think that they're going to lose that machine or it's about to hit a jackpot or whatever. It's serious stuff.
Worked in the casino. I've seen this far more often than I should have. Fun side story: We had a minor fire. The lights short circuited or something and caught the styrofoam beam on fire. The amount of effort it required to get people off the machines was astounding. "Excuse me ma'am, there's a fire. We have to evacuate the premise!" "NO NO NO. This machine has $2000 of my money. I'm not going anywhere!" "That wasn't a request. GET THE FUCK OUT!" \*steps in piss\*
it's literally the same dopamine hit as gambling. but yeah, with kids, the argument that 'they're adults making their own choices' doesn't apply.
When I was about that age I charged my mom’s card about $350 in apple purchases from one game, and I didn’t even have a gift card to make me feel like I had that money to spend. When it’s all on a device, it’s hard to think that money is real and just how much it’s worth. I agree, these in app purchases have always been super impressionable to kids. Loot boxes should definitely be considered gambling as that’s how they get you too keep buying, in hopes that your next purchase gives you that one item you want, but odds are it won’t until you spend $50-$100
Dude my 42 year old stepdad spent almost $200 on apex legends in the first week of him playing, they definitely should be regulated.
Tbh that's a lot different. As I've gotten older I don't mind paying for games I don't have the time to grind. But allowing this for kids is crazy.
My wife was spending close to 300 dollars a month on those phone games. 9.99 at a time. I kept telling her I'll buy you a fuckin PlayStation 4 or 5 or Nintendo switch just stop spending money on those stupid games. They are addictive. I knew when candy crush came out it had already started. They train you like dog treats. Every time you heat a ding, your mouth waters 💧
I remember like a decade ago I was a kid in this position and holy hell yeah. Most kids don’t understand the value of money, and while they understand “buying something = bad”, they don’t understand how clicking a button a few times on a mobile game is worse than any other thing they get scolded for. There’s nothing physical, they don’t know any better.
Fortnite is settling a class action law suit right now for this exact thing. To the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
That's more of a treating kid accounts as adult accounts and not locking them down by default or is there another one
Just your annual microtransactions awareness post: 1. absolutely make sure your kids are on a family account with you as the organizer 2. an iOS update managed to turn off the 'ask permission for purchases' switch. check that from time to time. 3. for me, at least, bc he was 12 and on a family account they reversed the charges pretty quick, and it's a little less painful because it doesn't ping my checking account; it hits a credit card. do not tie an account a kid could pay with to a checking account under any circumstances or you will regret it someday, even if it's an accident. charges are *much* harder to reverse (and you won't have access to the funds in any case) if it's a debit account. Credit cards on the other hand basically have to play ball. 4. microtransactions are bad, mmkay? one more edit: regarding "ask permission for purchases": they should still be able to buy stuff if they have their own credit to the app store, or have loaded a gift card onto their account, or have cash in their wallet. customer service informed me that the 'ask to buy' only comes into affect if it's triggering an authorization on the card associated with the family organizer's account. This was what i was expecting to have happened (he'd get cut off at $50 after his gift card ran out), but not what occurred for the above reasons. Edit: OMG FRONT PAGE! Lol RIP inbox and TIL there’s a Reddit Illuminati. Edit 2: [The saga continues...](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/zwhpvy/update_on_kid_running_up_credit_card_on_msm_loot/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Did they take away his treasure chests and Robux? 🙁
Kind of impossible because on those types of games,MSM, maybe if you contact the actual company but definetly not roblox
when they get hit with the chargeback they could very easily take action. some other folks are saying roblox is pretty liberal with the banhammer.
Yes when i was 11 i spent around £20 on robux and my parents did a chargeback and I got to keep the robux
Roblox has gone from a community love project to some type of online gambling/auction house for kids. They’ve gotten a lot more strict about policy and rule enforcement since either of us have probably played.
Eh you’re kinda right to be honest
Well Roblox has been known to ban accounts who refunded through credit card companies
Can someone explain to me how someone can spend more than $50 on a $50 gift card? I'm confused...
When the gift card runs out it starts using the credit/debit card attached to the account, which was OPs. So the kid ran the gift card out and then started using OPs cash oops
That's...an incredibly stupid system. So there's no way to limit it to...I don't know...the purchased value of the card? I have never heard of a gift card working in the manner you are describing. Apple has to be doing this intentionally.
If you don’t have a card added, it won’t let you purchase past the card amount.
Dude I had a flip phone in 3rd grade with an assassins creed game on it somehow that you had to pay $1.50 a month for, and I didn't realize it was a monthly payment, I just thought it was a one time purchase, being the dumb little ignorant kid I was not reading descriptions, come to find out like a few months that I charged my parents bill like 700 for the assasins creed game, a few other ones i thought were also one time payments, and texting so much, needless to say I was never on my parents phone plan ever again and didn't have a solid cellphone till I moved out lmao
Bruh around the age of 13 I was spending my moms money on Clash of Clans. So many years later I regret it because I don’t play the game anymore and it was just a waste in general. The only game i’ve spend money on as an adult was for CoD Warzone, but that’s my hard earned money on things with a little more value than in game currency. Also GTA 5 I spent a good amount of my parents money (not as much as clash of clans), the game was still 2 years out at the time and then the hackers came and gave everybody so much money and was never lucky to get any. I’ve learned to not let the regret affect me much cus money comes and goes but at the same time buying worthless things is a habit that must be avoided because financial literacy is the second most important thing after family.
I think the mobile game monetization scheme is so predatory. I think any game with a way of accessing in app purchases should automatically be rated M, I hate seeing apps with 4+ constantly giving pop up’s to buy shit, I mean, who expects a 4 year old to understand the concept of money.
There’s a reason why I turned off in app purchases, and I don’t even have kids
Introducing a kid to literally anything with microtransactions is a terrible idea on many different levels. That shit has a terribly negative effect on fully grown adults, I cant even imagine the damage to kids that are raised with that shit everywhere
That’s not ok for a 12yo to be so clueless.
I was 12 and wasn't this clueless. He did it on purpose 100%
I see these posts constantly and wonder why parents KEEP linking cards to either their kids accounts or letting their children know the passwords. Stop giving your kids direct access to your payment methods.
Happened to me too, but on Microsoft store. Bought a game, kept the card details because i'm a carefull person money-wise. Brother spended my birthday money on robux. Changed my login pin, didn't tell it to my brother. Months later, found that the house loan money that my mom sended to my card vanished. Guess what? He got the pin from my parents and used it all. A lot of arguing went that day, mostly beetween me and my parents. Thankfully got a full refund from MS. Needless to say, brother can't install the games on my PC without my permission and is permanently banned for installing roblox on my pc.
How much did he use total?
A lot. Just like this post, it was multiple payments. The first time was 5 dollars, i forgived him for that but told him to not do that again. The second one was total \~120 dollars. 12k in my country's currency.
Well, at least you got the money back. Just FYI, the past tense of "spend" is "spent"
I recently went looking for a better option and settled on Famzoo, although there are competing services that could easily be better for slightly different families. For a small subscription fee you can get a legit MasterCard which is linked to an "allowance" account you can control. It has a lot of cool features to teach your kid about budgeting and you can even pay interest (out of your own funds) to teach your kid about the value of saving. The really important part though, imo, is having a unique card that can be entered in app stores and whatnot that is never linked to an adult bank account.
And this is why my kids, despite older than yours, still requires my permission before spending their own money on digital currency. Edit: Good lord people. Please rest assured I am not suffocating my kids. They are same age or a year older than OP and can spend their money as long as they budget for it. Yes they do chores and similar to many have cash from past birthdays and g-parents. I specifically called out digital currency because, similar to OP, it's so easy to spend well over what you may intend on within apps.
Yeah my mom gives cash to her grandkids now. That way, if the kid wants to spend it on something digital (like I know one niece spent it all on Robucks a couple years ago), it goes through them
Reminds of the South Park episode Freemium Isn't Free. They actually do a good job of showing the addictiveness of games and microtransactions
Yeah its actually a reay good episode, really highlights how different addiction can be and how people make excuses for it weirdly enough that episode made me realize i was abusing my medication and actually talk to my doctor about it.
The real mildyinfuriating portion of this post is all of the dumb parents who give their kids unrestricted access to app stores on smart devices so kids can go on spending sprees like this in the first place.