HUGE SMS bill from mara pets game

Herbgurl

You have to be kidding me right? For three months you didn't see a bill for your child's phone...How does that happen? Even if it's automatically taken from your bank account you would get a bank statement, right?

I am an active player of Marapets, along with a huge adult community, and there ARE easy ways to buy account upgrades...BUT your responsibility as a parent is to watch out for your child be it in regular life or online. It is not the sites or anyone elses', just yours. At 11, I think she's a bit young to have the free range she needed to rack up that bill. Maybe she doesn't need a contract phone...or internet for awhile.

Sorry if I sound harsh here, but I just see you not taking any responsibility for what your child has done...all you're worried about is getting you money back. I understand that what you lost is a huge amount, I'd be ticked off too, that's like a house payment or two car payments....but did you really think after three months anything could be done?? Maybe if it had happened all at once, maybe something could have been done, but like it is I highly highly doubt it...

debbie2free

First off how much do you have in your bank where you didn't notice she was spending such large amounts. Its YOUR fault you are not paying attention to your daughter. No one made her buy things on Marapets. Just be glad it was her spending $ on a pet site and not running away or doing drugs as anything else. Don't blame anyone but yourself. I know what my kids do online you I guess NOT

robt_2

Two brand new posters making their first posts on the same thread on the same evening both slamming the OPs parenting skills and essentially calling her a bad mother.

What are the chances.

MsAnonymous

robt wrote: »

Two brand new posters making their first posts on the same thread on the same evening both slamming the OPs parenting skills and essentially calling her a bad mother.

What are the chances.

Lmao. That's because someone posted about this in the Adult Forum on Marapets. I do agree that the parent should have been monitoring her child's behavior & what to know how the hell she didn't notice these charges when they first happened. But, Marapets is a very pathetic website. You're giving "donations" to keep the site running and to be error free, but this site has never once worked properly. It's already been talked about that these "donations" are going into the site owners pocket, which I highly believe. It doesn't matter if a kid has a contract phone or not for this. As long as you have SMS and minutes on your phone, you can purchase the AUs there. If you have a pay as you go, when you purchase an SMS AU upgrade, it just takes away a certain amount of minutes.

Taraquin

I too am an adult member of Marapets and saw this post pasted in the Adult Forum on the site...

Unbelievable! As a mother of four I find it incredible you'd have the audacity to try to blame anyone but yourself for allowing your 11 year old child to be completely unsupervised on a site you clearly hadn't looked into in the first place. Good grief you even said "(where you have to look after pets or something)" your child could've been in chat rooms with dirty old men pretending to be youngsters, would you even know?

I do feel for you receiving a £600 bill, a little. But think it's a timely lesson on not allowing youngsters to surf the net completely unsupervised. How do you not notice for three months when mobile bills come in monthly? Don't you check your bank statements either?

Are you sure you're not an adult that tired of the site, didn't realise how much you're spending and now are regretting it and trying to get a refund? Somehow that would be more believable than you don't check what an 11 year old child is doing online, don't check what she's doing with her phone, don't check your bank statements, how do you live?

Did you even tell your daughter what she could and could not do with her mobile? Have you ever spoken to her about integrity, honesty and trust? Good grief it's not Marapets responsibility to monitor your child it's yours. Did she have an under 13 account where she had no access to forums and email? Did she have parental consent to play and use mail etc? Do you even know?

HugoSP wrote: »

However, if she wants to care for virtual pets, I can recommend neopets !

There are no charges that I am aware of. My children have asked for money to sign up for other similar sites on the net but I just refuse.

There is no 'charge' to play Marapets, donations are entirely voluntary. No where are minors encouraged to make donations. It's naturally assumed that if they do it's with their parents consent.

Neopets is the biggest commercial rip off pet site on the net. Worse than the donations Marapets gets from it's loyal members Neopets simply SELL virtual items while being a multi million dollar company with huge advertising income from companies such as Disney, General Mills and many others. They also sell plushies, toys, stickers and anything neopets related they can get a dollar out of kids with.

MsAnonymous wrote: »

It's already been talked about that these "donations" are going into the site owners pocket, which I highly believe. .

Good grief an adult that doesn't know that people have to have an income to live? That Marapets is a business? That businesses are supposed to make enough money to support the owners? That believes the owners should dedicate his life to your entertainment (and mine and all the other members) for nothing but gratitude? Sigh.

robt wrote: »

Two brand new posters making their first posts on the same thread on the same evening both slamming the OPs parenting skills and essentially calling her a bad mother.

What are the chances.

Make that three, I'm sorry you feel it's perfectly fine to allow minors on the net unsupervised and then blame others for their activities. I guess there are many like many adults out there though.

Sorry but it makes me shudder that people allow such a young child to be on the internet unsupervised. Who knows who the child might be persuaded to meet. Do you know that there are creeps out there that ask careful, clever questions to find out what school minors go to and then.... you can work out what then for yourself and maybe then be more concerned about your child than your £600. I suggest you have a serious conversation with her about integrity, honesty and trust and then have her do chores to repay you.

robt_2

robt wrote: »

Two brand new posters making their first posts on the same thread on the same evening both slamming the OPs parenting skills and essentially calling her a bad mother.

What are the chances.

Taraquin wrote: »

Make that three, I'm sorry you feel it's perfectly fine to allow minors on the net unsupervised and then blame others for their activities.

Maybe you should show me where I said or suggested that.

Taraquin

Felt your post implied it, since you hadn't commented either way I'll apologise. Thought you'd simply stated the mother was responsible for the phone nothing about supervising her child and your second comment on what are the chances of 2 new poster slamming the mothers parenting skills seemed to imply it to me. Again as you didn't actually say it I'll apologise.

MsAnonymous

Taraquin wrote: »

Good grief an adult that doesn't know that people have to have an income to live? That Marapets is a business? That businesses are supposed to make enough money to support the owners? That believes the owners should dedicate his life to your entertainment (and mine and all the other members) for nothing but gratitude? Sigh.

"Account Upgrades keep marapets running. We are a free site that relies on the donations of our players and paid advertising. Our running costs are high and as we grow, so does the cost improvements and maintenance. Account Upgrades help us to improve."

That is taken from the Upgrade page on marapets. Why the hell should we pay to fill HIS pockets? It'd be like offering someone $50 for a rock, you wouldn't do it. People buy upgrades mostly for the items, but also for the hopes that the site will actually be fixed. Ian only has empty promises and false hopes. He states that things are going to be done at a specific time, but they never are. It takes weeks, months & even years for things to get done. Gardens were promised in 2005, released in 2008, still don't work in 2009. He's a damn idiot & thinks he's "God" because he owns the site. He doesn't give a damn about what his players think and god forbid you complain about him not doing his "job". Speaking of, people get paid to do their job PROPERLY. If someone is sitting on their !!! not doing anything, they're not going to get paid. If someone says that their project will be done on a specific day & it's not there, they're not going to get paid. He doesn't want to hire anyone else because he doesn't want to have to share the money he's raking in.

Your average 19/20yr old college student would not have the means of support to continuously travel across the world. He lives in London but is constantly flying to Australia & the States. Why should we be paying for his vacations?

He even had a myspace page where he was bragging about all the money he has, the new house he's going to be getting & the fancy car he was going to buy. A few people got banned on a forum that was posted about it & the board got deleted. His remark on the subject? "My personal life and what I do isn't anyone's concern". He has also even stated that he doesn't care what anyone thinks & that's HIS site and he can do as he pleases. Also on the myspace thing, a few months later he let slip about someone stalking him and finding his myspace page & was posting it in the forums.

Ian needs turned over to the B.B.B.

Neutrogena

Casee, you're not as anonymous as you think you are. You're posting the exact same stuff here as you write about on VPL about ian, his staff and the way he runs his site.
Just get a life honestly.

NightShadows

Yeah, I see people here who are supposedly adult players on Marapets slamming the site. Hmmm. Anyway, I played that site for a LONG time without "donating" money for the credits and got along just fine, one doesn't need to donate to play. Neopets is a rip-off though, as one can see their gift cards EVERYWHERE here in the US. I am constantly hearing "I want a Neopets Gift Card! Get me a Neopets Gift Card so I can play Neopets!" At least on Marapets, one doesn't NEED to donate to get all the cool extras, they just have to earn the Marapoints (the currency) to buy them from other players.

As for the mother, perhaps it wasn't bad parenting, but she should have been monitoring her daughter's actions a little better, especially on the internet. It is NOT the fault of Marapets or the creator as it specifically lists in the rules that a person whom is under 18 should have their parents review the rules and approve them BEFORE they play. Quoted from the site rules- "If you are under 18 please make sure that your Parent or Guardian has read and accepted them before you play the site. Failure to follow the rules at ANY time will result in Account Penalties or permenant loss of your account." The fact that the daughter was able to get away with that much purchasing for 3 months is not the fault of a website (and yes, I'd be defending other sites in this instance as well) but of the daughter and the mother, whom should have been monitoring her YOUNG child's internet use.

A Loyal Marapets ADULT Player