13yr Old Runs Up £3000 Bill on iPad Games, On Dads Credit Card.

It seems like we have one of these stories almost every month and lord knows that we only report on the major ones, I’m sure there are plenty of children out there running up in game purchases that would make you weep when you look at the phone bill.

Yet while in most cases we find the the child in question is of little more than 5 or 6, the your boy in this cases was 13yrs old. Yet regardless of a little more age to him than most of the people in this kind of case, he still managed to rack up over £3000 worth of charges to his dads credit card!

After having downloaded more than 300 extra for a range of free-to-play games, to which the boy is claiming no to have known that there were extra charges, especially not to his dads credit card. Although it seems the dad has given his sone a little benefit of the doubt, by accusing iTunes of “duping” his son.

It’s not over yet however and while in the past apple have refunded the amount, this time they’re holding their ground saying that there are systems in place such as passwords and locks to avoid this from happening and going as far as sighting parental responsibility as the main cause. This has led to the father reaching out to Action Fraud Helpline to battle out the small print of the issues.

It’s hard to know who to believe yet I have to agree with Apple to some extent as when my son plays on the computer, tablet or my phone, I turn off Wi-Fi on the device, or 3G as per the device, when he is on the PC I know what games he is playing because I load it for him and I don’t even have my bank card paired to the devices anyway. It’s common sense to a certain extent.

However, with all that said, I’ve seen some of the sly tactics of in-game purchases and its pretty shocking how expensive some small bit of rubbish can cost you, £10 unlockables in Candy Crush anyone? So I think both developers and parents should be more careful, although there will always be a few developers looking to take advantage of less knowledgeable users, so be careful about what you tie your bank details up to.