MSE News: 'Immoral' My Little Pony game tempts kids to spend £70 on 'virtual gems' 28 February 2013 at 5:20PM in Mobiles 87 replies 8K views

Former_MSE_Helen

"Parents should beware letting kids play the My Little Pony app, which charges up to £70 for in-app purchases..."

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'Immoral' My Little Pony game tempts kids to spend £70 on 'virtual gems'



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gjchester

Little late.. reported by the BBC in december

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20629245

Takeaway_Addict

This is the 3rd report on this by MSE in about a week...Why?

AAAAA

!!!!!! MSE .Stop all this.It is 100% the parents fault.Full stop.

Shaztastic

Don't just protect children from in-app purchases, make sure you protect your parents as well!

When my retired Mum got her first iphone last year and asked me to set it up the first thing I did was turn off the ability to make in-app purchases! She's pretty good at using it now but could easily have accidentally run up a huge bill in those first few weeks.

gadgetmind

I like in-app purchases 'cos my wife gets a royalty cheque every quarter courtesy of them.

However, this is from software aimed at sad old people rather than kids with slightly dopey parents, but only because I didn't think of the latter wheeze.

ronniexx

When I let my son use my iPhone to play games, I always turn off the mobile data and the wireless set-up so there is never any chance of him running up a huge bill. I also only let him play for 20 minutes; parents need to take more responsibility - we are after all the adults!

rockin_plumber

Right then half way down the report...
With the in-app purchase box that says....

CONFIRM YOUR IN-APP PURCHASE
DO YOU WANT TO BUY A MOUNTAIN OF GEMS FOR £69.99?
CONFIRM OR BUY

MoneySavingExpert.com creator Martin Lewis says: "It's pretty clear-cut that the My Little Pony app is not aimed at adults. This is a specific children's game and the fact it encourages children to spend £69.99 at a time on a 'mountain of gems' is disgusting and immoral.

It is quite a clear question that the pop-up box asks, parents should punish the children for making the purchase, stop them from using the device until they can be trusted.

If we made a thread .... Condemning parents that can't control the children that use these devices... How long would it stay here :mad:

I normally agree with MSE but this time you are very very wrong!

Chorlie

If you used iTune Vouchers, it would stop these high credit card bills since it only lets you spend what you've Pre-bought, it stops hackers running them up also, so not only safer but if you buy them at the correct time you can get £25 vouchers for £20 (20% discount) which means all your iTunes purchases will be at a 20% discount, so a WIN / WIN......

But it's 100% the parents fault not Apples...

fizzyfish

Completely agree with the above. We have my little pony, and the iPad is set so my daughter can't make in app purchases, for that matter, so I can't either!

It is so easy to blame others, when a quick look through the settings, can prevent this. This should not be another area for compensation, when, in fact, a manual was provided detailing simple steps to stop this. Please take responsibility for your own and subsequently your child's actions.

As an aside, if your password is so easy to memorise, its probably a rubbish password anyway, and needs changing

Fire_Fox

I posted on the previous official MSE thread on the exact same topic
"But any parent should know that anything that can connect to the internet can connect to explicit material on the internet, films/ video or music lyrics. So you supervise your children and/ or you set up security - guess what? On the iPhone setting up age barring is in Settings/ Restrictions right next to blocking in app purchases.

If you don't know how to use your own mini computer you really should not be permitting vulnerable youngsters to do so. How do you know they are not watching violent or sexual content, or speaking to dangerous people on social networking sites instead of playing that innocent hairdressing salon game? Do children even need to be playing games or is, all too often, the smartphone/ tablet acting as a free babysitting service?"