Board 8 > Christmas is CANCELLED for Family cause 6 y/o spent $16,000+ on SONIC FORCES!!!!

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banananor posted...

i don't think you're wrong, but you also sound more tech literate than the 50th percentile of parents, you know?

Yeah I get that but also who is leaving him unsupervised on a tablet that they 'didn't realize was missing'

I mean, really? <_<


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banananor posted...

at what age should a child be allowed to have a phone?

I don't think it's something you can put an exact age on as there's plenty of factors to look at. But generally I don't think kids should have smart phones until middle school at least.

That's not even my point though. In general I think parents need to stop relying on smart phones and tablets to raise their kids. This kid is 6 and apparently has casual access to his moms iPad and as a result her credit card. It's literally nothing more than a lack of responsibility on the parents part.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

Yeah I get that but also who is leaving him unsupervised on a tablet that they 'didn't realize was missing'

Well, she's working from home, so she was probably busy with work.

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StealThisSheen posted...

It seems kinda silly to have to completely idiot proof a device just to protect people that don't keep an eye on their kids. The fact that you have to disable it yourself should be enough, since then it's on you if you choose to.

It's a product that is quite literally designed to be addictive to children, and your take is "well it's hard to make everyone happy, what about the people who want to intentionally spend 16k on sonic forces!"

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Out of curiosity, if the child stole a credit card went to the gas station, and bought 16k worth of cigarrettes you guys would be 100% ok with the gas station saying "nah bruh you should have been more careful about your credit card"

because it's an identical situation.

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I spent $1 on Pokemon Go yesterday.

I had to put in a password first.

It wasn't even an actual dollar. It was a Google Credit i had earned from taking short surveys. I had to enter my password just to get Google to spend $1 on my behalf.

Fair, next.

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SantaRPidgey posted...

Out of curiosity, if the child stole a credit card went to the gas station, and bought 16k worth of cigarrettes you guys would be 100% ok with the gas station saying "nah bruh you should have been more careful about your credit card"

because it's an identical situation.

If the child did this every day for 60+ days before you noticed or took action, then yeah, the situations would be identical.


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so to be clear, you're ok with the store selling the cigs to the kid, not retuning the money, as long as it took place over a long enough amount of time?

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Take the store clerk out of the equation because that doesn't relate.

It's a vending machine with a spot for a credit card I suppose. More like an Automat I guess.

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And take out cigarettes from your analogy too. It's more like "kid buys toys", why would a 21+ product be equatable?

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Most vending machines don't even carry 16000 dollars worth of product in them at one time unless it's electronics

Yeah you're right that is closer.

I wonder why I don't see cig vending machines around anymore...

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I feel like theres a security wall for purchases to happen but she probably saved her info or set up a bypass cause she doesn't care. Shes to blame either way

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One time I called a Nintendo hotline , i didn't see the harm in it, i wasn't being malicious I thought it was just a cool thing to do but yea, we got hella charged. I guess it's my parents fault i had that much free range , but I was also being a little shit not being aware of the potential repercussions. These things are an all around thing

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SantaRPidgey posted...

It's a product that is quite literally designed to be addictive to children, and your take is "well it's hard to make everyone happy, what about the people who want to intentionally spend 16k on sonic forces!"

Yes because there are literally safe measures to keep this from happening put in place by DEFAULT, so if you disable those and then leave your device out for your kid to use unsupervised, that's on your own dumb ass.

I'll agree there should absolutely be a limit on purchases, but that's as far as I go. The rest is entirely the parent's fault.

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Ashethan posted...

Well, she's working from home, so she was probably busy with work.

I work from home, just no lol

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Well, most parents I know wouldn't let their children have unsupervised access to their physical wallet, I guess this is somewhat similar.

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How could it actually take 60 days to resolve this.


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Ashethan posted...

How does a game like Sonic Forces have microtransactions that cost over $100?

My kids all have their own devices precisely so we can prevent in-app purchases with Ask-to-buy.

at some point I think all mobile game developers just decided to throw in an absurd $100 option for the hell of it

worst case scenario no one buys it, but its no actual work to put in the game, so why not try to hook a whale? (even if it would have to be a weird, dumb whale)
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And some wealthy people legitimately get so much enjoyment out of mobile games that they will actually drop thousands.

If people like that existing allow games to be free for me then I'm on board.

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Forceful_Dragon posted...

And some wealthy people legitimately get so much enjoyment out of mobile games that they will actually drop thousands.

If people like that existing allow games to be free for me then I'm on board.

And some not so wealthy people do this even if their finances say they shouldn't.
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MoogleKupo141 posted...

at some point I think all mobile game developers just decided to throw in an absurd $100 option for the hell of it

worst case scenario no one buys it, but its no actual work to put in the game, so why not try to hook a whale? (even if it would have to be a weird, dumb whale)

And it's reasoning like that, that I agree with the woman that this kind of thing is predatory.

I definitely think the fault lies with her in that it happened at all, but this kind of thing shouldn't even be doable in the first place. I absolutely despise microtransactions though so I may be a bit more harsh than others, but I would ban them outright period.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

I work from home, just no lol

You cannot possibly fathom a person working from home being too busy to check on their son's tablet use?

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MajinZidane posted...

You cannot possibly fathom a person working from home being too busy to check on their son's tablet use?

Honestly, yeah. Like you have a dad who is supposed to be the care giver while mom works, so the fact that he didn't check up on the kid enough to know about this is to me startling. Maybe its because my fiance is an accountant too but yeah this seems just like, really neglectful.

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The fact she says she noticed a $2500 charge first means this happened several times over more than one day, since Apple charges get grouped together by day. That's like, beyond neglectful.

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Right, the dad is a SAHD, he's not working from home. The mom is the one who would be busy with and not be watching her son.

I still don't agree, though. When checking up on the kid, dad would just see him playing Sonic on the iPad. Unless he was carefully watching, it could be difficult to realize he was spending real money. I don't think letting a kid play games on an iPad is inherently bad parenting, and I don't think having the tech knowledge to discern when microtransactions ae happening is innate.

I think the parents messed up, but I don't think they're bad parents or bad people.

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Things like this could somewhat be avoided if mobile games here did what Japan does and put in an age check like this:



It goes:

Under 13: 5000 yen limit a month
Between 13 and 20: 20000 yen limit a month
Over 20: No limit

Yes, a kid could still lie about their age, but it's still one extra screen that they have to go through which could be enough for them to either not bother or mitigate the amount spent.

Though now that I think about it, it wouldn't be of much help if an adult parent puts in their age first, since it saves the age info.

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Full Throttle posted...

"My son didn't understand that the money was real. How could he? He's playing a cartoon game in a world taht he knows is not real. Why would the money be real to him? That would require a big cognitive leap. I may have to force this kid pay me back in 15 years when he gets his first job"

lmao in the same passage she exonerates her son for being a child but then implies he's still more responsible than she is because he has to pay her back.

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MajinZidane posted...

When checking up on the kid, dad would just see him playing Sonic on the iPad. Unless he was carefully watching, it could be difficult to realize he was spending real money. I don't think letting a kid play games on an iPad is inherently bad parenting, and I don't think having the tech knowledge to discern when microtransactions ae happening is innate.

I think the parents messed up, but I don't think they're bad parents or bad people.

Yeah, basically this. There's nothing wrong with letting your kid play video games unsupervised. When I was a kid playing Tetris or whatever, my parents certainly weren't glancing over my shoulder the whole time.

Obviously you shouldn't do this with a device on which you have saved credit card info and disabled security authentication, but that's like...a tactical error, not a moral one.
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It is bad for sure BUT as others said there is always the option to have a password for this kind of things. And it is always on by default. So unfortunately it is her fault.

Also a friend of mine has young kids and they are 3 and 4 and both of them use Tablets. Better start when they are young.

And just leave the password option on people. I am the only one that uses Android phone, Switch and PS4, I have put my credit card info BUT I still have the password option on. Because you just never know!

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Why would to give your kid a phone to play on then?! Get them a SNES mini or something like that, it's all the same to them and there are for sure no microtransactions on there...

Its not actually the same, assuming the parents even know what a SNES mini is, kids at this age are very ingrained to touch screen interface versus handheld controls. Plus, they see everyone else around them using tablets and want to be like their parents and family, etc. I think that tablets are kind of overshadowing handheld controls for this age group and it takes a very different set of cognitive ability and fine motor control to use a tablet versus controller.

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I do think I would much rather my children play on a SNES tho compared to a tablet, fa sho

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Like... What? Nothing about this story tracks, at all. You're really telling me you didn't notice thousands, and thousands of dollars missing from your account for multiple months?

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Starting to suspect that sheen is secretly Apple.

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MajinZidane posted...

Its not actually the same, assuming the parents even know what a SNES mini is, kids at this age are very ingrained to touch screen interface versus handheld controls. Plus, they see everyone else around them using tablets and want to be like their parents and family, etc. I think that tablets are kind of overshadowing handheld controls for this age group and it takes a very different set of cognitive ability and fine motor control to use a tablet versus controller.

Then make a concious effort to hide these things from the kid. I mean, you can't do much about other people in the real world, but at the very least limit your own usage of your phone when they're around, and especially, don't give them any indications that there's anything fun available on phones. Don't use your phone to watch youtube, try to avoid using them for messaging apps whenever possible and for the love of god, no phone games. I mean, they'll figure these things out eventually anyway, but it can be delayed and if you before then plop a mini console infront of them at the age of 3, long before they have any real semblance of what a "video game" actually is, and let that style of game define for them what video games are, I think you have a much better chance of avoiding problems like this in the future.
I mean, something like this is probably easier for someone like me since I sort of have an active disdain for smartphones and only use them as a last resort. But I think most could do it too if they were willing to inconvenience themselves.

Also, the excuse of "not being tech savvy" doesn't fly anymore. Tech is so ingrained and prevalent in society these days that if you're like below 50 and you don't know much about tech, it's about time you learn some basic things about tech. It's the equivalent of living in the arctic and walking outside when it's -30C in t-shirt and shorts cause you don't know about temperatures well.

FolkenRawr posted...

Like... What? Nothing about this story tracks, at all. You're really telling me you didn't notice thousands, and thousands of dollars missing from your account for multiple months?

She assumed it was fraud.

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Djungelurban posted...

Then make a concious effort to hide these things from the kid. I mean, you can't do much about other people in the real world, but at the very least limit your own usage of your phone when they're around, and especially, don't give them any indications that there's anything fun available on phones.

Why, though?

Phones are fun. Nothing wrong with playing on phones (as long as you make sure your kid can't accidentally spend thousands of dollars lol).

And anyway Sonic Forces is a $40 Steam/console game so hiding all phones doesn't really solve the issue.
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Drakeryn posted...

Why, though?

Phones are fun. Nothing wrong with playing on phones (as long as you make sure your kid can't accidentally spend thousands of dollars lol).

And anyway Sonic Forces is a $40 Steam/console game so hiding all phones doesn't really solve the issue.

And you think it's the same exact game on phones and on PC?

And the point is to teach the kid that "a game" is something that is delivered complete, without anything to be added later and that you shouldn't pay extra for after the fact. Conditioning basically. If they then when they get older have a phone and find a game to play, the idea of paying microtransactions will more likely be offputting to them... Blocking them from buying microtransactions wouldn't work though, that would just make it more enticing, like there's this thing their parents are keeping from them. Same is true if you're playing phone games, but you tell them they can't. They'll get more curious about it. Which is why you should try to hide that fact from them as long as possible... I mean, eventually they'll figure it out, but the hope is that it'll happen long after they've found the 96th exit in Super Mario World.

Ashethan posted...

She assumed it was fraud.

When I get an alert of potential fraud I track that shit down same day.

Do I need to cancel any cards?

What account was used, do I need to change a password? Did I use that password for anything else?

Was she just waiting for her bank to reverse the transactions and then 60+ days later the bank got back to her and said "so we called apple and they said it was legit"?

There are *some* details missing but not enough to absolve the parents. I would be curious to know how the charges appeared on the statement. But the article says that money from Apple and Paypal were being deducted from her bank account, so it's crazy to have not checked those accounts even if the charges are ambiguously stated.

And the article does imply that security settings are disabled by default which is just patently false.

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Yes, the parents done goofed.

Did they goof to an extent that they should be out $16,000? No.
Should a game targeted at children allow you to spend $16,000? HOLY FUCK, NO.

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Forceful_Dragon posted...

Was she just waiting for her bank to reverse the transactions and then 60+ days later the bank got back to her and said "so we called apple and they said it was legit"?

Probably?

I mean the average person doesn't know much about how any of this works. They wouldn't even know where to begin. Don't assume everyone knows as much as you do about stuff.

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Djungelurban posted...

And you think it's the same exact game on phones and on PC?

And the point is to teach the kid that "a game" is something that is delivered complete, without anything to be added later and that you shouldn't pay extra for after the fact. Conditioning basically. If they then when they get older have a phone and find a game to play, the idea of paying microtransactions will more likely be offputting to them.

Maybe not the exact same, but I bet there are microtransactions in both, so HIDE THE PHONES is not going to help.

Microtransactions are so prevalent in all kinds of games that HIDE THE PHONES is not an effective way to train a kid to avoid them. imo it makes more sense to teach the kid the value of money by making them pay for microtransactions out of their own allowance (obviously they don't have a credit card but they can pay you the cash and then you buy the bundle). They can decide if they want their $10 to go toward a new toy/game or like...a stamina refresh, and then they'll learn firsthand that some microtransactions are BS.
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Ashethan posted...

She assumed it was fraud.

But didnt cancel or put a stop on her card after the first $2500 fraud charge?

Normally the Credit card company would do that automatically once you report fraud on the card.

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Ashethan posted...

Probably?

I mean the average person doesn't know much about how any of this works. They wouldn't even know where to begin. Don't assume everyone knows as much as you do about stuff.

I have Chase, and it doesn't take them 60 days to do this, though.

Like said, she's clearly not giving all of the details since it doesn't make sense that she says she saw a $2500 charge, but waited to look into it until it was $16k.

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Also wheb I think it is fraud I cancel the care and get a new one. Like I am not trying to make too much of a judgment here but as a parent it's super obvious to me the parents fucked up massively here. I am also annoyed they thought to tell the press about this tbh

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Blue-G posted...

Starting to suspect that sheen is secretly Apple.

Not wanting to coddle people so extremely negligent doesn't make me Apple.

If you do something dumb like turn off your purchase security options and then enable your 6 year old to have free reign of your device, you kinda deserve whatever happens. Especially since she's clearly lying about certain details, such as claiming she didn't know there were security options when they're on by default and you have to turn them off manually.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

Also wheb I think it is fraud I cancel the care and get a new one. Like I am not trying to make too much of a judgment here but as a parent it's super obvious to me the parents fucked up massively here. I am also annoyed they thought to tell the press about this tbh

To be perfectly honest, with how they brought up their mortgage and "I told him I might have to cancel Christmas!" they're probably looking to start up a gofundme

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HashtagSEP posted...

Especially since she's clearly lying about certain details, such as claiming she didn't know there were security options when they're on by default and you have to turn them off manually.

eh I wouldn't say lying, I can see my parents doing this kind of thing. They often ask for help with problems with their cell phones, and upon inspection it turns out they clicked something weird in settings but have no memory of doing so.

In this case it's plausible enough that the woman turned off security options when she first got the ipad years ago and then forgot they existed.
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Blue-G posted...

Yes, the parents done goofed.

Did they goof to an extent that they should be out $16,000? No.
Should a game targeted at children allow you to spend $16,000? HOLY FUCK, NO.

This is essentially it. Tbqh I'm surprised this topic is still going, did you all not see my coup de gras a while back where I got FD to compare mobile games to cigarette machines?

People arguing over whether the lady was stupid are missing the point in the same way wealthy companies want you to miss the point. Oh our dangerously hot coffee welded an elderly ladies vagina shut? Dumb bitch she should have know coffee is hot lmao.

There's no amount of stupidity or neglect that makes it okay for sonic forces to get 16k out of someone's wallet. A game that ALLOWS you to spend 16k is inherently flawed and obviously predatory.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

And some wealthy people legitimately get so much enjoyment out of mobile games that they will actually drop thousands.

If people like that existing allow games to be free for me then I'm on board.

Every free game ever made sucks shit though, and usually caters more to the 1k spenders than the reasonable spenders. The model is usually "Our fake currency that you have to use to buy imaginary product is so expensive no one reasonable would ever buy it except for whales, oh no one's buying it? Well we'll have to make our game steadily more sluggish over time so that non-whales are forced to spend something"

It's a new model, which admittingly is much better than the old farmville model of "make your game not fun and people will spend money hoping to make it fun" but still, compared to how cheap video games are in the real world, free to play games money/enjoyment ratio is far far down the trash.

Please don't use this minirant to veer into a "freemium games can be good" argument. If you like smoking that doesn't make it a good habit.

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