Mobile Phone Micropayments

halibut2209

Yay for the judgmental posts! Don't you have anything better to do?

globalds

halibut2209 wrote: »

Yay for the judgmental posts! Don't you have anything better to do?

Loads of stuff thanks ..

Still a thief is a thief and if I have a child of mine at 13 who is happy to repeatedly steal off me or anyone else ..then I would do as my parental duty requires and judge him on his actions and impose a punishment that not only reimburses all that he has stolen but also focuses his young mind on the road he has started walking down.
At 13years old , I am working on the future 16 year old ..I really do not want a 16 year old thief in my home.
I think more parents should be judgemental ....Never been keen on the notion that going soft on people doing bad things will miraculously cause them to change ..

halibut2209

And I think you should mind your own damned business. But I doubt you will miraculously change either. Shame, really.

globalds

halibut2209 wrote: »

And I think you should mind your own damned business. But I doubt you will miraculously change either. Shame, really.

There is nothing shameful about either holing an opinion or holding differing opinions ..There is no need to get all aggressive ..you are entitled to what you think and to post on those thoughts ..Just as others are.

You might like to read these quotes

:beer:

salen40

Wow! What a lot of posts since yesterday! Some very helpful and sympathetic and others very weird! The phone company are happy to wait for bill payment until January so that helps at this time of year and it gives me a chance to see whether I can appeal to Jagex before then.

For those that think I should have taken the hard line with my son, I know where you are coming from and I really wanted to. However, it would have made the situation worse as he would have had something to fight back against. (and at 5ft 10 I have to look up to him to shout!) Instead, he is faced with a very calm mum & dad that puts him very much on the back foot and trying his best to make up for it rather than being a very sullen hard done by teenager. Much easier to reason with and deal with. He knows he has to pay back the whole amount as and when he can whether it be from any Christmas & Birthday monies he receives and through chores at home. His whole attitude has improved remarkably (for how long I don't know) and he has excelled in Maths, Science and German exams at school this week. It is almost like he has grown up overnight

The phone has been confiscated and his Ipod touch has been taken off him for the foreseeable future.

salen40

I am still trying to resolve the micropayments made to Jagex/Runesacpe and have been in communication with them via email. They have agreed that they totally understand the situation that I am in and that I should try my mobile phone provider to get them to reverse the charges. This would put my sons runescape account into negative and then he would not be able to play it anymore. I spoke to my phone provider and although very helpful they cannot reverse the charges and say that Jagex have to do that. They have however frozen the bill to see if I can get this resolved. Interestingly enough, they did query how my son managed to rack up these costs as I have a content bar and restrictions in place on my phone to prevent it being used for such purposes (effectively denying him parental consent). The only way Jagex could get around this was to text my son making it okay for him to text back his agreement to purchase the ruincoins. Does anyone know or think that Jagex may have got passed the bar on my phone by effectively coming through the back door and quite clearly bypassing parental consent?

salen40

youngsolicitor wrote: »

Hmm. I still think the lack of authority is a real problem. You didn't agree to the T&Cs, your son did. Your son did not have permission to bind you to a contract, so I don't see how the T&Cs are binding on you.

Legally, your son entered into a contract, and no doubt he warranted to Jagex that he had authority to make the payment. Legally I think Jagex have to refund you, in theory they would have the right to sue your son but he would have a defence of minority. The situation isn't really any different to someone stealing your phone and using it to pay it for phones. Personally I would be pushing Jagex for a refund.

I spoke to mobile provider today who were very helpful. They said that my phone already had a content bar as well as a bar preventing any services being accessed to sites with premium rates or over 18 content. They say that Jagex must have got around this by texting the phone once my son had input the number online and all he had to do was text back. If all the content bar on my phone is not proof enough of not giving parental guidance or authorisation then I don't know what is.

dalesrider

salen40 wrote: »

I spoke to mobile provider today who were very helpful. They said that my phone already had a content bar as well as a bar preventing any services being accessed to sites with premium rates or over 18 content. They say that Jagex must have got around this by texting the phone once my son had input the number online and all he had to do was text back. If all the content bar on my phone is not proof enough of not giving parental guidance or authorisation then I don't know what is.

I would say you need to take your case to Ofcom. As it sounds like Jagex are breaking the law....

MamaMoo_2

What happens is, as I said earlier, your son inputs a number, Paymo then text that number, and you have to rey to that text with a "Y" to confirm.
Your content block sounds fairly weak, as I used to have a content block on my old SIM, and even if a number text me first, it wouldn't allow me to reply. It might be worth checking what kind of content bar you have (ie blocked from calling premium numbers, blocked from texting premium numbers, or just an adult content block for online services)
Jagex/Paymo are doing nothing illegal, unfortunately the person who broke the law here is your son by stealing from you.

salen40

MamaMoo wrote: »

What happens is, as I said earlier, your son inputs a number, Paymo then text that number, and you have to rey to that text with a "Y" to confirm.
Your content block sounds fairly weak, as I used to have a content block on my old SIM, and even if a number text me first, it wouldn't allow me to reply. It might be worth checking what kind of content bar you have (ie blocked from calling premium numbers, blocked from texting premium numbers, or just an adult content block for online services)
Jagex/Paymo are doing nothing illegal, unfortunately the person who broke the law here is your son by stealing from you.

I quite agree with you that my son has effectively stolen the money and he knows that in no uncertain terms. However, it should not have been that easy for him to do so and nor should he have even done so in the first place. He will pay the whole lot back in cash (no selling things......too easy) so that he can actually see his money being handed over for nothing in return. He will also have no access to a smart phone, ipod or computer (except supervised homework) for quite sometime. Hopefully this will have some impact.

The mobile phone company said that there was a content bar to prevent him from making any premium calls or viewing/accessing any adult content via the phone. Nothing about a content bar to prevent him texting these premium numbers so will check back on that one as I am sure that should have been in place as well.