We haven’t had one of these stories for awhile, so let’s squeeze one more in before the year ends. A father was unpleasantly surprised when he found out his seven-year-old son had run up a £4,000 bill playing Jurassic World on the father’s iPad.
Mohamed Shugaa, 32, of Crawley, discovered his son Faisall had downloaded the iTunes game Jurassic World and spent £3,911 upgrading his dinosaurs.
Man, those must be some freaking awesome dinosaurs! (The game allows players to purchase “Dino Bucks,” which are used to upgrade dinosaurs in order to battle other dinos.)
While Mohamed knew that his son knew the passcode to unlock his iPad, what he wasn’t aware of was that the little scamp had watched him enter his Apple ID information, and had memorized that info, allowing the child to make in-app purchases.
Shugaa, owner of the Sussex Carpet Centre in Crawley, West Sussex, found out about the child’s spending spree when he tried to make a purchase from a supplier and had his credit card denied. When he made a “WTF?” call to his bank, he found out about the 65 transactions made in the game from December 13 through December 18. (Well, at least the kid paced himself a bit!)
“In the whole scenario how can Apple not pick up on how many transactions have been made by my boy? Why wasn’t it flagged up? It must look like there’s a glitch in the system because there’s no way in the world that much could be spent in one day. You’re not buying a gift. It’s a game where you buy coins to upgrade dinosaurs,” Shugaa said.
Shugga was ticked off that Apple never flagged the charges, and it asked him to wait ten days for a refund.
OK, what did we learn today? First, don’t let you kids know the unlock code for your iPad! And, definitely don’t let them see what you enter for your Apple ID login info! Plus, it’s never too early to teach your kids the value of money. Finally, actually pay attention to what your children are doing. Maybe, spend some time with them instead of handing them the damned iPad to keep them quiet?
