Son used debit card without consent , advice needed.

zagfles

somethingcorporate wrote: »

But Sony already have the money....who do they need to prove it to?

Err.. the bank. Otherwise they'll get a chargeback (the transaction will be reversed).

This explains it all quite well: http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/46/46_plastic_cards.htm

antrobus

In an effort to be vaguely helpful to the OP I'd direct them to the following story 'My son racked up £1k bill on Xbox' here - http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2011/february/7/xbox_bill.aspx

The circumstances appear to be similar (and apparently not all that uncommon) as in "Miss Matthews, 37, from Strood, had entered her bank card details into the Xbox when her son, Brendan, first got it to allow him to play against friends online. However, she was unaware Brendan had continued to use it - and buy extra games, weapons and costumes for his virtual characters - totting up a bill of £1,087 since July." The conclusion was that "Barclays and Microsoft have denied any liability over the bill, which has been paid."

I believe that zagfles is perfectly correct about the debit card qualifying as a credit token under the CCA and thereby limiting the cardholder's liability to £50 for unauthorised transactions. In the above circumstances I suspect that Barclays took the view that by entering their 'bank card details into the Xbox' the cardholder had authorised the transactions. Whether or not that might apply in the OP's circumstances I do not know.

MrChandlerBing

When the op set up their child with a Sony account they will have agreed to terms of service and such. I assure you there will be absolutely no chance of getting a refund

zagfles

antrobus wrote: »

In an effort to be vaguely helpful to the OP I'd direct them to the following story 'My son racked up £1k bill on Xbox' here - http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2011/february/7/xbox_bill.aspx

The circumstances appear to be similar (and apparently not all that uncommon) as in "Miss Matthews, 37, from Strood, had entered her bank card details into the Xbox when her son, Brendan, first got it to allow him to play against friends online. However, she was unaware Brendan had continued to use it - and buy extra games, weapons and costumes for his virtual characters - totting up a bill of £1,087 since July." The conclusion was that "Barclays and Microsoft have denied any liability over the bill, which has been paid."

I believe that zagfles is perfectly correct about the debit card qualifying as a credit token under the CCA and thereby limiting the cardholder's liability to £50 for unauthorised transactions. In the above circumstances I suspect that Barclays took the view that by entering their 'bank card details into the Xbox' the cardholder had authorised the transactions. Whether or not that might apply in the OP's circumstances I do not know.

Hmm...not noticed the transactions on the statements for 6 months??

Besides in this story the "victim" was fobbed off by the bank and appears to have accepted it. Banks will often initially try the fob-off technique, as they did in the FOS examples I posted above.

[Deleted User]

So did the OP authorise the use of their card as a one-time purchase, which ended up saving the card details in the account, or did the OP never authorise using it, and the kid took it out of their purse?

Not that it helps in this case, but I'd suggest anyone thinking of lending their payment card to a PS3 user buys them a prepaid PSN card from the supermarket instead.

Enterprise_1701C

Your first step should have been the obvious, to stop the account.

Have you got a small police station nearby where you could have a word and see if you could really frighten your son? They might be able to "officially charge" him and pop him in a cell, having stripped him of his belt and shoes, for an hour or so. Not sure if they are able to do this these days though, and only you could judge if your son would be frightened by this, and he would have to be REALLY frightened.

You have to sell his PS3, and any other consoles and games he has.

He is old enough to have known what he was doing, he would have known the games cost money, he now has to know that they actually had to be paid for. And he also has to lose out on things that you would normally have paid for with that money.

Good luck with this, it is very hard to deal with something like this.

magpiecottage

zagfles wrote: »

Whether they did or not is irrelavent. The retailer/bank needs to prove the OP authorised the transaction. Not the other way round.

That is correct. FSA Rule BCOBS 5.1.11 says:

"(1) Where a banking customer denies having authorised a payment, it is for the firm to prove that the payment was authorised.

(2) Where a payment from a banking customer's account was not authorised by the banking customer, a firm must, within a reasonable period, refund the amount of the unauthorised payment to the banking customer and, where applicable, restore the banking customer's account to the state it would have been in had the unauthorised payment not taken place."

It is then up to the bank whether it does a chargeback (which it probably will).

In theory Sony could then pursue the culprit but it I suspect it will simply block his account - which is probably no bad thing.

It is unlikely that most bank staff understand this, though, so you may have to force the issue.

Mara69

s_b wrote: »

i would smash the playstation in front of him
that would get the message through for the rest of his life

Of all the posts on here, this is the most ridiculous and spiteful. Would it not make more sense to sell the PS in order to recoup the financial loss? A far better lesson for the child as well.

warehouse

OK, it's happened, how to deal with it? Firstly is that card now cancelled? If his friend has used it then who else might have the details? Be safe and cancel the card.

A 10 year old, (I have one), knows exactly what they're doing. Therefore your son needs to pay back every penny. The PS3 MUST be sold, it will start the ball rolling for the money and be a massive lesson. Those games he purchased, are they just loaded onto the PS3 or does he physically have them? Find out and use them to boost the PS3 selling price. What else can he offer to sell to help raise the money?

My 14yo has a magazine round she does once a month, and sometimes my 10yo helps out for a £20 payment. Is there a round you can sign up for that you and your son could do together to help raise more money?

Good luck OP.

antrobus

zagfles wrote: »

Hmm...not noticed the transactions on the statements for 6 months?? ..

Granted. But if it takes 6 months to spend £1,000 on Xbox how long does it take to spend £500 on a PS3? There must have been multiple transactions over a period of time at least. Only the OP knows the answer.

zagfles wrote: »

Besides in this story the "victim" was fobbed off by the bank and appears to have accepted it. Banks will often initially try the fob-off technique, as they did in the FOS examples I posted above.

Well yes, being fobbed off by banks is pretty much SOP. Which is why, of course, people often frequent places such as MSE.