Small relative accidentally spent over £1700 in apple store purchases using my Grandma's card!

Joshuaclay

My grandma is not technologically proficient and was asked by a young member of the family if they could buy them an app for £1.80, they did so but assumedly didn't then remove their card details from the device. 3 weeks pass and now over £1700 has gone from my grandma's account (probably more but she can't bear to count it all up), I think the transactions were done through PayPal from a normal bank account. We've called Apple up but they say that they can't retrieve any of the money, is there any recourse now? My grandma has been completely cleared out and is now in her overdraft and it's causing her a great deal of distress. 

And I know she should have been more careful with her details but she has no idea in terms of online purchasing and didn't realise the card details would stay on the device.

Aylesbury_Duck

Need more detail to help.  Which app platform? Which app? Who owns the google/apple account?  How old is the small relative?  Dates?

elsien

Are the young relatives parent’s not planning to reimburse grandma, presuming the young relative themselves isn’t  in a position to do so? 

There goes their Christmas money, for starters. 

Joshuaclay

Aylesbury_Duck- Cheers, more info here:
Apple platform, across 2 games or so (apparently it was two that were purchased) FIFA and one other. The Apple account is owned by my Grandma. The small relative is 9 years old. This all happened within the last 3 weeks, apparently disputes can still be handled within 90 days but not made any headway in the last day or so. 

Also elsien, no they're not in any position due to personal circumstances I'm not willing to enter into here but thanks for your sarcasm, much appreciated mate! Bit of a !!!!!! situation everyone's found themselves in and I came here for help not callousness.

elsien

It wasn’t sarcasm. It was a genuine suggestion. Parental responsibility and taking the stress off grandmother while other options are explored. 

Joshuaclay

Thanks and you think we hadn't thought of this innovative suggestion before?

Aylesbury_Duck

What's the age rating on the two games in question?  What do they say about in-app purchases?   I think those details may be pertinent, so you need to find them out.

The angle to pursue with Apple is that the minor is not legally old enough to enter into a paid contract.  The difficulty you will have is that grandma has bought two games using her card on her apple account on her device, and perhaps then allowed a minor to play games rated for older age groups unsupervised.

In the meantime, you may not like elsien's suggestion, but getting grandma out of her overdraft somehow is a priority the child's parent(s) should be dealing with now, because it may take some time to get a refund, and it may only be partially successful if it's successful at all.

elsien

This has cropped up before with iPads.
There’s an older thread where the OP referenced this article and said it helped to get a refund.


https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/mar/11/my-kids-spent-600-on-their-ipads-without-my-knowledge

Were there not any sort of emails or text notifications to anyone about the spending? Purchases via PayPal normally send some sort of notification to the account holder, usually by email. 

Joshuaclay

The apps were brawl stars and Fifa, with age ratings of 9+ and 4+. Oddly the transactions were all around £49.99 and £89.99 which seems an exorbitant payment at any one point (these were happening multiple times a day), I would have hoped that after such high payments just a few times it would re-request payment details but sadly not.
 And yes the child's parent is in no situation to give any money as they're living on the breadline, we're helping all we can by giving money ourselves.

elsien

Did grandmother get email notifications- has she checked? 

Apple may be correct that they can’t get the money back from PayPal, but it doesn’t stop you requesting a goodwill refund. That may be the line you have to follow. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I think @born_again has posted on this topic before mentioning something about the situation being different for children under 11. 

Edit to add:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77027972#Comment_77027972

As you child is 7 then they should be refunding. That is what Apple/Google/X-box do, so I would expect Amazon to do the same.
And to anyone else THAT IS IN THE UK.