Friend's Daughter has spent £450 on Roblox without her knowledge

karljt2013

My friend went to the shop tonight for supplies and was shocked to see her card declined. She immediately went home to check her bank history and found exactly fifty eight transactions of £7.69 for in game currency over three days.

We have been checking the time stamps and 27 purchases were made in a one hour period on the 11th October . She knew nothing of these transactions. She had bought in game currency once in July for her kid's excellent work at school but she didn't know other things could be purchased without the three digit code on the card.

Her rent is due in 4 days and all her money has gone on roblox currency. The reference on the ststement (58 of them) is all microsoft because Roblox was downloaded from Windows 10 store.

Do we have any way of getting this money back? Who do we contact? Halifax, Microsoft, Roblox or all three?

Do Halifax not share any responsibility for allowing 27 x £7.69 purchases within the space of one hour? We are despearte for answers . I don't even know which forum to post this in so I have posted it in two sections for visibility.

molerat

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/04/my-son-spent-150-on-fortnite---how-to-avoid-an-unexpected-bill/
Although the article is specific to Fortnite all the points are relevant to any game.



Comes up time and time again. The main one at fault is your friend for not pass coding / blocking in app purchases and having the card linked to the account. The child should have clearly been warned about purchasing things in these games. That said there may be some scope in getting a goodwill refund from one of the parties as mentioned in the article.

Chino

Your friend should report these transactions to Halifax as unauthorised and request they be charge backed to the merchant because they were made with neither her knowledge nor authorisation.

elsien

Chino wrote: »

Your friend should report these transactions to Halifax as unauthorised and request they be charge backed to the merchant because they were made with neither her knowledge nor authorisation.

Presumably she authorised them when she linked her card to the account.

Edi81

Serves her right.
Far too many of these in the press for people to plead ignorance.

robatwork

Just to clarify, are you saying her kid spent this "currency" legitimately but without her permission, or that something fraudulent or mistaken has gone on with her account?

I know it seems obvious it's the former, but you aren't specific.

Edi81

Plus it does seem strange that she authorised this in July and 3 months later this happens.....

meer53

Edi81 wrote: »

Plus it does seem strange that she authorised this in July and 3 months later this happens.....

Not really, the card details will have been stored from the July purchase and the daughter has only just bought the currency. Common practice.

karljt2013

Chino wrote: »

Your friend should report these transactions to Halifax as unauthorised and request they be charge backed to the merchant because they were made with neither her knowledge nor authorisation.

She rang Halifax last night and they say they won't take any responsibility because it isn't fraud (her daughter did it). We are very unhappy with that response. Especially consideing they allowed twenty seven £7.69 transactions through unchallenged in the space of 51 minutes. If that isn't enough to trigger an anti fraud system I don't know what is. They only stopped paying out when she ran out of money at 6pm last night. We are going to try the resolver tool next.

colsten

karljt2013 wrote: »

She rang Halifax last night and they say they won't take any responsibility because it isn't fraud (her daughter did it). We are very unhappy with that response. Especially consideing they allowed twenty seven £7.69 transactions through unchallenged in the space of 51 minutes. If that isn't enough to trigger an anti fraud system I don't know what is. They only stopped paying out when she ran out of money at 6pm last night. We are going to try the resolver tool next.

People go on rants when they are not allowed to use the money in their accounts. You go on rants when they are allowed to use their money.

The problem was created by your friend's daughter, and the root cause was that your friend had not protected her gambling account. The bank has no responsibility for your friend's failures.

karljt2013

robatwork wrote: »

Just to clarify, are you saying her kid spent this "currency" legitimately but without her permission, or that something fraudulent or mistaken has gone on with her account?

I know it seems obvious it's the former, but you aren't specific.

The purchases were made without knowledge or permission, but the bank card was used in July and must have remained on the account. She assumed you had to type in the three digit code to purchase more.