16 year old son spent £500 on online gaming

dibuzz

He needs to learn that when he spends money it has gone, blaming Sony and trying to get his money back when he spent it willingly is not going to teach him responsibilty.
Hopefully he will have learned a (very expensive) lesson and be more careful in future.

[Deleted User]

Least he not spending it on drinks... and 500 quid is only about 10 games so what the span of months he spending money on?? like Battlefield 3 the game itself about 40 quid.. then expansion pack has come out over the years 5 in total i think so that a good 100 quid... If he plays FIFA 13 utlamate team like me then you can by point to buy packs to get players and then you can list the players to sell (Players stats change evry week in packs) i spent 150 quid on these packs over the lasty year.. im 34 but these packs are very additive but does help you win in online matches to get more coins to buy... could be many reason he spnt the 500 quid.. but if he spent it in one month year maybe you should tell him that it a lot off money.. if it over a year + stopmoaning let him get on with it he 16... he will sooon learn

WiggyDiggyPoo

kikiuuh wrote: »

sounds terrible

Do you regret spending the £500 or that your parent is a blancmange?

meeshpeesh

I'm sure he already knows about it but he should consider getting PlayStation Plus. He'll get a couple of decent free games every month for as long as he's subscribed. It's £40 for the year and you get £1000s of worth of content in that time.

But buying games straight from the store is never going to be the most economical way of getting them, they go for £60+ on there when the same game will be available for £30 or less in the shops. Tell him to check out hot uk deals, this forum or other places before he buys them from now on. You can't tell him not to spend his money on them, because thats what he loves (my parents tried to get me to spend my money on other stuff), but teach him to do it in a savvy way.

I'm actually impressed he managed to spend that much, especially as the ps store is a nightmare to navigate

duchy

I wonder if the responses would be the same if the post was "My daughter spent £500 online on a handbag" ?

Part of been a teenager and earning your own money is spending money on stuff your parents won't buy for you .....then comes the lesson of "was it worth it?" when you want something else .....and that is the beginning of learning to budget. As parents we want to save our kids from making the same mistakes we did....but the reality is we learn more from one mistake of our own and the consequences than a year of good parental advice

RichL74

What the original post is getting at is that the kids wasted his money on a load of games and the parent is trying to see if there is any way they can claim the money back by making out that every time he clicked the 'buy now' button that it didn't warn him or give him the option to not spend his hard earned.

All this about joining PS+, life lessons and its his money he has earnt it so let him spend it posts are kind of irrelevant.

Saturnalia

duchy wrote: »

I wonder if the responses would be the same if the post was "My daughter spent £500 online on a handbag" ?

Part of been a teenager and earning your own money is spending money on stuff your parents won't buy for you .....then comes the lesson of "was it worth it?" when you want something else .....and that is the beginning of learning to budget. As parents we want to save our kids from making the same mistakes we did....but the reality is we learn more from one mistake of our own and the consequences than a year of good parental advice

Best response in this thread Duchy, nail hit on head. The only way you can learn how to manage money is by managing money. And making mistakes along the way.

Fair dos to the lad for getting off his bum and earning his own money. Hopefully he's had a wake up call at a young age here.

WiggyDiggyPoo

RichL74 wrote: »

What the original post is getting at is that the kids wasted his money on a load of games and the parent is trying to see if there is any way they can claim the money back by making out that every time he clicked the 'buy now' button that it didn't warn him or give him the option to not spend his hard earned.

All this about joining PS+, life lessons and its his money he has earnt it so let him spend it posts are kind of irrelevant.

Only a waste if they are bad games, no way to claim, every time you click buy now it does warn you and the option to not to spend is there - you just don't click 'ok'.

Gra76

The way I see it is that as long as it's his own money he's spending then let him get on with it.

Ringing Sony to complain will likely end up with the person on the end of the phone having to put you on hold while they get a good laugh out of their system.

Now if he'd spent it on YOUR credit card OP, that'd be a different matter....

jacques_chirac

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Both of which require parental consent and proof of.

One off parental consent, equivalent to a parent being one game purchase was made - or are you suggesting the army phones the parent each time they do something new? :T