Apple Offers Refund After British Boy Spends $2500 on In-App Purchases in 15 Minutes

[gnasher729]

I don't know how old you are but in the united states you're a legal adult by age 18 and by age 25 you're no longer given a pass for stupidity. You have to own up to it, period. For all anyone knows here, those parents probably knew exactly what they were doing, played dumb to get the money back. I'm saying this because Apple doesn't have a way to remove the app from your iOS device or Mac or even stop the operation of it, so basically you get an expensive app for free after they give you a refund.

The person making these purchases wasn't 25 years old, and not 18 years old either. The person making the purchases was five years old. That's why Apple has no choice whatsoever but to refund. If you sell anything to a five year old, and the parents complain, you'll have to refund the money. The goods have to be returned to you, if possible. If that is not possible, you still have to refund the money and lose the goods.

Of course it is not clever to put an iPad into a state where anyone can buy things and hand that iPad over to a five year old. That doesn't change the fact that any purchase by that five year old is a voidable contract, which the parents (and the five year old himself) have the right to void at any time. Well, not at any time, but in this case for almost 13 years until the now five year old will be 18 years old.

So if you took your child into a store, let's say an electronics store, and you let him run free, and break $2500 worth of merchandise. Would you blame the store for carrying such expensive items as well?

The difference there is that there is no contract between the store and the kid that can be voided, just destruction of property. So the parents are responsible.

If the kid put $2500 worth of toys into a shopping trolley, told the cashier "I'll pay tomorrow", left the shop with permission of the shop owner to drive the trolley home, and next day the shop owner asks the parents for money, that would be different. That would be a sales contract between the shop owner and the kid, which again the parents could and most likely would void. And if the kid lost half the toys on the way home, that would be the shop owners problem. (Obviously shop owners know all this and would never do what I just described, for exactly that reason).

 

[lucasfer899]

Stupid that the parents didn't enable any of the parental controls before letting their child play games on the device. And the "Oh I know a few people that this happened to" comment makes it even worse! People!

 

[samcraig]

Stupid that the parents didn't enable any of the parental controls before letting their child play games on the device. And the "Oh I know a few people that this happened to" comment makes it even worse! People!

New to the thread or did you just not bother to read the several pages before this one?

 

[ladeer]

these app makers are super unethical to charge such high price for such low-budget games. games like Halo or Modern Warfare or Starcraft takes a team of 100+ designers, coder, musicians, directors, producers, to create and sell for $60. You can play indefinitely. Games like candy crush takes no more than 10 people to make in a few months, and charges $34 dollars for ONE SINGLE upgrade, and there are many other upgrades like such. Furthermore, to gain 5 more lives to maybe finish a round you pay another $2. These games are unethical because the true cost is not transparent to the consumers until they are "hooked." And the consumers are not paying for the price because they really like the game, but out of frustration. Sure it's nothing illegal, but if I am running a business, I do not think this is a good sustainable and ethical business model. I would want my customers to pay for my games because they really enjoy it, and I wouldn't want to charge my customers for something I made that I don't believe it's worth its price. Maybe I am just too idealistic, but I really don't think business owners should exploit the audience of these games which are predominantly unaware of the risk.

 

[samcraig]

To be clear.

The kid gave the iPad to the father in order to download a FREE game.

Because IAP prevention wasn't enabled by default - The FIVE YEAR OLD was able to click on whatever he wanted in the FREE game and within 15 minutes had a 2500 bill.

There seems to be a lot of people who are making a lot of assumptions or getting the actual facts wrong.

Ironically - if you're going to make criticisms about parenting or someone's behavior being responsible - maybe "you" should start by understanding the entire article and/or the facts.

 

[gnasher729]

I'm gonna go crazy and buy a bunch of games and pass them ... Then ill say my son ask me to put the password for a free game and then ill get my refund

You are aware that you are suggesting fraud, which is a serious crime?

To be clear.

The kid gave the iPad to the father in order to download a FREE game.

I think the father _believed_ the password was needed to download a free game. It's not quite clear whether that was actually the case or not. He _might_ have entered the password for an in-app purchase, _believing_ that it was for a free game.

Not if Apple makes a very clear and public announcement that all sales are final. That if you hand device to kid without turning on restrictions and a credit card on your account and they buy a small fortune that's on you not them and there will be no refunds.

There are ways to do it that won't come off totally d-bag and its well past time.

Legally, Apple wouldn't have a leg to stand on. "All sales are final" is worth nothing when you sell to a minor. Any sale to a minor is a voidable contract. The contract terms are completely irrelevant, because the minor or his/her guardians can at any time void the contract, including all the contract terms. And what's the fuzz about? There wasn't any harm done. If the parents had watched the child, no purchase would have happened anywhere. So nobody lost any money.

 

[samcraig]

I think the father _believed_ the password was needed to download a free game. It's not quite clear whether that was actually the case or not. He _might_ have entered the password for an in-app purchase, _believing_ that it was for a free game.

Fair enough. It is nebulous I guess with the phrasing, "when father Greg put in a pass code, believing his son was downloading a free game."

 

[michealwillard]

What ever happened to shame? I'd be pretty embarrassed if I was a parent who was too stupid to and neglectful to keep my child from racking up that size of a bill. I guess now people just don't get embarrassed by their own incompetence. Sad times.

 

[Renzatic]

What ever happened to shame? I'd be pretty embarrassed if I was a parent who was too stupid to and neglectful to keep my child from racking up that size of a bill. I guess now people just don't get embarrassed by their own incompetence. Sad times.

I bet you were one of those kids who racked up $800 phone bills by calling those old Barney The Dinosaur 1-900 numbers at 3 in the morning.

YOUR MOM AND DAD ARE HORRIBLE PEOPLE! THEY SHOULD'VE HAD YOU STRAPPED TO THE BED AT 6 PM LIKE ALL GOOD PARENTS DO FOR THEIR CHILDREN!

 

[samcraig]

What ever happened to shame? I'd be pretty embarrassed if I was a parent who was too stupid to and neglectful to keep my child from racking up that size of a bill. I guess now people just don't get embarrassed by their own incompetence. Sad times.

Your post is not only without merit. It's pretty obnoxious. What makes you think they aren't embarrassed? What makes you think they should be. I wouldn't be embarrassed at all if I believed my device was protected from such charges only to be wrong. I'd probably be more angry than embarrassed actually.

There was nothing stupid nor neglectful in what happened.

I guess some people like to really make assumptions about other people and then completely rip them a new one for either an honest mistake or, more likely, a fault in the IAP process.

What's sad isn't what happened or why it happened. What's sad are posts like yours about the story.

 

[MacConvert]

SmurfBerry!

My 4 year old did exactly this on my Android phone, not to the tune of 2500.... bought SmurfBerries for $5. Good thing she didn't scroll to the right, there was SmurfBerries for $100 . Now it's all locked down with a PIN....

 

[apolloa]

these app makers are super unethical to charge such high price for such low-budget games. games like Halo or Modern Warfare or Starcraft takes a team of 100+ designers, coder, musicians, directors, producers, to create and sell for $60. You can play indefinitely. Games like candy crush takes no more than 10 people to make in a few months, and charges $34 dollars for ONE SINGLE upgrade, and there are many other upgrades like such. Furthermore, to gain 5 more lives to maybe finish a round you pay another $2. These games are unethical because the true cost is not transparent to the consumers until they are "hooked." And the consumers are not paying for the price because they really like the game, but out of frustration. Sure it's nothing illegal, but if I am running a business, I do not think this is a good sustainable and ethical business model. I would want my customers to pay for my games because they really enjoy it, and I wouldn't want to charge my customers for something I made that I don't believe it's worth its price. Maybe I am just too idealistic, but I really don't think business owners should exploit the audience of these games which are predominantly unaware of the risk.

Perhaps you haven't heard? EA have announced plans for ALL their new games regardless of platform, mobile, console, PC, will ALL have micro transaction (IAP) systems built in regardless of price.
So that $60 EA game will have an in built system to spend even more money on items.
Considering they have destroyed the Real Racing 3 game with IAP, then who's to say Battlefield 4 isn't full of purchases for guns and attachments?

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...s-will-include-microtransactions-exec-claims/

So whilst I FULLY agree that IAP is the devil of the games industry, their are plenty of people unfortunately happy enough the spend hundreds on a mobile game, so they will be more then happy I would think to do the same on a games console or PC game. And it is a shame.

 

[Solomani]

So why is Apple now responsible for "compensating" the damages caused by bad parenting?

If this young British boy had used the iPhone to club to death his younger 2-year old sister..... oh let me guess... the British Courts would have demanded that Apple was responsible and therefore Apple should have to pay the costs of the funeral!

 

[samcraig]

So why is Apple now responsible for "compensating" the damages caused by bad parenting?

If this young British boy had used the iPhone to club to death his younger 2-year old sister..... oh let me guess... the British Courts would have demanded that Apple was responsible and therefore Apple should have to pay the costs of the funeral!

Another person that hasn't read the story or thread? Lovely.

 

[HenryDJP]

The person making these purchases wasn't 25 years old, and not 18 years old either. The person making the purchases was five years old. That's why Apple has no choice whatsoever but to refund. If you sell anything to a five year old, and the parents complain, you'll have to refund the money. The goods have to be returned to you, if possible. If that is not possible, you still have to refund the money and lose the goods.

.

Gotta tell ya, loved your post....oy vey. Okay Mr. pre-law, it doesn't matter if it was a 5, 6,7,8,9 or a 10 year old, the person who's credit card that is listed on the account is the purchaser, period. And just how would Apple know that a child made the purchases? Just because they are kids games doesn't mean it was kid that made the purchases. We all might as well just do that, buy a game, spend money on in-app purchases, find out we hate the game or are bored by it, call Apple and say our 5 year old bought it and didn't know what he was doing and get refunded.
Now, the only thing that would make sense is if the time between when the purchases were made and when Apple was contacted was within an acceptable time such a week and the customer doesn't have a habitual history of doing this.

 

[samcraig]

Gotta tell ya, loved your post....oy vey. Okay Mr. pre-law, it doesn't matter if it was a 5, 6,7,8,9 or a 10 year old, the person who's credit card that is listed on the account is the purchaser, period. And just how would Apple know that a child made the purchases? Just because they are kids games doesn't mean it was kid that made the purchases. We all might as well just do that, buy a game, spend money on in-app purchases, find out we hate the game or are bored by it, call Apple and say our 5 year old bought it and didn't know what he was doing and get refunded.
Now, the only thing that would make sense is if the time between when the purchases were made and when Apple was contacted was within an acceptable time such a week and the customer doesn't have a habitual history of doing this.

Right. And if the IAP process was actually working.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Unfortunately it's just the nature of e-commerce and these things will happen. Both sides are at fault even though they do try their best. Before all this it was kids watching YouTube videos while on data roaming and incurring charges of thousands of dollars. Anything that makes it easy to pay will have this inherent danger.

On top of the parents' responsibility - yes I believe they are responsible to an extent, whenever they give out their password, they should be more vigorous - Apple should make it very clear whenever you enter the password what it is for. Instead of simply asking for your Apple ID, they should have it so that the dialog box display exactly what the password is being entered for. "Please enter your Apple ID password here to make this in-app purchase of $10 for app ABC", and so on.

 

[Renzatic]

Gotta tell ya, loved your post....oy vey. Okay Mr. pre-law, it doesn't matter if it was a 5, 6,7,8,9 or a 10 year old, the person who's credit card that is listed on the account is the purchaser, period. And just how would Apple know that a child made the purchases? Just because they are kids games doesn't mean it was kid that made the purchases. We all might as well just do that, buy a game, spend money on in-app purchases, find out we hate the game or are bored by it, call Apple and say our 5 year old bought it and didn't know what he was doing and get refunded.

It's a similar situation to letting one of your friends borrow your iPad for a couple of hours. He asks for your password to download a free app, and you give it to him not even thinking about it.

I've done that a few times. I've even had a couple of friends lend me their password to play around on the app store getting free stuff before I bought my own iPad. The only thing you're thinking is that they're using it to grab something for free. It's not the most responsible thing in the world, but hell...you know em.

But say one of your friends is severely pissed off at you for some reason. He gets your iPad, and racks up $10,000 in app purchases in some passive aggressive attempt to get back at you.

Are you gonna pay for that? I guess you are, cuz comeon. Anyone could just say their friend ganked their iPad and bought a bunch of apps.

It's all your fault, man. You gotta pay for it. It's not your friends fault for being a bastard. Not Apple's fault for setting it up so it stores your credit card by default. It's all on you.

...cuz accidents or unaccounted for scenarios never, ever happen.

 

[samcraig]

...and every person in line at the genius bar asking for a repair/exchange because of damage to their phone is there because of a flaw in design and NEVER because they accidentally did something like drop it in a toilet, on the ground, short the charger, yadda yadda.

It's a similar situation to letting one of your friends borrow your iPad for a couple of hours. He asks for your password to download a free app, and you give it to him not even thinking about it.

I've done that a few times. I've even had a couple of friends lend me their password to play around on the app store getting free stuff before I bought my own iPad. The only thing you're thinking is that they're using it to grab something for free. It's not the most responsible thing in the world, but hell...you know em.

But say one of your friends is severely pissed off at you for some reason. He gets your iPad, and racks up $10,000 in app purchases in some passive aggressive attempt to get back at you.

Are you gonna pay for that? I guess you are, cuz comeon. Anyone could just say their friend ganked their iPad and bought a bunch of apps.

It's all your fault, man. You gotta pay for it. It's not your friends fault for being a bastard. Not Apple's fault for setting it up so it stores your credit card by default. It's all on you.

...cuz accidents or unaccounted for scenarios never, ever happen.

 

[Renzatic]

...and every person in line at the genius bar asking for a repair/exchange because of damage to their phone is there because of a flaw in design and NEVER because they accidentally did something like drop it in a toilet, on the ground, short the charger, yadda yadda.

I know it! Everyone on the internet knows only stupid people make mistakes. People like me? I just act smug at their misfortune and abuse the rolleyes emote.

They should've known dropping their phone in the toilet would damage the thing. It's water and electronics. Who would've thought, huh?

 

[i.mac]

Why apple rewards this type of stupidity with a refund?

 

[Renzatic]

Excellent timing, i.mac.

 

[samcraig]

Excellent timing, i.mac.

His brilliance knows no bounds. https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/16930252/

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I know it! Everyone on the internet knows only stupid people make mistakes. People like me? I just act smug at their misfortune and abuse the rolleyes emote.

They should've known dropping their phone in the toilet would damage the thing. It's water and electronics. Who would've thought, huh?

I'm glad you brought that up. Now if one of those fancy companies dips your phone into one of them fancy nano thingamajigs and it magically become waterproof but then spray some windex on it and it shorts out... clearly the company doesn't owe you a cent right? They shouldn't refund you the cost of the phone or their service!!!

 

[Renzatic]

I'm glad you brought that up. Now if one of those fancy companies dips your phone into one of them fancy nano thingamajigs and it magically become waterproof but then spray some windex on it and it shorts out... clearly the company doesn't owe you a cent right? They shouldn't refund you the cost of the phone or their service!!!

They said waterproof, not windex proof...STOOOPID!

 

[AidenShaw]

+1

It's possible the parents didn't even realise that such "freemium" games exist where it's possible to blow thousands of dollars within minutes... Most normal people would be surprised (and shocked) that there are games targeting children where it's possible to lose thousands of dollars so quickly. We could at least give them the benefit of the doubt.

The freemium games are a blight on the app store and Apple should be ashamed. They clog up the "Top Free" and "Top Grossing" categories, making it harder to find decent apps. Clearly many people do spend heaps of money on these things for them to rank so highly in their gross sales.

There are developers that use the in-app store capability appropriately, but these predatory pay-to-play type games or games where you pay obscene amounts of real money for in-app objects or bragging rights should be abolished. That or at least give me the option to hide them permanently or require users to opt-in.

My phone works fine, and doesn't have any of these issues

...and look at that 24" screen!