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

Sooler

From the Wtchdog article ... "But how had this happened? Watchdog found that although a parents iTunes password is asked for when they download the app, even if it is free, it then stays logged in for 15 minutes, and won't be requested again to make subsequent in-app purchases in that time frame." ... the OP probably has not given the password to the child.

billywhizz

A friend had a similar problem with a £100 bill. Contact them supplier and ask the question. In her case she did get a refund, you may get a result, but have nothing to lose anyway.

jayme1

yeah this kind of situation has happened before.

this is how you turn off all in app purchases (will at least stop this from happening in future)
http://www.cultofmac.com/how-to-disable-in-app-purchases/72481

Simon_B_2

jayme1 wrote: »

yeah this kind of situation has happened before.

this is how you turn off all in app purchases (will at least stop this from happening in future)
http://www.cultofmac.com/how-to-disable-in-app-purchases/72481

Excellent piece of advise thanks!

robt_2

Sooler wrote: »

... the OP probably has not given the password to the child.

They already said that they did.

Spectroscopist

Default off or an option during the itunes installer to ask whether 'in app purchases' should be enabled or not when first started would stop all of this. Apple know that.

poppy10_2

robt wrote: »

They already said that they did.

Well in that case they don't have a leg to stand on. If they gave their bank card and PIN number to their seven year old child, they wouldn't be able to make a claim against the bank if the kid subsequently emptied their account and spent it all on zhu zhu pets.
Tough lesson learned - passwords 101 - do not share your passwords with anyone else, especially not a child

Humphrey10

When buying in app purchases like this the app says 'do you want to buy X for £Y?' or similar, when you click on the buy button. Making it very obvious that real money is being spent, there is no way it could be made clearer. Wouldn't a 7 year old knows what money is (I honestly have no idea about what age children start having an idea about money, so sorry if 7 is too young!)?

For future referance OP, and for anyone else with an iDevice - you do not need to ever have your card details on it. You can go into your account settings and delete your credit/debit card details. If you want to buy things, you can re-enter your card details temporarily, or you can put an iTunes voucher on there. This way no-one can run up massive bills, they either can't spend anything because you have no payment details, or they can only spend the value of the iTunes voucher if you have one on there.

truthman007

mae wrote: »

Our 7 year old daughter thought she had downloaded a free app 'Treasure Story' onto to my husbands Ipad. She has been happily playing it until I received an email saying thank you for your purchase for £39.99...we don't purchase anything so obviously I checked what was going on and it seems this game has been charging her to buy 'gems' (?) to continue playing the game and the bill is up to £250 :eek: Our daughter has been crying because she thinks she has done something wrong and she is so good and sensitive its really not her fault which we have explained to her, we thought we were checking what she was doing but we are obviously not clued up enough we had no idea it could take money without asking or warning us!!??

Does anyone know if there is anything we can do to get a refund?

It happened to me, it is called in-build app buy, i cannot believe Apple allow this kind of spam. It is like a SPAM apple help, app provider to steal all your money i think Apple get 50% of that sale.

robt_2

Not entirely sure how Apple are stealing money when the child was given the password to use.