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

[charlituna]

If this word gets out, and it will do.... Apple got loose money, since we can all phone up, and say "we didn't know what we were doing".....

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.

 

[pacohaas]

As stated, there's Parental Controls... that toggle is there for a reason, and I don't get why people don't enable it.

Yes, I enable it for myself as the only person who uses my phone to avoid just this situation. If I ever find an app where I really feel the need for an IAP, then i'll temporarily turn this setting off, but until this I'm safe from stupid freemium purchases.

 

[iGrip]

Something is wrong with society if a 5-year-old child is able to spend $2500 in a few minutes.

Yep. Apple is not to blame here, they are a victim of "society", just like everybody else. So sad. It is all the fault of Society. Society is to blame.

/s

 

[James_C]

This actually happened to a member of my family. He made the mistake of giving his iTunes password to his 6 year old daughter, so she could download some free games. She spent £1,000 ($1600) on in app purchases, before he realised what had happened, this was a couple of years ago. At the time he was not even aware of in App purchases. I think that is the problem I guess many parents may not even know that you can enable restrictions to stop this sort of thing happening. Maybe Apple needs to enable these restrictions by default, with a message that they can be turned off if the user wants when the iPad is used for the 1st time.

 

[tongxinshe]

What if it were $1,000,000? Would you hold him responsible and sell him into bondage to pay it off?

Theoretically, yes!

A friend of mine got a $3000 phone bill for one month, because his 12-year daughter sent too many SMSes. At that time he was still honest and didn't know that he could have AT&T to remove his responsibility for their own mistake, so he borrowed money from 3 different friends and paid off the debt over a half-year period.

I am not saying that any of these charges are reasonable, but ASSUMING absolute zero responsibility for personal mistake is a worse social concept in comparison.

 

[GenesisST]

As a parent of a 5-year-old child at home, you are not allowed to forget such things. It's like saying that since there haven't been any gun shots for a while, so you forget you are on a active battlefield.

You have to keep an eye on things ALWAYS. I 100% agree with you.

How many times have I nagged my now ex-wife because she left the knives close to the edge in the kitchen... or to put the damn scissors on top of the fridge or a high shelf... FFS, kids are really quick when they put their minds to it...

I just find that people are quick to pull the "bad parenting" card. If there is a pattern, then sure, and they are a lot of bad parents out there. In this case, we don't have the full family picture and it could just be ignorance of what could happen during a controlled ipad play period, for all we know.

But, ignorance should not be the manufacturer's fault, though. I think Apple just bought 2500$ worth of advertisement... :-D

 

[tbrinkma]

Look, most banks have maximum withdraw limits for ATM's (eg, $500 per day). But there's no similar safeguards in place for the app-store? .

The analogy isn't quite as apt as it first appears. Those limits are actually designed to help prevent the ATM itself from running out of funds, because it takes time (and involves transporting large quantities of cash to sometimes remote locations) to refill an emptied ATM.

 

[charlituna]

Good parenting is hard o find these days.

Not just 'these days'

I remember when I was a teenager I worked shelving books at a local bookstore. One afternoon this guy comes in pissed off that his son was 'allowed' to look at books from the health section that talked about sex.

The managers response was that they aren't babysitters and he was the idiot that dumped his 10 year old at the mall unsupervised. And then the manager preceded to ban the whole family (they shopped there enough to be known to the staff) on promise of calling the police for trespass. And did when the kid was dumped at the store so mommy and daddy could go on a movie date

For the record this was about 12 years ago

 

[iGrip]

This is not Apple's fault. Its a bit "cheeky" of the developer to put a £69.99 IAP in a Children's app but, ultimately, its the parents' fault. Parental Controls DO exist (and are not hard to find) and, technically, that app was aged 9 and upwards. So only the parents have themselves to blame.

While it is not Apple's fault (they are victims of society), it is likewise not the parent's fault.

They too are victims of Society.

/s

 

[dranakin]

A good parent wouldn't give an iPad to a 5-year-old. Period.

Thank you. What happened to books and human interaction?

 

[Kaibelf]

wow... $$$ in 15 minutes... must be one heck of an app.

Don't you think any bells would have gone off saying "Why am i giving this to someone else to type in a password?"

I can see after 3 or four purchases, but $2550 worth ? how many purchases would that be exactly ?

I bet he didn't even know how much he was spending .......

See what happened when lazy parents use something like this as a babysitter?

 

[tbrinkma]

It's a five year old. He doesn't think "purchases". He doesn't even know what a "purchase" is. He most likely cannot read. He sees a few buttons with pretty pictures, and when he presses the right button, some funny music plays. So he presses the button again. And again. And again. For $49.99 each time. He is just proud that he made the iPad play funny music.

If your 5-year old "doesn't even know what a purchase is", you've somehow managed to keep him from ever handling cash. EVER. And you've never taken him to the store.

If that's actually the case, you're doing the kid a serious disservice by preventing him from learning about how the world works.

 

[Krazy Bill]

Maybe Apple needs to enable these restrictions by default, with a message that they can be turned off if the user wants when the iPad is used for the 1st time.

You do realize this is on by default to facilitate Apple making money, right? If no, why does approach this surprise you? (and others here)

It's like joining a book club. Once signed up the crap keeps coming by default until you turn it off.

 

[Jessica Lares]

If you hit the $99.99 option that 99% of IAP coin/money based games have, you only have to hit it 25 times to get to $2500.

 

[Rootus]

This is not Apple's fault.

Doesn't matter. Apple set up an ecosystem where nefarious developers could rip off people to the tune of $2500 in a matter of minutes, so they're the ones that get the black eye. It's a marketing issue, and refunding the money is the easy answer. What they should really do is make their walled garden live up to the hype. One of the reasons we're given for the walled nature of the garden is to protect us. That justification will fall flat if they don't stay on top of things and reign in developers like this. Apple exists to make money, and highly visibile incidents like this cost them a lot more than $2500.

 

[jdag]

More and more iPads are shared within a household, especially among children. iOS really needs to support multiple profiles so that a single iPad can have certain account that are tied to a credit card and others that are not.

 

[guzhogi]

I think parents should take more responsibility watching their kids, knowing what an app does, etc. so their kids don't rack up large purchases like this.

However, I also think that Apple really needs to separate the app purchasing & in-app purchasing. Also, have a parental control that limits how much money a kid could buy in an hour/day/week/whatever time period. And make it multilevel so that it could be like $5/day max and not over $25 a week or something.

As for in-app purchases themselves, I'm torn. On the one hand, I feel awful as a consumer where you can only get some really good things if you pay for it. So maybe pay to speed things up.

On the other hand, especially for smaller developers, they should be paid for their work and adding new features.

So basically, consumers should act a bit more responsibly and developers/Apple should make it easier for the consumer to be responsible.

 

[flat five]

I quit reading when I read "...and he typed his password in for him."

Your fault. That right there means you didn't pay attention to your kid. I'm sure they're the type of parents that say "aww he's just a kid!"

i think a key point is missing in this thread (as well as the other recent one)..

people keep blaming the parents etc for letting the child get ripped off.. or that the parents did something bad.. and they suck or whatever..

but seriously.. who are the victims of the scam here? definitely not the kids. the parents ARE the victims..

so you're in essence, taking victims of what could be deemed a crime (definitely a moral crime imo) and saying "oh.. its your fault.. sorry" ..it's not their fault.. they have been cheated, on purpose, and in a super slimy way by using their kid's innocence as a means to their bank accounts..


i mean, why would you do that?

----------

See what happened when lazy parents use something like this as a babysitter?

<sigh>

 

[applefan69]

true.. but we they refund to "mistaken" purchases such as this, how many more people will be n on the same deal...

"no problem,,, just tell Apple this , and they'll refund your money" type.

Its probably a mix affair... No control, but Apple bending over backwards for their customers even though their App store says otherwise.

I like a company thats honest, don't you


If this word gets out, and it will do.... Apple got loose money, since we can all phone up, and say "we didn't know what we were doing".....

There are such things as rules in a terms of service,, maybe Apple should re-think again....


The parents, and kids may be out of pocket, but if they made the purchase, its their fault. No other company but Apple refunds money, and to me, hats kind of what they should be doing as a business model.

Whatever happened to the old days where you could return ANYTHING you purchased for ANY reason?

I don't know where you come off saying Apple is the only company doing refunds.

 

[Adam22]

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

 

[samcraig]

Theoretically, yes!

A friend of mine got a $3000 phone bill for one month, because his 12-year daughter sent too many SMSes. At that time he was still honest and didn't know that he could have AT&T to remove his responsibility for their own mistake, so he borrowed money from 3 different friends and paid off the debt over a half-year period.

I am not saying that any of these charges are reasonable, but ASSUMING absolute zero responsibility for personal mistake is a worse social concept in comparison.

Who says they aren't assuming zero responsibility?

p.s. you know cell carriers (at least I believe all the major ones) now have an alert system set up where you can have it email you if you're reaching your data cap/messaging limit, etc.

Look - I'm not saying that there are parents who would be to blame. But fundamentally - if you're going to argue how hard is it to set parental settings "on" - you can argue the reverse as well just as easily. How hard would be to have to enable IAP, etc?

See what happened when lazy parents use something like this as a babysitter?

How did you determine they are lazy? And what makes you think they were using them as a babysitter?

Awful lot of assumptions on your behalf, don't you think?

 

[Ashyukun]

I agree but I think Apple refunded because if the family made it public that Apple were not doing anything about it, it would be only too easy to start yet another angst against the top dog. People in the wrong and with negative ways of thinking are much louder than people in the right. Hence the world in its current state.

Actually, from what it sounds like (and what others here have reported...) Apple readily refunded the purchase- this family just happened to have a really large amount and went on a media spree talking about it. Can't wholly complain if it helps get the word out about parental controls and stops it from happening in the future.

I wholly agree though that the freemium/IAP issue is a problem. I've watched several game franchises on iOS go completely down the toilet thanks to switching over to a freemium model. For *&$%^@'s sake, just charge a reasonable price for the game outright with no IAPs- you can even have two versions: a freemium version for those too cheap to get the full one (but will likely end up paying more overall...) and the full game for those of us who don't automatically discount something because it costs more than $.99 or is free.

The Freemium model has RUINED the Zenonia game series- the last few games have been impossible to play without dropping a good bit of real cash on things that are ESSENTIAL to complete the game (whoever came up with the idea of making the resurrection item- Zenonia's equivalent of a FF Phoenix Down- an IAP PAID ITEM deserves to be horsewhipped with USB cables). Just charge a sane price for it- like Square's Chaos Rings series, for example- and be done with it.

 

[26139]

Huh?

Whatever happened to the old days where you could return ANYTHING you purchased for ANY reason?

I don't know where you come off saying Apple is the only company doing refunds.

Because too many people took advantage of the policy, and return used goods for no other reason than being bored of them.

 

[flat five]

Whatever happened to the old days where you could return ANYTHING you purchased for ANY reason?

obviously, the majority of consumers don't like this idea and feel if a corporation manages to lure you into handing them your money, it's a done deal.. forever..

disgraceful & disgusting behavior if you ask me..

and crazier yet that people are touting 'well, you have to be a wise consumer and you wont be scammed' meanwhile, they're happily (or unknowingly) giving up their rights as a consumer..

the only reason this scam works.. the ONLY reason.. is because we allow a system in which it can work..

because we are so separated.. nobody likes anybody.. all we do is argue each other.. just like we're taught to do via things like political debates and reality shows and advertising etc..

we don't recognize the power we have.. i mean, i don't think anyone is going to chime in here and say "oh.. these in app purchases are a good thing".. but no one seems to actually grasp the fact that if we want to stop it, we could do so.. today.. easily,immediately, and simply..

 

[TJ5921]

Lots of Personal Responsibility Badasses in here. And here I thought I was one of them!

If you build a system where it's ridiculously easy to accidentally buy extremely expensive virtual goods, you should also have a reasonable system in place to allow people to reverse those mistakes.

It's not like the kid came home with a new car or a yacht. You can't commit yourself to purchasing something like that with an errant swipe of the finger.

Never before in human history have we had a situation where a person could say "Oops! I just spent $2,500 on accident, now we can't make the mortgage payment". Suddenly this possibility has been sprung upon us, blindsiding many, and the Macrumors zeitgeist is "Make the bastards pay!"

Best response in this thread.