Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Dad Calls Police Over Son's iPad Bill

Plutonius said:
The father didn't bother to check his credit card statements for 3 months ?

The father didn't notice the hundreds of emails from Apple on the purchases ?

I wonder what the father (a Police Constable) thinks when questioning suspects who say "it's not my fault" :D ?
Click to expand...

Agreed. The father is clueless.
 
SlugBlanket said:
Love to know where one can get those all-seeing eyes from...
Click to expand...

You don't need all seeing eyes, you just need common sense. This guy is 100% wrong and is attempting fraud.

Like I said above if this guy reported it the first time it happened right away, then sure he would be at the mercy of Apple if they wanted to be nice and refund the charges.

However, this happened over the course of months according to the article, how do you explain not seeing the charges pop up when you pay your credit card?
 
SlugBlanket said:
Love to know where one can get those all-seeing eyes from...
Click to expand...

I know a guy in Mordor selling one cheap.:p

chrono1081 said:
this happened over the course of months according to the article, how do you explain not seeing the charges pop up when you pay your credit card?
Click to expand...

He might have automatic payment set up. I do. But I still check in once a month to make sure I'm not doing a cash withdraw from Taiwan when I live in the US.:eek:

Anyhow, I agree with yah. The man lacks a sense of responsibility. British constables must make a lot of money not to notice a $1500 a month dip in the budget.:eek: If I come up a few hundred dollars short a month, I'd have to rework the month's budget.:(
 
He falsely reported a crime, knowing full well that a crime hadn't taken place, in order to try and get money back from his card company. It's an offence to falsely report a crime, and if he is doing so for financial gain (i.e. a refund he's not entitled to) then he is committing the crime of fraud.

Worse still, as a Police officer, he should know the law on this better than most.

I've half a mind to report HIM for misconduct in a public office!!

----------
NightGeometry said:
From a PR perspective if the local police force don't do everything they would do for any other accusation of fraud then the PR issue isn't with the CC company or Apple, it is with the police...
Click to expand...

Fraud is investigated by Action Fraud, which is a department of the Home Office, not the local Police force.

From what I've read, they have investigated and concluded that a fraud has not taken place - which is absolutely the right decision in this case.
 
srf4real said:
Dang, and to think I used to feel bad when I was a kid and I'd blown my entire $20 bill at the video arcade. What has the world come to when a kid's video game costs thousands of dollars to enjoy? Blame the dad, blame the kid, but really. Thousands of pounds for in game charges on a device that's already made Apple and game developers vast fortunes > completely ridiculous. Thirteen year olds are not supposed to make responsible decisions at that age and Apple is taking advantage of this.:mad:
Click to expand...

Yeah but mightn't you have done the same thing? Suppose you had brought $500 to the arcade instead of $20. You might well have blown it all, one quarter at a time, if you had been given the opportunity.
 
Bad Apple

The whole in-app purchase idea makes my skin crawl. Gone are the days where you bought a game, paid a fair price and enjoyed the product. Now it's turned into devising ways to fleece people of money. Agreed, the parent should have been more cautious, but he's probably from the generation where they rely on their kids to do the IT stuff.

Even if the default in-app state was off, it could soon be turned back on and the parent be none the wiser.

In-app purchases == virtual slot machine for the weak willed and/or gaming addicts.

Unfortunately, it's the future.

Ray
 
chrono1081 said:
YHowever, this happened over the course of months according to the article, how do you explain not seeing the charges pop up when you pay your credit card?
Click to expand...

And you get an email for each purchase. According to the article, that would be about 300 e-mails.
 
I check my credit card statements once a week (at least), I can't believe any sensible person who pays their bills on time wouldn't at least check it once a month.
 
Wow there are some perfect people on here, but no one mentioned where you go in your Apple account to switch off "in-App purchasing" or "single click purchasing" for that matter. "Reset all warnings for buying and downloading" option is deliberately vague and I can't find at a glance what it is supposed to do.

If like me, this father doesn't spend all available free time using apps and games, I can understand why he was unaware of this sharp practice of "in-app purchase". Don't you guys see, it's smoke and mirrors used by these developers to catch people out and it needs stopping and apple should do more to help.
 
Billywiz1307 said:
Wow there are some perfect people on here, but no one mentioned where you go in your Apple account to switch off "in-App purchasing" or "single click purchasing" for that matter. "Reset all warnings for buying and downloading" option is deliberately vague and I can't find at a glance what it is supposed to do.

If like me, this father doesn't spend all available free time using apps and games, I can understand why he was unaware of this sharp practice of "in-app purchase". Don't you guys see, it's smoke and mirrors used by these developers to catch people out and it needs stopping and apple should do more to help.
Click to expand...

It's true that Apple needs to do more but people also need to take some personal responsibility for their actions.

Please answer these questions Billywiz1307.
1) How long would it take you before you noticed in your credit card statements the thousands of dollars of in app charges accrued over three months ?
2) Would you notice the hundreds of email acknowledging the purchases ?
 
As far as I can see there are two separate issues here, in app purchases and reporting your son for fraud.
I agree that the in app purchases thing is pretty sneaky. I'm not a huge game player on my iMachines (apart from an unhealthy urge to play Freecell a lot) but I know that the whole purpose of Freemium games is to get you to buy add ons. Why else would a company give you something for free when they have had to spend time and energy on it?
It would be good if the default position is that in app purchases is not allowed but it isn't. That being the case we need to educate ourselves. There have been times when Apple have refunded money but under specific conditions. The in app purchases occurred over a short time or were the result of fraud. I have had money taken by a fraudulent app that emptied my itunes account of all of the credit. I got the money refunded by apple. The purchases took place over a couple of days, I was on holiday and not checking my emails for about a week therefore I didn't know about the purchases. This Dad allowed his son to purchase things on his iPad for three months. Unless he had gone on a three month vacation, I cannot see how he would be unaware of the purchases being made. The amount of emails you would have to ignore would be huge. Even then I cannot believe that someone would not notice the drop in available money considering the amounts concerned.
As for reporting his son for fraud, I consider that fraud. I cannot believe that someone would have this scale of charges over this time frame and not notice unless they are like Elton John and Sting and have more money than they know what to do with. This is pretty unlikely for a Police Constable. If that is how much they earn, I'm in the wrong job :D
 
Maybe the dad should just accept his losses and deduct some money from his sons pocket money each week till the debt is paid off.
 
abz1981 said:
Maybe the dad should just accept his losses and deduct some money from his sons pocket money each week till the debt is paid off.
Click to expand...

By my calculations, if the father was giving the son $10 a week pocket money, it would take over 10 years to pay the debt off.

At the point, the son would be 23...

Father would need to have been giving him approximately $20.66 a week for the next 5 years to have it paid off in time for the son's eighteenth birthday.
 
lol a 13 year old, usally its about a 5 year old. but 13? what is he retarded it says it will cost a amount when you buy it LOL
 
The fathers an idiot.

In the UK he'd probably end up being charged with wasting police time :D
 
Either the father was a total knucklehead or he was trying to be fraudulent. I am leaning to the former in this day and age.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back