Help needed fast!!

MEM62

fedupparent wrote: »

Maybe if we weren't all so scared to hold our children to account these dats the kids of today would have more respect and not disrespect other people and their property with out any regard for the law, just saying

A very laudable point. In this instance, particularly as a 'second offence' I would suggest that he receives no Christmas gifts this year (Any already purchased could be returned or sold on) and the money that was to be spent on these used to compensate the card holder who suffered the loss.

It is harsh but the lesson needs to be. Your son has been through this before and knows full well what he was doing so the point needs to be well and truly made.

boo_star

You need to hit your child where it hurts, their wallet.

Sell their Christmas presents, stop giving them pocket money and/or make them do chores to pay you back for the money that you'll be giving back to the relative.

The police station visit is all well and good but clearly just being given a telling off won't work, it didn't the first time. It might even have the opposite effect, letting them know that they're essentially "untouchable."

Person_one

MEM62 wrote: »

A very laudable point. In this instance, particularly as a 'second offence' I would suggest that he receives no Christmas gifts this year (Any already purchased could be returned or sold on) and the money that was to be spent on these used to compensate the card holder who suffered the loss.

It is harsh but the lesson needs to be. Your son has been through this before and knows full well what he was doing so the point needs to be well and truly made.

After all, the 12 year old has just recently had £300 worth of xbox games!

RichL74

DCFC79 wrote: »

You could have removed the profile from the console or did a format. I'm not saying the grandparent is innocent as yes they did leave the card details linked to the account.

Thats a bit like Kennedy saying 'its a lovely day, lets have the roof down' while driving through Dallas.

Bit pointless now.

CalumHeath

fedupparent wrote: »

Hi,
I haven't got that kind of money in the first place but don't want the victim to be out of pocket either. can anyone confirm the legal stance on this???
(

fedupparent wrote: »

Hi,
don't want the victim to be out of pocket either. can anyone confirm the legal stance on this???
(

You can't have it both ways: if you truly didn't want the victim to be out of pocket you wouldn't care what the legal standpoint was and you'd pay the charges.

Sell the Xbox and use the money to pay back the person whose card was charged.

Then persuade your son to take up a different hobby which doesn't require anybody's credit card details.

MoonFace_2

As several other people have referenced - your son knew exactly what he was doing.

One thing that may help you understand just how much he knew is to sit down and go through the process of purchasing something on the Xbox store - not only will he have been shown the price several times, and had to confirm he was happy with it, he would have also been asked to choose a payment method, so he's knowingly selected a card in someone elses name.

More than this though, it's already happened before, so pleading ignorance of any part of the process is no excuse for either you or your son.

The victim blaming in this instance is also quite unsavoury. If those people had visited your house and left a wallet on the side, would you take the same stance if your son had taken a credit card from their wallet and used that?

You need to repay the money to those people, possibly by getting a refund on the xbox one you've bought him, possibly by some other method, either way, he needs to feel some sort of sting for this.

I'd be wary of involving microsoft - particularly as it sounds like there is more than one live user in the house - they may just block anyone in the household from receiving services full stop as it's a second offence.

Voyager2002

So many posters have missed the point -- the credit card was used fraudulently, and so it is the card company that loses the money.

For this to happen, it will probably be necessary to make a fraud report. Since the criminal is a child, there will not be any consequences for him.

culpepper

The point is. whether the card holder was foolish or not, your son knew he was stealing and did it anyway.

Just because he is 12,doesn't mean he should not face some consequences.

I think your son needs a wake up call.
It isn't enough for a policeman to tell him he is a naughty boy and wag a finger at him.

If he were my son, he would be shown the XBOX ONE that has been bought for him for Xmas and then he would be taken to the house of the person who's money he has just spent, and made to hand it over, leads and all complete with an apology.

Mummyto4kids

Reading your post it seems as though you do want to punish him, but you also don't want to have to repay the money. I understand because I am a mum of 4, and money is tight around Xmas. Legally no doubt the grandparent whose lost the money can probably only claim it back via the fraud procedure for his credit card. Yes they should have removed the details, but tbh they probably forgot, or didn't realise that the Xbox would retain them.


The other issue here though is the moral issue for me. I couldn't live with this situation, and not pay them the money back, even if I had to ask them to let me pay in instalments. I think its a lesson he needs to learn, not just by being told off by the local bobby, but by having to go without something that's important to him. He needs to lose out financially to understand how this impacts someone else. I have 4 kids ranging between 2 and 16 and there isn't one of them who would get away with this without repaying the whole lot themselves whether that's through pocket money reductions, groundings, jobs round the house or whatever else I had to do to make them understand. Before now my eldest smashed a neighbours window and I made her pay for it by losing her allowance and doing various jobs. We have to lead our kids by example, not by showing them how to circumvent what is morally right.


If your son has done it before, hes done it this time knowingly, and he must have understood that the money was someone elses and not his. I don't think a good example to set him is to simply say that the owner of the card needs to sort it out with the credit card company. That might well be the legal position but what does that teach your son? That its ok to steal money so long as you can prove that legally someone ( be it grandparent or card company) is at fault for letting you steal it? Its a bit like saying you deserve to be burgled if you leave your door unlocked.


As a mother myself I feel really strongly here that there needs to be a real consequence to his action, and the person whose card it is has probably tried to be nice to your family by saying look just repay it and we wont take it further. It probably isn't that they don't want the hassle, but they perhaps feel its nicer to give you an opportunity to return the money and resolve it yourself without getting the police involved. Whatever their reasons, it does seem unfair to me that the blame is being placed at their door with the expectation that they should sort it out.

System

Voyager2002 wrote: »

So many posters have missed the point -- the credit card was used fraudulently, and so it is the card company that loses the money.

For this to happen, it will probably be necessary to make a fraud report. Since the criminal is a child, there will not be any consequences for him.

Yes, legally this is the case.

To avoid another repetition of the scenario the OP needs to not put temptation in front of the boy. Also, if she is not careful it won't be long before the younger child also cottons on and attempts to do the same.