Newsflash: most children don’t understand the concept of just how expensive $1,000 is. Case in point, one mom is out $1,200 after her son had lots of fun spending her linked credit card on in-game purchases.
Now, that mom is speaking out in hopes of shaking sense into other parents’ heads.
Sara Louise Petty of Larchmont, New York, said her child spent $1,250 while playing Roblox — a super popular online game that kids turned to during COVID-19 lockdown — and she wasn’t aware of the massive shopping spree until she looked at her billing statement.
“He set it up with his fingerprint and my fingerprint, so that he could access the iPad if I wasn’t home,” Petty told Good Morning America. “He was able to use that fingerprint to make purchases.”
Roblox has since told ABC News that their service takes pride in stopping unauthorized purchases, but admitted, “Unfortunately, unauthorized purchases made through certain third-party mobile providers such as iTunes, are managed by these services directly.”
Petty claims her son was “bullied” by his peers into making payments for them on the game.
“Because his friendships were kind of trying at the time, and he was feeling a bit outcast, he was purchasing Robux and giving gifts to his friends,” Petty said.
Some friends…
Either way, this incident should serve as a reminder to all you parents not to let your child go willy-nilly on the iPad if you have your payment information stored there. If you can, you can adjust the payment settings to “always require” a password before a purchase and look into parental controls to limit what your child can and cannot do when tinkering on a device with your payment menthod stored in the wallet.