Xbox live, child purchases; anyone successfully claimed money back?

hollydays

Mine too.. Predictable response

bod1467

In that case your Dad ISN'T bigger than mine.

PS - I am serious. He died in 1989 and was cremated. (My Mam died in 1988 and was also cremated).

steampowered

zagfles wrote: »

Retailers who have charging options in games aimed as children really don't have a leg to stand on, without some basic purchase authorisation challenge.

zagfles, thank you for your excellent posts in this thread. I agree entirely with all of them.

This was an unauthorised transaction and as such should be subject to a chargeback.

It should be entirely the seller's responsibility. If the seller would like to check that the transaction is authorised then they should require entry of a CVC for each transaction. All of the mainstream online retailers do this including Amazon.

The retailer is not innocent. The retailer has made a business decision to allow hundreds of pounds of transactions to be put through without any sort of verification whatsoever. The retailer knows that some of these transactions will not be authorised and should deal with that accordingly.

OlliesDad

I was actually reading the FCA site a few days ago on a slightly different subject, but I felt that it was relevant here.

The FCA advise a bank are within their rights to refuse a refund on an unauthorised charge "if the customer fails to protect their details in a way that allowed the transaction."

In this case the OP allowed another person (their son) to have access to an account with which there was access to their credit card. In the eyes of the bank, this will be the fault of the cardholder.

philatio

This was an unauthorised transaction and as such should be subject to a chargeback.

Utter nonsense.
If it's an unauthorised transaction then I can walk outside, hand my bank card to a passer-by and tell him the PIN number.
I'll be fine because I haven't 'authorised' whatever the random bloke buys. I've simply passed over all the information to let them do what they want.

And that is exactly what the OP did on their XBox. By inputting the card details and accepting the terms, they 'authorised' any payments on that machine. Just because they didn't actually read the 14 pages of legal terms or that it was their son who actually clicked 'buy' does not get them out of that.

hollydays

bod1467 wrote: »

In that case your Dad ISN'T bigger than mine.

PS - I am serious. He died in 1989 and was cremated. (My Mam died in 1988 and was also cremated).

Yes I was serious too.

zagfles

OlliesDad wrote: »

I was actually reading the FCA site a few days ago on a slightly different subject, but I felt that it was relevant here.

The FCA advise a bank are within their rights to refuse a refund on an unauthorised charge "if the customer fails to protect their details in a way that allowed the transaction."

In this case the OP allowed another person (their son) to have access to an account with which there was access to their credit card. In the eyes of the bank, this will be the fault of the cardholder.

URL please so we can all see what they say. Card details aren't confidential - you give your card details to every retailer you ever pay with it.

Besides - the CV2 number must not be stored (against VISA/Mastercard rules), and if a retailer puts through a transaction without the CV2 number, it is at their risk.

So, assuming the child wasn't asked for the CV2 number and went and got his parent's wallet out and entered it, I can't see the retailer being able to provide anywhere near the level of proof of cardholder authorisation required, should the OP report an unauthorised transaction.

OP - please pursue this and let us know how you get on. It'll be very interesting for future cases.

zagfles

peachyprice wrote: »

The child is 12 years old, old enough to read and understand a screen that it telling how much he is going to be charged. OP has made no mention of severe learning difficulties that would prevent his understanding and he's already demonstrated to his parents that he has a perfect understanding of how in-game credit purchases work, OP herself has said how wonderful he is at running up to her with his 69p for purchases on other media.

Why do you think 12 year olds aren't allowed credit cards?

zagfles

philatio wrote: »

Utter nonsense.
If it's an unauthorised transaction then I can walk outside, hand my bank card to a passer-by and tell him the PIN number.
I'll be fine because I haven't 'authorised' whatever the random bloke buys. I've simply passed over all the information to let them do what they want.

And that is exactly what the OP did on their XBox. By inputting the card details and accepting the terms, they 'authorised' any payments on that machine. Just because they didn't actually read the 14 pages of legal terms or that it was their son who actually clicked 'buy' does not get them out of that.

No PIN was required, no CV2 number was requested. The retailer chose to accept the transaction without even asking for the CV2 number. Their risk.

WTFH

zagfles wrote: »

Why do you think 12 year olds aren't allowed credit cards?

Because if they were, their parents would have no qualms about blaming the credit card company when the children use the cards to buy things, and the parents would be given advice which would not be moral or ethical, but could be twisted round (via lying) to be just about legal.

Shame that personal and parental responsibility are less important than greed and teaching children selfishness, or at least that's what it looks like based on the advice given by some on this forum.