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

Alderbank

jon81uk said:

This is why setting up family groups and parental controls is very important. 

Grandma probably wasn’t aware of the risks but they should never have made the purchase. Setting up a family group means every time a child wants to purchase the parents is asked for authorisation.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201089

That's the US site but the UK one is very similar: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204396

You can control purchases on an Apple device in a few ways:

• If children in your Family Sharing group have their own devices, use Ask to Buy to screen and approve their purchase requests.

• If you let children use your device, you can make a password a requirement for every purchase.

• You can also turn off in-app purchases entirely using Screen Time on your own device or a child's device.

jon81uk - I'm puzzled by the talk about fraud. Are they saying that password protection was on (or they thought it was) but the device has been hacked in some way?

Sandtree

Alderbank said:

jon81uk said:

This is why setting up family groups and parental controls is very important. 

Grandma probably wasn’t aware of the risks but they should never have made the purchase. Setting up a family group means every time a child wants to purchase the parents is asked for authorisation.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201089

That's the US site but the UK one is very similar: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204396

You can control purchases on an Apple device in a few ways:

• If children in your Family Sharing group have their own devices, use Ask to Buy to screen and approve their purchase requests.

• If you let children use your device, you can make a password a requirement for every purchase.

• You can also turn off in-app purchases entirely using Screen Time on your own device or a child's device.

jon81uk - I'm puzzled by the talk about fraud. Are they saying that password protection was on (or they thought it was) but the device has been hacked in some way?

There are two password protection options... each and every time or once every X minutes (somewhere between 5-15 from memory). So its possible for someone to authorise one payment and the person using the device to then make a load of other payments after... though doubt you can spend £1,700 in game in that time.

It also depends how the little one was given access to the phone... if their fingerprint or face has been added under TouchID or FaceID then this can be used to authorise payments without a password. 

pinkshoes

These posts always make me nervous as my 10 year old uses my account, but I know that every time he comes across something that he wants to purchase, he needs my password, so I'm assuming it is to do with a setting that the OP's child hasn't got activated on the account??

Also, I remember reading that those that DID end up getting refunds when money had been spent supposedly without the child knowing, their account then got shut down so they lost all their games.

I would be asking the 9 year old to do a walk through on the game to prove that they were able to spend money with absolutely NO warning that any money would be spent. If this is correct, I would keep pushing for a refund. If there was any sort of warning about clicking a button and the account being charged, then I would make the 9 year old forgo birthday and Christmas presents for the next couple of years to pay back the grandmother, and would consider selling the console to pay the debt. 

Sandtree

pinkshoes said:

I would be asking the 9 year old to do a walk through on the game to prove that they were able to spend money with absolutely NO warning that any money would be spent. If this is correct, I would keep pushing for a refund. 

Apple themselves require action to confirm that you are wanting to buy even if no password is correct - varies by generation of phone but the more recent onces have been by double clicking the side button. If you start making repeat purchases, even if they are 99p each then it will come up with a second messaging asking to confirm you wish to proceed with the purchase after the double click.

There is always a chance that anyone could miss understand that the £9.99 the popup talks about is real world money rather than £9.99 of in game money but I wouldnt imagine that too many games have GBP or use the £ sign as in game currency.. probably more of a risk for countries that use the $ sign. 

Certainly to me its obviously not "in game" as its always in portrait mode whereas games are normally landscape and there is no attempt to make the payment windows match the look and feel of the game but thats me as a tech competent person whos sat through too many meetings on how to reduce friction from customer purchases. 

elsien

I’m still waiting for OP to confirm whether or not PayPal email notifications were received and not seen, or not received. 

Sandtree

elsien said:

I’m still waiting for OP to confirm whether or not PayPal email notifications were received and not seen, or not received. 

Did they say they are using PayPal as the payment method for the Apple App Store?

Even so, you get Apple invoices by email even if you pay with Apple Pay or card directly

elsien

OP says PayPal through a normal bank account. 

Alderbank

Sandtree said:

elsien said:

I’m still waiting for OP to confirm whether or not PayPal email notifications were received and not seen, or not received. 

Did they say they are using PayPal as the payment method for the Apple App Store?

Even so, you get Apple invoices by email even if you pay with Apple Pay or card directly

OP's original post: 

...I think the transactions were done through PayPal from a normal bank account...

born_again

Going to be a tough one to get money back here given its GrandMa's account.

No offence intended, But if parents are on breadline. How does a 9 YO have a I-Phone/I-Pad? Or were they using Grandma's?

I have known families get the money back & then the child gets nothing till they have paid the debt back to prove the point. Apple can also close the account down to protect themselves.

Certainly not fraud as that is when a unknown 3rd party uses account details. Given the child/grandma purchased the apps in the 1st place that is not a route to go down. Fraught with very deep repercussions for all parties.

Ergates

born_again said:
Fraught with very deep repercussions for all parties.

It's almost like the companies deliberately make it very very easy for a child (or adult) to spend stupidly large amounts of money without fully realising what they're doing.

How is it even possible to spent £1700 in the FIFA mobile game without that setting off all kinds of alarms.  I don't think even the president of EA would pretend there was £1700 worth of content in the FIFA mobile game.  That is *clearly* not sensible/healthy behaviour - either some kind of obsession/addiction or a child who doesn't fully understand they're spending real money (and/or doesn't understand the value of real money).

There comes a point where arguments of "personal responsibility" break down.   These stories keep happening again and again and again - so frequently that there is no way this is an accident any more.  The companies who make these games like this are doing it on purpose.  The wailing and gnashing of teeth at every little bit of legislation* that limits their profits is evidence of this.

* See the raging over loot-boxes - which were always really obviously gambling - being classified as gambling.