Mobile bill shock through kids in-app purchases

vyle

Oh come on, it's so easy NOT to spend that kind of money on an ipad or iphone.

The first time you ever use your apple ID on the app store it asks you if you want to add your payment details or to do it on a purchase by purchase basis, which you can change at any time.

It's that simple. Don't add your payment details for convenience and switch off password prompts (again for convenience) then hand the devices to kids and moan when it's convenient and insecure enough that they can spend money with a single click when you SPECIFICALLY SET IT UP TO DO THAT.

Some people...

wondermouse

vyle wrote: »

Oh come on, it's so easy NOT to spend that kind of money on an ipad or iphone.

Some people...

<bangs head on wall> What self-righteous rubbish!

These forums are NOT populated by morons (although there are exceptions.) Do you honestly think that this many people falling foul of the same thing is a coincidence? :mad:

Can you not understand that, DESPITE accounts being password protected there is a serious FLAW in the system which allows these purchases to be made? Even when all you've done is updated your apps as the device requests, then by default there is a 15 minute window, in which purchases can be carried out without a password.

When you get an iPad or iPhone, it insists that you give a credit card as part of the setup. Even if you're tech savvy, and many people aren't, you would probably accept the default settings.

I can assure you that it is NOT clear and "easy" to set it up in the way you suggest. I'm sure the rest of us here wish you well in Smugland.

I think what this proves is that the set-up process should ASK if in-app purchases should be disabled, or they should be disabled by default and you have to turn them ON to use them.

However this goes against the Apple mantra of easy to use, so I suspect they're not going to.

bat400

wondermouse wrote: »

<bangs head on wall> What self-righteous rubbish!

These forums are NOT populated by morons (although there are exceptions.) Do you honestly think that this many people falling foul of the same thing is a coincidence? :mad:

Can you not understand that, DESPITE accounts being password protected there is a serious FLAW in the system which allows these purchases to be made? Even when all you've done is updated your apps as the device requests, then by default there is a 15 minute window, in which purchases can be carried out without a password.

When you get an iPad or iPhone, it insists that you give a credit card as part of the setup. Even if you're tech savvy, and many people aren't, you would probably accept the default settings.

I can assure you that it is NOT clear and "easy" to set it up in the way you suggest. I'm sure the rest of us here wish you well in Smugland.

I think what this proves is that the set-up process should ASK if in-app purchases should be disabled, or they should be disabled by default and you have to turn them ON to use them.

However this goes against the Apple mantra of easy to use, so I suspect they're not going to.

<bangs head on wall> What self-righteous rubbish!

Does the iPad or iPhone also insist that the owner hand over the device to their children so that they can use it unsupervised? Does it insist that updates are performed just before a user hands the device to their child? It's not Apple's job to force people to protect themselves against such purchases, when they have provided adequate safeguards for those who choose to use them. It's also not Apple's job to make people supervise their children while they use Apple devices. Apple designed the system to be easy for the majority of users, and configurable for the subset who are happy for their children to use these devices. RTFM.

sharnad

make sure after you buy something or dowmload something you turn off the in app purchases and make sure you dont hand it to a child for fifteen minutes

SingleSue

wondermouse wrote: »

When you get an iPad or iPhone, it insists that you give a credit card as part of the setup. Even if you're tech savvy, and many people aren't, you would probably accept the default settings.

I can assure you that it is NOT clear and "easy" to set it up in the way you suggest. I'm sure the rest of us here wish you well in Smugland.

I think what this proves is that the set-up process should ASK if in-app purchases should be disabled, or they should be disabled by default and you have to turn them ON to use them.

However this goes against the Apple mantra of easy to use, so I suspect they're not going to.

I have just spoken to my 14 year old who purchased his own Ipad...he said no you don't have to put a credit or debit card in to set up, you can skip this step. He certainly didn't as he doesn't like to add his debit card to anything.

For anything he needs on the Ipad, he gets a voucher and uses that.

vyle

wondermouse wrote: »

When you get an iPad or iPhone, it insists that you give a credit card as part of the setup. Even if you're tech savvy, and many people aren't, you would probably accept the default settings.

It does not. The first ipad worded it in a way that implied you had to, but all you had to do was actually read the message and scrolled all the way to the bottom there was the option to skip that step.

Nowadays, the ipads ask if you want to, but you just select the clearly presented option to skip. I've set up 15 in the past week where I work, and not one person provided me with their card details, yet I was able to set them all up, and I'm not a wizard.

Being puzzled at how so many people lack common sense is not smugness, but if you deem it so, I would rather be smug than somebody who lacks common sense and blames other people for it.

AAAAA

SingleSue wrote: »

I have just spoken to my 14 year old who purchased his own Ipad...he said no you don't have to put a credit or debit card in to set up, you can skip this step. He certainly didn't as he doesn't like to add his debit card to anything.

For anything he needs on the Ipad, he gets a voucher and uses that.

Exactly you DON'T need to add card details.It's much better to ONLY use iTunes gift cards.

AAAAA

wondermouse wrote: »

Do you honestly think that this many people falling foul of the same thing is a coincidence? :mad:

o.

No it IS NOT a coincidence.It is people why are NOT takeing responsibility for THERE STUPID actions.It is 100% THERE fault.Stop blaming others for YOUR mistake.

securityguy

wondermouse wrote: »

When you get an iPad or iPhone, it insists that you give a credit card as part of the setup.

It doesn't. But the myth that it does appears difficult to kill.

wondermouse

securityguy wrote: »

It doesn't. But the myth that it does appears difficult to kill.

Apologies. When I set up my iPad 1 it did insist.
Clearly that's changed on later editions.