Son used debit card without consent , advice needed.

marliepanda

The only person who should be paying the OP back is her son.

If you let a child have unsupervised access to sites such as this, then these things will happen.

Asking Sony to refund, and not the child, is simply showing him that he can do this and have other people (ie Sony and whoever profits from these online games) has to pay the price.

Lost2

if am not mistaken but don't you singe an
agreement saying on the lines that you will take
care of your card and pin number
also they may even close your account as your card has been misused

pqrdef

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what the lad actually did.

If the OP opened a standing account with Sony in her own name, using her own debit card details, then she set up a continuous payment authority. This means she authorised and took responsibility for all subsequent transactions.

If she then gave somebody else access to the account with Sony, what happens after that is her problem, nobody else's. There hasn't been any crime and there's nothing to concern Sony, the bank or the police.

The nearest equivalent is setting up an additional cardholder on a credit card. You sign your life away when you apply for the additional card. No use bleating later that transactions weren't authorised by yourself or that other party abused your trust and disobeyed your instructions. You chose to give them access to your credit, on your own responsibility. The bank and the retailer merely honoured your standing request that they honour the card.

zagfles

WelshSun wrote: »

I've read some drivel in my time on this forum, and this post is possibly one of the richest veins of crap I've yet waded through.

So a parent isn't responsible for her child? Maybe I should stop feeding my kids as 'i'm not responsible,' of course...

While the poster was very direct in what they said, their argument was right.

Their argument was bulls**t. A parent is not responsible for criminal actions of their child just because they are responsible for feeding them:rotfl:

Read any bank's T&Cs, they will state the account holder is not liable for transactions which they didn't authorise (eg making it themselves or allowing someone else to), unless they acted with gross negligence (and even there the consumer credit act will apply if it caused a debt).

There are no exceptions about family members.

However they usually also state that the account holder must co-operate with the bank/police if fraud has taken place. This could mean the parents gets their money back at the cost of the family member getting a criminal record. Not sure how this would work with children, they may get wiped after a certain time.

zagfles

pqrdef wrote: »

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what the lad actually did.

If the OP opened a standing account with Sony in her own name, using her own debit card details, then she set up a continuous payment authority. This means she authorised and took responsibility for all subsequent transactions.

If she then gave somebody else access to the account with Sony, what happens after that is her problem, nobody else's. There hasn't been any crime and there's nothing to concern Sony, the bank or the police.

The nearest equivalent is setting up an additional cardholder on a credit card. You sign your life away when you apply for the additional card. No use bleating later that transactions weren't authorised by yourself or that other party abused your trust and disobeyed your instructions. You chose to give them access to your credit, on your own responsibility. The bank and the retailer merely honoured your standing request that they honour the card.

But it doesn't sound like that was the case here.

Anyway not sure how Sony work but most other retailers simply store your card details as a "convenience" in case you decide to purchase again through them, rather than get you to agree to a CCA. Each purchase is individually authorised. Often you need to enter the CV2 number every time, and go through VBV. Some retailers won't bother but then they will bear the cost of any fraud.

iandev

I sympathise with the poster, it's not the parents fault, it's the fault of PSN - I've been unfortunate enough to have been in the same position....twice! by my 12yr son, the first time he tried he used mine and my wifes debit and credit cards on both occasions there were extra security/verification checks so he was unsucessful so he used my corporate AMEX card and promptly took £50 off it, that took a bit of explaining at work, PSN were crap when I called them and really unhelpful I asked how a card could be used that didn't match the name of the "account" holder, they couldn't give me an answer I eventually managed to get the account cancelled, but had to wait 2 weeks to be able to access the account he created. I set up new passwords to access wifi on the playstation, that was around 12 mth ago, today I checked my bank statement and there were transaction from sony entertainment europe.....£35 in total I have confronted him and his younger brothers and he's done it again using my wifes debit card (the same one he tried to use previously) so it seems sony are not using the card authentication process, I have yet to contact sony but won't be doing so over the phone as you inevitably won't really be able to understand the call handlers. So all in all, it's not the parents fault, it's the actions of the child and the negligence of sony allowing any old card to be used to allow purchase of there goods. BTW, my son is awaiting a formal diagnosis for either ADHD or Autism - not that it's an excuse just handy to know.

Thrugelmir

iandev wrote: »

I sympathise with the poster, it's not the parents fault, it's the fault of PSN -

In my childhood days it was called stealing..... not blame anyone else.
Sell the consoles to recover the money. Show some parental guidance as to what's right and wrong.

geekonthepc

It's terrible that these kind of things can happen - it's one thing to be the subject of fraud from a stranger, but from your own family...!

In any case, I don't think it's right to accuse any parents of failure to protect their own cards from their kids. Sony need to implement security features like Verified by VISA - this would immediately prevent kids from making transactions without having to confront parents for the password. The bank would probably be reluctant to provide any refunds, but Sony (and other providers) really ought to take more responsibility.

More than anything else, though, consumers need to have better protection from digital purchases. At the moment, it can be very difficult to get a refund for digital purchases - regardless of the reason.

Parents in this situation have got to provide discipline at this point though - theft is no joke and likely to lead to serious problems in later life, deal with it now and make sure it never happens again. I liked the idea of contacting a local Police Station - get a firm sounding police officer to remind the child of the likely punishments for theft. Teach them a lesson.

Thrugelmir

geekonthepc wrote: »

In any case, I don't think it's right to accuse any parents of failure to protect their own cards from their kids.

The same children will no doubt have no qualms in removing money from their parents purses or wallets. Children learn boundaries from their parents. If culture is that somebody else has to pay. Then we are all losers. As consumers are the ones that foot the bill not the banks nor the supplier nor the insurance company.

adonis

This is why I only use the playstation network cards that you buy from supermarkets, game etc, I even told Mrs adonis not to use her debit or credit card on her tablet and wait until the google play cards came out.

This wasn't because I thought DS would deliberately buy stuff but in case of mistakes especially with the touchscreen tablet.