7 year old daughter accidentally run up £250 bill for itunes app? *Now updated*

davester

mae wrote: »

Thank you all for being so nice and understanding about it, I thought we might get slated for being too niave and clueless (which is how I feel at the moment!).

I downloaded Adventure Island a free game. It has gold as ingame currency and bottles of spice or something, and you can buy it with the most you can buy is $59.99 worth with 2 clicks, 1st click to go to buy the bottles, then a cartoony button menu with increasing prices with the number of bottle larger than the real cost.
Obviously I don't give itunes my details, but it could easily be done within minutes of downloading the game with the password already logged in. They don't even go to some special page to do it all ingame so easily a 7 yr old could do it without thinking. The fact apple only allow 1 user account on a device it would make it impossible to not have this occuring. Apple company needs to get real and take responisbility.

ERICS_MUM

mae wrote: »

Thank you all for being so nice and understanding about it, I thought we might get slated for being too niave and clueless (which is how I feel at the moment!).

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

penguin83

My daughter did something similar with the games on Sky through the TV. Totally my fault for not checking but I thought they were free - when I got the phone bill I realised they were not..! xxx

vikki_louise

mae wrote: »

Thank you all for being so nice and understanding about it, I thought we might get slated for being too niave and clueless (which is how I feel at the moment!).

It can happen to any parent, most parents with things like iphones or ipod touches let their kids play games (and apple must know it), i would of only thought to check the games suitability for the child like you did

TrickyDicky101

This is a useful warning to me as I am looking at buying an iPad for my wife so she can surf Facebook (and not take up my desktop ). With 4 kids under 8 years old I wouldn't want any of them getting hold of if and ringing up a big bill - I won't be storing payment details within iTunes now. So thanks everyone and good luck to OP.

macman

globalds wrote: »

This is getting more and more common.
I have seen another post about kids being able to download stuff to easy.

I haven't got any advice but this looks like a problem that lots of these companies that pride themselves on being family or customer friendly need to look at how they do business.

Instant access should not mean unauthorised users get to spend hundreds before anyone knows.

But the OP's daughter was an authorised user-they gave her the password and allowed her access!
Would you give your child your credit card PIN number?

prowla

These in-app purchases are sharp practice; there are a lot of games being given away as "free", but which you need to buy tokens to play.
People are being ripped off by this, and it is not good enough.
There are some things that you need an iTunes account set up for to access.
I've got around this with my kids by having the iTunes account set up on my PC, but if they do want to purchase something or get updates on their iPod then they have to ask me to input the account and password for that one transaction.

clivejohnson

too little too late now I know, but you can disable in app purchases via the settings in your ipod touch
(I guess this is the same for iPad as well) Go into settings/general/restrictions. Click on "enable restrictions" (from here you will have to put a password in twice). Then, under "allowed content", you see a list of options, including "in app purchases". Which needs to be turned to "off".

HTH,

Clive

paddyrg

In game payments in a kids game is sharp practice and the manufacturers know it. Kids are too young to enter into a contract by law, yet this is what they effectively are encouraged to do, only a click away. If the manufacturers were honest about this, it would be trivial to make the checkout process more visible/involved, but they want the fast buck. I can see no reason to allow it in especially kids games.

richardvc

It is sharp practice by apple and they will know all about it !! BUT OP, without appearing rude, don't give your daughter your password etc etc which I am sure in hindsight you wish you hadn't !

I don't think you will get a refund but this is just one of the reasons I won't buy apple stuff.