Note to parents, don’t leave your child alone with an iPad, especially if one of the parental units decides to trust said child when they tell them that the apps they would like to download are “free.”
This is the story of Danny Kitchen, a five year old boy in England who desperately wanted to have a go at Zombies vs. Ninjas (and who can blame him?). Danny couldn’t get access to the game without first convincing his father that it would be for free. Once the father had been swayed, Danny went ahead and downloaded the game.
All was well until he was presented with the opportunity to purchase in game ammunition. With the passcode recently stored, Danny began to click away on the not-so-free bombs and keys the game has to offer for an added price. In the span of ten minutes he had charged 1,710.43 pounds (roughly $2,570) on his parents' account.
Give that kid a trophy because that has got to be a new high score. Have a look at Danny and his mom explain the situation below:
Remember kids, if it says it's free that just means that the next day it will “costed the money.”
Luckily, thanks to a suit filed against Apple which settled just a few days ago, incidents like this have a built in “get out of the spanking of your life free” card in the US. If a child makes a purchase in excess of $30, the charges will be reverted. Sadly this perk has yet to make it overseas -- so let's keep our collective fingers crossed for Danny’s backside.
Just how much has this suit cost Apple so far? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million dollars. That’s going to leave a mark.
Note: For those that didn’t get the “absolutely free” reference in the image above, please watch the Dane Cook video below. Thanks for playing.
Parents fault – if they don’t understand the tech, and the way micro-transactions work, then its their own stupidity, not the childs!
I think they’re both at fault, but the kid’s much worse. He’s the one who made the in-app purchases, even after convincing his parents that there wasn’t anything to worry about.
So, you mean it’s the kid’s fault? Yes, sure it is completely normal for a kid that age, that can’t even speak properly yet, to be able to convince both his parents that something is free (even though his parents should be old enough to know that practicaly everything costs money in today”s society). Something that they could easily check in less than 5 minutes.
The kid should only be blamed of being smarter than his parents, that is, if he actually knew what he was doing, otherwise, he has no blame… and by the law he is pretty far from the age where he can even make this kind of decisions, so when the parents gave the OK, and the means for him to make that decision (the tablet), it was already completely their fault.
But I agree, he should suffer for his mistake notheless, since that is the way of life, and he should start getting used to it… but seeing the way he is already playing with that tablet, I think the parents blame did not end with the OK.
your saying at the age of 5 this kid has become a master liar?, I bet he saw free and thought that was it
Apple should never reverse these charges anywhere. Sends a hard message about, oh, I don’t know monitoring what the hell you’re stupid children are doing with an overpriced device they shouldn’t be using, that also has credit card information stored on it.
And people like this are why companies are making this *horrible* games on mobile in the first place. Because they can make it “free” and then make it suck so bad if you don’t spend money, that little kids will just click whatever is needed to keep playing.
And parents these days are such ignorant morons and don’t know how anything works. The parents should have, I don’t know, looked into the game themselves instead of just listening to a 5 year old. 5 year olds hardly know what’s going on most of the time.
Stupid kid, stupid parents, stupid iPad, stupid world… I hate that I can’t get out of elohell…
Taking the word of a 5-year old, those parents deserved to get fleeced. Typical 5-years olds do not have the reading comprehension for ULA, ,and yet the parents did not check it out.
I can’t believe people sued over this kind of thing. If you let your kid play with electronics unsupervised and they charge a bunch of money to your account, you should be forced to pay the price in full as punishment for being stupid. A 5 year old has no business putting his hands anywhere near such expensive electronics, and it really makes me sad that people have already decided to just let their kids do whatever rather than teach them rules, boundaries, and that certain things just aren’t for them until they reach a certain age or maturity level.
Although i agree with your outrage at the parents, i disagree with the fact that they are the only ones to blame. Apple to me is no different then a pusher on the streets, or someone who get’s kids hooked on drugs. Sure if we were raised better…bla bla bla… but he is 5… point i’m making is, that just like a pusher, apple makes the idea of getting more ammunition or whatever so appealing, and the kids don’t know any better then to waste their parents’ money (they probably don’t even understand the concept of it really).
Also, these games are highway robbery, since creating these games is relatively easy, but they don’t limit on how much they can charge you for extras… I’m looking at it from a gain vs expense POV. They create these extra items,which is really just code,and then charge you for it, over and over and over again. their has to be a limit.
Just compare it to the “real” video games… such high budget, high production… high versatile gameplay, so amny stock options… and the lack of options do not limit your progress… and on top of all that they charge you a set price.
The world is evolving. I had a books and mini chalkboards for fun… stick in the sand playing tic tac toe… my younger sister, already had a computer in the house to go on to… and my much younger brother has a kid’s learning tablet…. raised well… never did drugs or gambled….or smoked even. Mistakes happen, and these scavengers are circling and waiting to grab something from your folly.
I hate how everyone is blaming it on the kid, or the parents. The kid had no clue what he was doing, he’s 5 years old. He probably can’t even read properly. The parents probably had no idea about in-app purchases even existing. It was an accident, and I’m glas they got their money back.
You know, it’s actually very common for people in their mid thirties of not being aware of this… (no, I’m not in my thirties) so it is unfair to say they are uneducated about a specific insignificant product. There is too much to learn. In game robbery is new trend taking advantage of people’s carelessness and punishing them financially using legalities to their advantage. Point in fact is that apple created a roof of $30 if it was a child who did the money spending…. people will not stand for that. It’s unethical…anyone who says otherwise is a hypocrite one way or another… like if you ever gotten out of a traffic ticket… or did something wrong that someone else forgave you… here it is not even doing something wrong. It is literally using something virtual… a cluster of code and animation, being sold over and over and over again…. it’s not even comparable to renting something… because there you can’t sell the time (or rent item/room) to two separate parties simultaneously…
Yeah… sure, the parents could have been more careful i suppose… i’m sure you are always careful about everything and never slip up.
They should of had to pay up. If the kid had walked out of a store with that much in merchandise the parents couldn’t just play stupid and say sorry. Adults can try and abuse this by saying that a kid racked up the charges. They should take responsibility for not supervising their kid correctly. I mean goodness he is still playing with the damn thing they haven’t learned a damn thing. This kid can barely speak properly he shouldn’t be staring at an I-pad all day.
So it’s the kid’s fault that his parents are too lazy to disable the in-app purchases? What bullshit.
So where’s the douche programmer who made it at such a high price? Let’s be real, people. Yes, the parents should have taken 10 seconds to look at it, but just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Some basement dweller just screwed this family out of money and everyone’s okay with it? Idiots. No compassion for human mistakes.
I can’t believe all the stupid fricking comments about how there should be no way to get out of it. Micro transactions should be fricking illegal to begin with. But to top it off I am sick and tired of it being “the parents fault” if I am 16 and I look at porn, my parents get charged.. why?
Shit happens, and there is no way that that many charges should be allowed to go through to begin with, that should have raised flags for fraud all over!!! Apple should have been shutting that shit down ahead of time. Especially now that they stand to loose. It should be “hey you just spent 50$ type your password in to spend 50$ more”. Why is this so hard to understand?
We’ll apple sucks that’s a BIG sign right there get android dum people. Who wants to spend money for that crap in the first place apple should go bankrupted far as I’m concerned its rediculous how much they charge people and Verizon is just as dam bad get rid of that garbadge suh suh stupid
When I was his age, i played with Legos.
Its not the company’s fault
1. Parents left their credit card info to a 5 year old child
2. Parents not even sure what their kids are playing
3. Parent dont even read the damn news
Kid, you did a great job.
Just look to Alfa Edison, He have burned his house, sounds so crazy, but he really famous till this time.
Hope you will do many things cooler than ever been.
Whenever you make an in app purchase it asks you “Do you want to buy this?”, and if you haven’t signed in ever, or in awhile it will make you sign in. Any purchases you make soon after won’t require you to sign in again, but you will have to later on. I assume there’s a token with a lifetime of a few hours or so.
I can see where people have grief with the developers because some games incorporate in app purchases of gems or berries or whatever into the game art, and it looks cartoonish, so I can see why a kid may not know that it costs actual money to buy them. That being said, the subsequent pop up does literally prompt you for confirmation to buy it for whatever amount it is.
I know that parents may not be as tech savvy as they should be, and some will argue “well no one told me this is how it works, or that i could disable those purchases”, but that’s a larger problem of people not wanting to help themselves and take responsibility, and would rather leave it up to the manufacturer to hold their hand.